Future Perfect - (Anthropology, Creative Practice and Ethnography) by Alexandra D'Onofrio (Hardcover)

About the Book

Future Perfect is a co-creative ethnography combining theatre improvisations, storytelling, collaborative filmmaking and participatory animation in the study of illegalised migration in the Mediterranean. It recognises the centrality of imagination and creativity in the making of lives and stories at the crossing of dehumanising border regimes.

Book Synopsis

The present volume emerges from a practice-based research that focuses on experiences of migration and border crossing during what are perceived as existential 'turning points' by the protagonists themselves. It recognizes the fundamental role that imagination plays in people's perceptions of reality, in their decisions and actions, and finally in the way they narrate their experiences. As a consequence, it makes a stance for ethnographic practice to include more creative and collaborative methodologies in order to explore such intangible and unstructured realms of existence. In particular, this ethnography developed theoretically and methodologically in close collaboration with a group of Egyptian men who crossed the Mediterranean Sea in search of better living opportunities in Italy, by engaging them through a range of the co-creative processes such as theatre improvisations, storytelling practices, collaborative filmmaking and participatory animation.

From the Back Cover

Future Perfect provides a unique co-creative exploration on the imaginative lifeworlds of people illegally crossing the Mediterranean sea. By recognising the crucial role that imagination plays in the lives of people moving across borders, it makes a case for collaborative storytelling as an ethnographic practice capable of setting the context for an existential redefinition of experienced reality through its multiple imagined possibilities.

This volume and its accompanying film, It was tomorrow, are a timely contribution to the public and academic discussion of migration, which has become such a topical theme in the media, creating a highly political and visual 'migrant subject'. Future Perfect is a distinctive example of how collaborative creative and interventionist practices become ethical, political and aesthetic methods for an ethnography that goes beyond the observation and representation of reality as it is, to follow the way people think and remake their worlds conjuring alternatives of life as it could-would-may be or could-would-may have been. In attempting to capture life as lived in its subjunctive form this ethnography also explores new possibilities for an anthropology that is creative and responsive to the ambiguities, ambivalences, silences present in people's stories and that often go unrecognised in public depictions of the phenomenon.

The book renders anthropological questions regarding people's inner and imaginative lifeworlds as mediators of crisis, relevant to a broader audience, through performance and participatory media practices creating connections between research participants, readers and audiences.

About the Author

Alexandra D'Onofrio is a member of the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology and a Lecturer in Social and Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester