|
[…] Los nadies: los hijos de nadie, los dueños de nada. |
[…] The nobodies: nobody’s children, owners of nothing. |
Fragment of “Los Nadies” (The Nobodies), a poem by Eduardo Galeano. Galeano, E. (1990).
El libro de los abrazos: Imágenes y Palabras. Siglo XXI.
No-bodies?
My journey navigating the understanding of border regimes by people on the move within border regimes once became entangled with Miranda´s journey. Our encounters usually took place on a bench in the house where she gathered with her community to knit and craft different items. She was a mother of three whose partner was assassinated, so she was forced to leave her farm and move to the closest city to escape war violence. While sharing her experience of being registered by the Colombian State as an Internally Displaced Person (IDP), she crafted a matapesares (sorrow killer). This tiny doll, she explained, must be placed under your pillow at night. Its magic powers should take away the sorrow of losing something treasured, a spell also castable for those who acquire her handicrafts.
Fig. 1: Matapesares crafted by Miranda.
Miranda´s story was compelling in many ways, and sorrow was indeed a part of it. But the matapesares, this little object crafted with repurposed fabrics, cotton, needles, and thread was also telling another story; one that did not deny or undermine Miranda’s sorrow or her struggles with techno-bureaucratic systems but fell beyond the category of IDP and the reduced scope of what migration control technologies make visible.
In his poem Los Nadies (1989), Eduardo Galeano poignantly illustrates how marginalized individuals—those who are ignored, neglected, and displaced—are rendered into nobodies (ninguneados) while enduring various forms of discrimination and dispossession. Those who suffer from multiple forms of oppression, including those exacerbated by the assemblage of expert knowledge (Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017) and the enforcement of border regimes (van Houtum, 2021; M’Charek, 2023), become invisible—or, more closely to Galeano´s words, transformed into no-bodies. Long before ongoing discussions in Euro(north) American STS about borders making invisible different actors, Galeano’s poem skillfully portrays how the knowledge embodied by the ninguneados is systematically marginalized, dismissed, and widely regarded as illegitimate.
Research in the intersections between Science and Technology Studies (STS) and critical border/migration studies has crafted generative examinations of the material politics of borders. 1 And yet, it is still worth asking how we can become more attentive to what is overlooked, unseen, and neglected by the knowledge enacted by borders, but also by our very own embrace (as researchers) of the worlds that come with (María Puig de la Bellacasa, 2012) the dyad border-migration. In this spirit, I put forward an invitation to reshift our attention to what those bodies, enacted as no-bodies, achieve despite the invisibility placed upon them by border regimes. I hereby explore a form of knowledge and/or artisanship that has consistently served as a background protagonist in my study of the technobureaucracy of border control: handcrafting.
Particularly in border/migration studies, handcrafting is often understood as the outcome of improvisation, a result of limited alternatives, or a low-skilled practice. It is frequently associated with the production of memory (Noble 2018) and identity (Conard & Horton 2023) within migrant diasporas across borders (Babacan & Babacan 2013). What follows is, therefore, an attempt to pay attention to handcrafting otherwise, as a form of expertise (Mudde 2022), as a legitimate art/isanship (Mora-Gámez, Sánchez-Aldana, & Papadopolous 2023; Tsaknaki, Reime, Cohn, & Pérez-Bustos 2024), and, more broadly, as a means of gaining a deeper understanding of the knowledge materialised by those bodies, rendered into no-bodies, beyond the confines of border regimes.
Tantear
During my time in Lesvos (May-August 2023), I was deeply inspired by Bahareh’s work. She is an artist who escaped her own country to reunite with her mother in Germany. She was hesitant about her current refugee status application, but she wanted to be prepared if it was approved. To do so, she was working on a sculpture project to help fund her Greek passport and future travel to Germany. Our meetings were held at a crafts workshop offered by a local activist and experienced crafter.
Despite my enthusiasm, it took me several encounters to understand Bahareh’s sculpture. My difficulty in envisioning the outcome of the project was possibly due to the materials she was using like pieces of wood donated by a local carpenter, egg carton trays brought by a shop manager (who was a refugee back in 2015), polystyrene foam (obtained by the coordinator of the workshop), water, and glue. Aside from people who donated materials, the team of recruits included a friend of Bahareh’s from the refugee camp who served as our interpreter at times, as well as me, who assisted Bahareh in lugging a few items here and there and photographing the crafting process.
Video 1: Bahareh’s sculpture project.
While nailing wood, mixing cartons with water, adding glue, incorporating foam, sculpting, and painting, Bahareh’s sculpture became the centre of our attention in the workshop. We found ourselves committed to assisting Bahareh in her crafting. The list of recruits even included an absent member: another person on the move passing by the island who applied for refugee status back in 2019. She had taught the workshop coordinator how to manufacture glue out of all-purpose flour. This provided a cheaper alternative for mixing it with the paper and sticking it to the base of the sculpture. However, the effectiveness of the mix would only become discernible when Bahareh could touch the outcome later during a trial test.
