Paper Short Abstract:

Entanglements between recent arrivals to Lisboa and the cityscape are explored through a multimodal ethnography, uncovering how sensory-affective-embodied modes are implicated in the process of acclimation and the navigation of frictions and opportunities in a new lifeworld for migrants.

Paper Abstract:

Since the 2011 Troika intervention, Portugal has seen an influx of new residents spurred by a comparatively lax immigration policy, tax incentives and a low cost of living in comparison with the rest of Europe. Waves of new arrivals continue to flow in despite rising costs of living, shifting Portugal’s paradigm from a country of emigration to also an immigration destination. This research project delves into the everyday lives of new arrivals to Lisboa, uncovering the processes of sensory, embodied, and affective acclimation implicated in the development of senses of belonging and the creation of a new livelihood, and the frictions and tensions that newcomers traverse through at a bureaucratic, social, and cultural level. Grounded in a multimodal ethnography, the research follows a group of interlocutors over the course of a year and a half through a series of reflexive exercises to understand how sensory-affective modes, memory and embodiment play into their (re)negotiation of self, processes of becoming, and their mediated positionality in the place around them by delving into their entanglements with the city.

This presentation will reflect on and present a plurality of multimodal materials from the ethnography (including photography and audio), at once showing how this approach uncovers complications and opportunities between “local” and “global”, “us” and “them”, and “belonging” and “estrangement” in the lives of the interlocutors, the oscillations of intermittency and stability in their migratory experiences, and how agency is implicated in everyday engagements in their new place of living.