Paper short abstract:

Starting from the narrative discourse that unfolds through the juncture of the refugee crisis, we attempt to perceive latent analogies and dominant symbolisms corresponding to initiation narratives and ritual patterns, in real places, times, itineraries and life histories.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is triggered by the current geopolitical juncture of hundreds of thousands of refugees moving through places which have merged cultures for millennia but suddenly turn into "non places", to quote Marc Augé's term; into transitory, de-symbolized places for admission and transfer to final destinations.

We take this opportunity to investigate the (a-symbolic) traits of these homeless stopovers and the processes of temporary place appropriation through symbolic investments. Moreover, these mass population shifts interest us as life histories, as liminal experiences between life and death, but also as mental representations guiding each of these thousands of routes separately.

A major issue that arises concerns the extent of interaction between individual perceptions and collective representations in the midst of two worlds dictating consecutive dualisms, subject to controversy for both parties. Minor actors, passages from one world to another, life-threatening risks, non-places traversed — all these invest the current itineraries with strong liminality patterns, but rarely lead to a happy end. Starting from this observation and in terms of narrative discourse, we investigate potential correspondences between specific individual passages and narrative maps resulting from stereotypical narrative patterns of universal scope, such as fairy tales.

Our material is drawn from participant observation data, the narrative discourse of the refugees themselves along with dominant accounts at the reception places.