Listening to lingering movement and shifting perspectives to (forced) (im)mobility regimes

The discussion developed in this paper foregrounds the intersections of music’s mobilities and humans’ (forced) (im)mobilities, showing how they complement each other in discursive place-making and facilitating the articulation of competing (non)belongings. It draws on ethnographic material collected through fieldwork research among refugees seeking asylum in Greece and sheltering in reception centres. It explores narratives of the violently sculpted by war and unrest home-countries, as well as accounts of (forced) migration, as they are exemplified by specific pieces of popular music, indicated and discussed by my interlocutors.

Listening emerges as an activity that connects the listener with the broader settings within and across which their (im)mobility trajectories and encounters occur. In its capacity to evoke memories and narratives, listening transcends the temporal and spatial specificities of the actual moment that it occurs, fostering imaginary re-visits to places that host previous experiences or currently unfolding events in the absence of the listener.

Finally, listening with the (displaced) interlocutors (cf Western 2020) facilitates encounters with them, exposing the researcher (and the reader) to the affectivity of the sonic dimensions of their lived experiences, and challenging mainstream perceptions of refugeehood and migration. Key-element to these processes is music’s mobilities (technologically mediated or not) and humans’ (im)mobilities, resulting in a nexus that enhances the possibilities for new encounters and as such the potentialities entailed in them.