Overview

For some decades now, Lampedusa regularly appears in the news in regard to its devastating record of shipwrecks, deaths, and survivors. An ethnographic immersion takes the reader into the twists and turns of contemporary Lampedusan life, revealing a complex and contradictory microcosm. Manifested in the book is a conjunctive thinking that combines different approaches: ethnography, historiography, analysis of literary texts ... This makes it possible to outline an unprecedented cultural history of the island. The book is a study of a cultural and political frontier. IThis 20-square-kilometer territory proves to be a pertinent observatory from which to peer into wide configurations that have shaped the history of large sectors of the Mediterranean and still mold their present.

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9781836954378

Table of Contents

Reviews

Reviews from the original Italian edition: ""The author traces back the island's history from medieval times to our own, along an itinerary that turns out to be full of surprises, from soldiers and crusaders, hermits and corsairs ... intense and absorbing."" - Alex Corlazzoli in Il Fatto Quotidiano ""Lampedusa is back. Once again, as in a distant past, a collective complexity comes together here from below and gives shape to an open island. Once again, as in the century of the Enlightenment, Lampedusa is here to challenge the European conscience."" - Mediterraneo

Reviews from the original Italian edition: “The author traces back the island’s history from medieval times to our own, along an itinerary that turns out to be full of surprises, from soldiers and crusaders, hermits and corsairs … intense and absorbing.” • Alex Corlazzoli in Il Fatto Quotidiano “Lampedusa is back. Once again, as in a distant past, a collective complexity comes together here from below and gives shape to an open island. Once again, as in the century of the Enlightenment, Lampedusa is here to challenge the European conscience.” • Mediterraneo

Author Information

Dionigi Albera is Senior Research Fellow at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). His research interests include migration, domestic organisation, pilgrimage and interfaith mixing. He has co-edited several volumes with a Mediterranean focus such as Sharing Sacred Spaces in the Mediterranean: Christians, Muslims, and Jews at Shrines and Sanctuaries (Indian University Press, 2012), and New Pathways in Pilgrimage Studies (Taylor and Francis, 2016).

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