track lighting heads
tracking europe mobility diaspora and the politics of location
tracking europe is a bold interdisciplinary critique of claims regarding the free movement of goods people services and capital throughout europe . ginette verstraete interrogates european discourses on unlimited movement for everyone and a utopian unity in diversity in light of contemporary social practices cultural theories historical texts media representations and critical art projects . arguing against the persistent myth of borderless travel verstraete shows the discourses on europe to be caught in an irresolvable contradiction on a conceptual level and in deeply unsettling asymmetries on a performative level . she asks why the age old notion of europe as a borderless space of mobility goes hand in hand with the at times violent containment and displacement of people . p in demystifying the old and new europe across a multiplicity of texts images media and cultural practices in various times and locations verstraete lays bare a territorial persistence in the european imaginary one which has been differently tied up with the politics of inclusion and exclusion . tracking europe moves from policy papers cultural tourism and migration to philosophies of cosmopolitanism nineteenth century travel guides electronic surveillance at the border virtual pilgrimages to spain and artistic interventions in the balkan region . it is a sustained attempt to situate current developments in europe within a complex matrix of tourism migration and border control as well as history poststructuralist theory and critical media and art projects .