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77878-01 - Seminar: Ethnographies of Mobility – Exploring Migratory Experiences Across the Globe (3 CP)
| Semester | spring semester 2026 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers | Lisa Marie Borrelli (lisamarie.borrelli@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | The seminar will provide an in-depth introduction to ethnography and autoethnography as methods, after which we will explore multiple perspectives on migration and mobility that lead into our readings of ethnographic material. Migration and mobility are among the most pressing issues of our time, shaping political debates, personal trajectories, and social landscapes across the globe. This seminar examines how ethnography – with its attention to lived experience, embodied practice, and situated storytelling – offers unique insights into migratory processes and border regimes. Through close engagement with classic and contemporary ethnographic works, the seminar will explore how migrants navigate detention, illegality, and bureaucratic structures, as well as how they create forms of resistance, belonging, and self-representation. The readings range from Behrouz Boochani’s prison memoir of Australia’s offshore detention system to analyses of bureaucratic opacity in South Africa, migrant illegality in Sweden, and autoethnographic accounts of women’s migration and trauma. Together, these works raise critical questions about the politics of knowledge production: Who has the right to narrate migration? How do ethnographers account for trauma, violence, and precarity without reproducing them? What alternative methods – such as autoethnography, collaborative writing, or narrative experimentation – can expand the possibilities of representing mobility? By placing diverse ethnographic texts in dialogue, the seminar highlights the multiplicity of migratory experiences and the methodological challenges of researching them. Students will be encouraged to reflect on their own positionality, critically assess the ethics of ethnographic practice, and consider how anthropology can intervene in urgent debates on borders, displacement, and human rights. |
| Learning objectives | By the end of this seminar, students will be able to: - Critically engage with ethnographic studies of migration across different contexts. - Analyze how mobility, illegality, bureaucracy, and detention are represented and contested. - Reflect on the methodological and ethical challenges of researching migration. - Connect personal narratives and autoethnography with broader theoretical debates. - Develop their own ethnographic approaches to studying mobility. |
| Bibliography | Some literature may include: Boochani, Behrouz. 2019. No Friend but the Mountains: The True Story of an Illegally Imprisoned Refugee. Translated by Omid Tofighian. Picador. Campesi, Giuseppe. 2015. ‘Hindering the Deportation Machine: An Ethnography of Power and Resistance in Immigration Detention’. Punishment & Society 17 (4): 427–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474515603804. Fitzgerald, David. 2006. ‘Towards a Theoretical Ethnography of Migration’. Qualitative Sociology 29 (1): 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-005-9005-6. Hoag, Colin Brewster. 2010. ‘The Magic of the Populace: An Ethnography of Illegibility in the South African Immigration Bureaucracy’. Political and Legal Anthropology Review 33 (1): 6–25. Khosravi, Shahram. 2010. ‘An Ethnography of Migrant ’Illegality’ in Sweden: Included yet Excepted?’ Journal of International Political Theory 6 (1): 95–116. Samaddar, Sneha. 2023. ‘An Autoethnography on Women’s Migration and Trauma’. Journal of Autoethnography 4 (2): 287–91. https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2023.4.2.287. The literature will take into account gender diversity, global perspectives and include works by senior and junior scholars, practitioners and laypeople. |
| Comments | Introduction, Monday 18.5.2026, 12.15–14.00: Join the meeting now -- Microsoft Teams Meeting ID: 333 597 838 194 30 Passcode: Yv9zC7FP |
| Admission requirements | Grundstudium abgeschlossen. Die Teilnehmenden werden nach Fachrichtung, Studiengang und in der Reihenfolge ihrer Anmeldung auf die Liste gesetzt. Wer im Rahmen von Auslandaufenthalten und von Austauschprogrammen in Basel studiert wird unabhängig vom Listenplatz immer aufgenommen. Wer in der ersten Sitzung unentschuldigt fehlt, kann die Lehrveranstaltung nicht besuchen. Pro Lehrveranstaltung mit zwei Semesterwochenstunden sind maximal zwei entschuldigte Absenzen möglich. Siehe Merkblatt zum Umgang mit Absenzen und Sonderregelungen: https://kulturwissenschaft.philhist.unibas.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/kulturwissenschaft/Dokumente/Studium/Merkblaetter_allgemein/B_absenzen-sonderregelungen_24-01.pdf. |
| Course application | Direkte Anmeldung bei lisamarie.borrelli@unibas.ch; Belegen über services.unibas.ch |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Course auditors welcome |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| unregelmässig | See individual dates | ||
Dates
| Date | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|
| Monday 18.05.2026 | 12.15-14.00 | - Online Präsenz -, Join the meeting now Meeting ID: 333 597 838 194 30 Passcode: Yv9zC7FP |
| Monday 01.06.2026 | 09.00-16.15 | Alte Universität, Seminarraum 207 |
| Monday 08.06.2026 | 09.00-16.15 | Alte Universität, Seminarraum 207 |
| Friday 12.06.2026 | 09.00-16.15 | Alte Universität, Seminarraum 207 |
| Modules |
Modul: Research Lab Kulturanthropologie (Master's degree subject: Cultural Anthropology) Modul: Theorien und Methodologien der Kulturanthropologie (Master's degree subject: Cultural Anthropology) Modul: Theory and General Anthropology (Master's degree subject: Anthropology) Module: Fields: Knowledge Production and Transfer (Master's degree program: African Studies) Module: Fields: Public Health and Social Life (Master's degree program: African Studies) Module: Migration, Mobility and Transnationalism (Master's degree program: Changing Societies: Migration – Conflicts – Resources) Module: The Urban across Disciplines (Master's degree program: Critical Urbanisms) Specialization Module Global Europe: Work, Migration and Society (Master's Studies: European Global Studies) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment details | - Regular and active participation in the sessions, including preparatory reading - Completion of all tasks within the agreed timeframe This includes a longer presentation and the creation of a poster/short written text. |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Kulturwissenschaft und Europäische Ethnologie |