Full Description
Lampedusa evokes the crossings made by migrants and refugees and its name is associated with the sad sequence of shipwrecks and deaths in the central Mediterranean. For several centuries, Lampedusa has been an uninhabited land at the frontier of two conflicting worlds: between Africa and Europe and between Christianity and Islam. It was a stopover for sailors and a zone of religious truce. This book follows an ethnographic account of the social life on this small island, exploring its history articulated with the present where thousands of migrants and tourists cohabit both well and poorly in a few square miles.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction: The World-Island
Chapter 1. A Desert Island
Chapter 2. In Ariosto's Archipelago
Chapter 3. The Virgin and the Marabout
Chapter 4. The Enchantment of Lampedusa
Chapter 5. The Travels of the Virgin
Chapter 6. The Temple of Perfect Tolerance
Chapter 7. Hermits, Physiocrats and Adventurers
Chapter 8. The Myth Goes Dormant
Conclusion: The Theatre of the Frontier
References
