The Aesthetics of Migration, Relationality, and the Sentimography of Globality

Art and literature have an important role to play in critical thinking, in deploying a creative apparatus that can confront shifting political realities, raise consciousness, and endeavor to foster modes of identification. This goal is all the more essential at a time when a criminalizing, debasing, and often dehumanizing logic dominates discussions pertaining to migration, one that is fueled by the disquieting narcissistic nationalism associated with governments, politicians, and policymakers and that encourages disidentification and a lack of empathy. How do aesthetic projects enable association and connection, improve relationality, and enlist us in a process of conscientization in relation to the contradictions of the world we live in?