Even though I am not an artist or artisan, knowing through the hands is not an alien practice to me. My earliest recollection of knowing through my hands takes me back to the times I spent cooking with my mother around the age of nine. In the absence of scales or other measuring devices, she often asked me to measure the exact amount of rice or beans we would need for lunch using my hands. A practice named Tantear in different versions of Latin American Spanish. It also signifies a cautious approach in unfamiliar situations, at least until clarity is achieved. For instance, when making new friends or determining whether a coworker was a friend or not, my mother would often advise, –Tantear primero antes de dar confianza– (Tantear before trusting).
In the uncertainty that comes from shifting our attention to handicrafts and their importance in formulating other understandings of the journeys of people on the move, I have found home and refuge in the work of Maria Lugones. I call her work home partially because of the importance of Latin American Spanish in articulating her feminist critique against (neo)colonial and extractivist Euroamerican forms of knowledge. But I also call Lugones’ work home because her reflections continuously reshape the questions I have been engaging with as a Colombian national- a person on the move seen by the state as a Third Country National- who has lived in a few European countries. In her seminal work Pilgrimages, Lugones (2003) describes Tantear as a tactile searching together in the dark—a productive form of unknowing that enables individuals to make sense of themselves, each other, and their praxis beyond predetermined interpretations or fixed visions of the future. By turning to one another and reaching into the darkness of unknowing, agentive possibilities emerge through the formation of alliances and coalitions (see also Beckett, 2020). It is this notion of Tantear and the worlds that come with it that condenses many of my experiences while participating in multiple artisan projects led by people on the move.
Fig. 2: Bahareh´s hands during her sculpture project.
In the case of Bahareh, she was figuring out the quality of the materials and trying to decide the best course of action given their availability. Despite her reservations about incorporating a different type of glue, one made with all-purpose flour, she prepared it together with the workshop coordinator, and after some consistency tests, Bahareh realized with her hands that it could be used as a replacement in the recipe of her usual technique. Similarly, shaping the materials and sticking them on the base was a sensorial discovery process. Although Bahareh had some notion of the outcome, she revealed to me at some point that the actual shape of the sculpture would also be determined by the type of materials that were used, the weather during the drying-out period, the mid-term consistency of the new glue, which was unknown to her, among others.
More in line with Lugones’ take on the term Tantear, Bahareh was trying to understand the extent of our commitment to carry out and support her project. While crafting a sculpture with her hands, Bahareh was feeling and trying the materials in their best possible combinations. At the same time, our engagement, interest, and participation became apparent to her. Sorting out the right textures and compositions for her piece was also a moment for her to Tantear our commitment so she could act accordingly. And she did it, despite the uncertainty or the darkness of the moment of her journey and the unknown outcome of her refugee status application, while we were making sense of each other and turning to each other, forming alliances.
Tantear is a way to understand what handcrafting does in the lives of people on the move and the alliances built around handicrafts. But at the same time, Tantear constitutes an inspirational route to revise our ways of knowing and how we can abandon the dyad border-migration by using our hands and differently (in)visibilised bodies.
Handcrafting digital experiments
I still wonder about the final destinations of the various handicrafts I have come across, what other actors do with them, and how they participate (or not) in alliances and coalitions that are not restricted by borders. I have become curious about the trajectories and agencies of handicrafts once they leave the hands of their makers. In sync with the notion of Tantear as a tactile searching in the unknown, I have shared this curiosity and questions with artisans who have also become interlocutors. Their reactions and engagement have made it easy for me to avoid ‘retreating [myself] into the secure position of an enlightened outsider who knows better’ (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2009). In, at least temporarily, abandoning questions termed by the dyad borders-migration, we have encountered each other in the question: how to Tantear what [their] handicrafts do in the lives of others? And how can digital methods contribute to this purpose? Our shared interest in these questions has inspired us to craft experiments that blur the boundaries of our projects (Downey & Zuiderent-Jerak 2016).
We are currently carrying out digital experiments on specific handicrafts made by artisans, also people on the move, in Bogotá (Colombia) and Lesvos (Greece). Instead of reproducing the material politics of the digitalisation of borders (like facilitating tracking or surveilling people on the move), our experiments aim at crafting and fostering ways of following stories and connecting in the digital realm with those actors whose bodies are knitted with handicrafts once they leave the hands of their makers. These interventions consist of attaching a printed QR code to those handicrafts, a process that might seem a simple procedure, but multiple aspects came into consideration. For the first trial, for instance, we chose a pencil bag crafted by Awa with upcycled plastic from rubber rings recovered from one beach on the North coast of Lesvos. Its size was convenient for the intervention. Awa, who had recently settled in Greece, had been collecting the materials for this kind of bag for some time, and one of her main reasons for doing it was to upcycle disposed materials that were valueless to anyone else. – It might not be too much, but it is a small way to take care of the beach and the island – she explained. Even the threads to sew the materials were leftovers of unsold colours from local shops.
