ABSTRACT
In this chapter I analyse the phenomenon of migration to Europe, “the deadliest destination for migrants”. I look at the paradoxes of the progressively stricter migration policies of the European Union and consider them as indirect translation policies. Despite restrictive regulations and border controls, the migratory phenomenon goes on with certain autonomy, and migrants practicing unexpected translational coexistence and negotiation.
In the second part of the chapter I present and discuss different realities of migration to Europe as different examples of forms of translation, in space and time, going beyond the considerations of migration literature as translation. I analyse in particular the phenomenon of migration from Albania to Italy at the beginning of the 1990s and how two photographs of the migrants fleeing on the ship Vlora illustrates peculiar aspects of translation-migration in time, as well as particular dimensions of translational border-crossings. An illustrated guide to migrants to Europe represents another example – this time of how it is possible to create a space in which the migrant can shape and configure her own migration, through translational processes of encounter and negotiation. Other examples look at how memorialization, identification, and transcultural constructions are translational expressions of the migrant’s condition.
