some thoughts on exile

When people relocate under circumstances for which they have little control they are essentially going into exile. The circumstances might be of an economic nature, conflict driven, or on the wave of trends. The relocated person is often referred to and subsequently labeled as a migrant, and in some cases refugee or asylum seeker: terms that show the way people have relocated. The terms, however, do not highlight the fact that the person is in a state of exile (where exile is a state of being far from a place of origin. Dante Alighieri was forced into exile away from his native Florence to Ravenna.)

When we begin to see that relocated people are foreigners, and understand that they have had to relocate under circumstances where free will has played a minor role, then we might be able to see that the terms migrant, refugee or asylum seeker are not apt since they do not refer to their state of exile. Such terms of reference, often employed in the performance of the vernacular, take away from the status of the person, and work to annul it. In this way, people who are targeted with these modes of reference and labeled such find themselves stripped of the complexity that makes them human. In this, their story, of which relocation is a part, is silenced.

And so, as a person in exile, a person who has relocated voluntarily or involuntarily: How does one counter the force of labeling, arising out of a dominant position, free to use the terms of reference that suit the status quo?

In fact, establishing and maintaining an identity as a human being in a state of exile, and avoiding labels, is a challenge. Many face it, but it's hardly talked about, if not overtly silenced. Such a challenge is even more stark when the person lives a state of exile within the bounds of their own sovereign territory, as does a person of indigenous culture and heritage.

Where awareness of a shared humanity is lacking, focusing on being aware of the subjective position that we take up, respectively as those who label and those that are labeled, and the subsequent identification with it, seems to be the only recourse towards safeguarding human rights and justice.


(c) Silvana Tuccio, 9 November 2016