My initial idea was to print the QR on regular paper and plasticize it to subsequently attach it to the craft in a secure and durable way. But during my encounters with Awa, I realised that such intervention, producing more unnecessary plastic, was disruptive of the whole material politics pursued by her handcrafting.
Fig. 3: Cutting digital interventions.
In the exploration of other possible materials with the local printshop staff, we found a PVC–free recyclable paper that worked better for Awa and me. Nonetheless, attaching this paper QR to the bag posed a different material challenge. The first idea was to use white transparent thread, which would also produce more plastic, should the user of the handicraft decide to dispose of the QR code. Aware of the challenge of avoiding wasting more plastic, I found myself digging into my only crafting repertoire, which I also happened to learn from my mother years ago: sewing. Using several organic thread layers to secure the QR code to the handicrafts worked well, but I had to be extra careful not to pierce the plastic, as Awa made sure to make her handicraft waterproof.
Fig. 4: Sewing digital interventions.
There I was/we were, trying to Tantear materials and drawing on my scarce crafting repertoire (sewing) to create the material instances for a QR digital intervention to be possible. Digitizing handicrafts inevitably involves, at some point, handcrafting the digital in a caring way, so that the materiality of the craft is not so drastically interfered with by this arbitrary intervention.
Scanning this QR with any device would allow its user to reach an interface to access more information about the handicraft and its crafting process. The digital interaction was curated together with artisans in a way that users got to know more about the crafters and the handicrafts they would be holding in their hands, while also having the possibility of voluntarily and anonymously sharing their thoughts, impressions, and anecdotes about them. It also allows us to gather information about the expected destination of the handicrafts and how they are used and circulated. These digital interactions are meant to exchange everyday stories around handicrafts and to create connections between those who craft them and those who subsequently acquire, circulate, and use them. At the same time, these interactions constitute an entry point for us to Tantear what handcrafting does in the lives of their crafters and the alliances built around handicrafts, even after leaving the hands of their makers.
We (three crafters and I) are currently exploring the effects, possibilities, and limitations of these QR interventions. I now invite you to become part of a speculative exercise in which you, the reader of this piece, can imagine yourself as part(icipant) of these handcrafted digital experiments.
Tantear with digital interventions
(Imagine) You are now walking through the city centre of Bogotá. You cross the Plaza de Bolivar on the Carrera Séptima, a major thoroughfare that has been converted into a pedestrian walkway. It features various crafters showcasing their work on blankets displayed on the street. An exhibition displaying various paper crafts draws your attention to all the crafts. When examined closely, the colourful material with numbers and letters reveals the source of the materials used in these crafts: banknotes.
Fig. 5: The sign reads “Please do not touch these handicrafts. You see with your hands. You touch with your eyes.”
You approach the stand on the street. You touch the crafts and get a sense of their texture, colour, and even smell, which is the usual one for money. In the meantime, Orlando is making a wallet, and you become interested in his work. You envision it in your living room or perhaps your office. Or as a souvenir of your trip to South America. When you ask Orlando how he came up with this idea, he explains that he took out all his money from a bank in Caracas, Venezuela, before crossing the border. The hyperinflation of Venezuelan currency (Bolivares) dropped dramatically while crossing the border in 2018. As a result, the value of the colourful paper used as material for handicrafts surpassed the monetary value of the Bolivares. Amid their desperation, Orlando and his wife decided to repurpose all the paper, relying on their handcrafting skills as primary school teachers. Meanwhile, other tourists pay for his crafts in Colombian pesos and even in US dollars.
Fig. 6: Bolivares-paper wallet crafted by Rolando
You decide to acquire one of these wallets. A QR code with the words is attached to the packaging. “Would you like to learn more about this craft?” “Please scan me!” (in both English and Spanish). (As part of the imaginary exercise, please scan the QR code below, decide whether you want to participate in the suggested interaction, and then return to this text.)
Fig. 7: QR code attached to Orlando´s handicrafts.
Welcome back!
After engaging with the above QR code it may be easier to imagine hundreds of tactile, textual, and visual interactions around the handicrafts I have told you about. It is easier now for us to envision differently (in)visibilised bodies, those mentioned by Galeano’s poem at the beginning of this piece, grabbing and touching various handicrafts displayed in Bogotá, Santa Marta, Lesvos, Athens, and other possible cities in future stages of these interventions. It is also easier to visualise hundreds of bodies carrying handicrafts to various parts of the world, scanning the attached codes with mobile phones or tablets, touching screens, zooming in and out of images, typing, watching/listening to videos, taking pictures, and possibly uploading them. It is almost possible to grasp some of the stories and anecdotes that can be obtained through the online forms and interfaces in spaces that are not bound by borders, that seek to overcome precisely how people on the move are made into no-bodies (ninguneados), or in which the dyad border/migration is not the most prominent part of the story.
