24 January | 15:00 | Seminar Room, CEIS20 + Online
Alain Musset will be present at the CEIS20 Seminar Room for the Axes of Interdisciplinary Knowledge – Keynote Series of the Doctorate in Contemporary Studies (DEC), to give a lecture on “Migrar, transitar ou habitar? O corpo, o tempo e a prova nos territórios da espera” (Migrate, transit or inhabit? The body, time and evidence in the territories of waiting).
“The phenomena of mobility and displacement are becoming key features of our contemporary societies, so much so that in 2006 Sheller and Urry idealised the concept of the mobility turn. What interests me, however, is not movement, but what happens when movement is interrupted. I want to analyse the moments of pause, the more or less long moments of waiting that shape a part of our identity without us being aware of it, because we think that it is time wasted. This issue will be analysed through the bodies of migrants, considering that migration, identified as a translation (between two or more places) and as a transition (between two or more social statuses, states of mind, personalities and identities...) is not only a physical and moral process, but also an ordeal that gives meaning to the individual and the group that surrounds him.”
Admission is free. The session will be streamed online.
Alain Musset is a geographer, former student at the École Normale Supérieure de Paris and Professor at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. He was a member of the Scientific Board of the Latin American Department of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and of the Scientific Board of the Institute of the Americas, and an honorary member of the Institut Universitaire de France. His research focuses on Latin American cities and urban societies from historical, critical and social perspectives: ¿Geohistoria o geoficción? Ciudades vulnerables y justicia espacial (2009); Ciudades nómadas del Nuevo Mundo (2011). A science fiction enthusiast, he is also interested in the imagery of the city and visions of the future of our planet: Station Métropolis-Direction Coruscant. Ville, science-fiction et sciences sociales (2019); El síndrome Babilonia. Geoficciones del fin del mundo (2022). Much of his work focuses on the perception and representation of territories, the integration of the body into space and the changes in identity that this relationship implies for individuals and social groups (Waiting Territories in the Americas. Life in the Intervals of Migration and Urban Transit, 2016).