When someone acquires a handicraft from collaborators currently located in Bogotá (COL) and Athens (GR), the attached QR code allows them to interact with a platform with different prompts of voluntary resolution. Scanning the QR code provides us with live information about the city in which it was scanned without revealing personal information.
Fig. 8: QR scan city/country position.
At the same time, the prompts include requests to share a short story about the handicraft, the reasons for acquiring it, its destination, and the possibility to anonymously share a picture showing where the handicraft is placed. If the users decide to fill out the form and submit their answers, we obtain a summary of the submission.
Fig. 9: Example of submitted form through the interaction with the QR code.
Touching reflections
We are fully aware of the reductive display of these preliminary trials and the limitations of such a digital intervention. Yet, we are initially using this series of generative experiments to imagine more and different ways to create tactile-visual engagements that allow us to understand in more detail the social life of handicrafts, and how their users engage with the stories of crafters. In line with a feminist decolonial understanding of Tantear, our digital interventions are not only a form of digital mapping, tracing the trajectories of handcrafted objects. The digital interventions also foster connections and ensure support along unruly and difficult migration routes. In that frame, the QR code becomes a digital way of expanding such connections beyond personal, face-to-face interactions. These digital interventions create a storytelling interface where the stories of the crafters meet the stories of those who acquire, circulate, and use their handicrafts.
We envision future versions of this preliminary platform as a multidirectional interaction tool between crafters and users that articulates different stories of the journeys of people on the move. As part of the outcomes of this digital intervention, we do not expect to exhaust the answers to the questions: how to Tantear what [their] handicrafts do in the lives of others? And how can digital methods contribute to this purpose? Instead, we hope to open speculative routes and creative spaces to hand-craft more digital interactions that allow us to experience the texture of those relations and forms of knowledge rendered invisible by border regimes; forms of knowledge fully embodied by those enacted as no-bodies by the same border regimes.
Galeano’s poem, used at the beginning of this piece, skillfully portrays how the culture, art, and knowledge embodied by the ninguneados, those made into bo-bodies, are systematically disregarded and displaced. There is precisely one important outcome coming from the invitation I have delivered to pay attention to handcrafting by Tantear using digital interventions. This outcome might be more evident for those of you who engaged in the imaginary exercise presented in this piece: you and I have been reading/writing about the journeys of people on the move in terms of Tantear, handcrafting, experiments, alliances and coalitions. We have imagined those journeys in new ways, informed by material practices and epistemic choices that welcome our senses, foster curiosity, and allow for various ways of caring through digital engagements. It is thus possible to embrace other ways to engage with ‘migration’ while abandoning common narratives such as ´borders´ or even ‘crisis’. This is already our shared outcome as participants in this piece, an outcome that mimics the outcomes of the digital interactions we are gathering.
Besides critically examining the material politics of technologies that make people on the move into no-bodies, a critical turn in our research should also engage with other possible forms of knowing embodied by people on the move; those made into no-bodies, in Galeano’s words, by border technologies. Many of these material-knowing practices do not always revolve around border crossing, repurposing digital technologies, or resisting multiple forms of oppression. Tantear beyond borders, for instance, also requires collaborating with those same bodies and coalescing ourselves into projects that reify their embodied knowledge/art. The stories and interventions presented in this piece offer one possible way to do so while also crafting other alliances and coalitions in which we(you) can participate. This is critical at a time when people in situations like Miranda’s, Awa’s, Bahareh’s, and Orlando’s must overcome increasingly restrictive containment imposed by borders, making their lives almost unbearable and their situations even more precarious. We need new forms to sense, feel and Tantear what people on the move accomplish beyond our analytical categories.
1. This same research has questioned pre-established categories like ‘border’ (Djistelbloem 2021), ‘migrant,’ or ‘refugee’ (Pelizza 2020, 2021; Scheel & Tazioli 2022). In a related vein, this kind of research has also problematized the discriminatory discourses about migration and criminalization (Wienroth & Nina Amelung, 2024; Nina Amelung, 2021), and the configuration of visual racializing narratives (Plájás, M’charek & van Baar, 2019) in contexts of migration control. Drawing also on the toolkit of STS, other research delves into the role that media and communication technologies have historically played in the configuration of social movements and exchanges of information and resources (Alencar 2018). Relatedly, Digital Migration Studies has researched the use of digital technologies by people on the move to counter border regimes and configure solidarist networks and diasporas. (Leurs & Ponzanesi 2024).↩
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