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Dr. Rémi Tchokothe presented a video on his paper “‘Balladur Visa’ or ‘Visa of Death’? Questioning ‘Migration’ to Europe via the Comoros Archipelago” on the online platform LATEST THINKING making him the first scholar from the University of Bayreuth to do so.

In July 2019, the Cluster’s Principal Investigator and member of the research section “Arts & Aesthetics” Dr. Rémi Tchokothe was featured as the first scholar from the University of Bayreuth on the online video platform “LATEST THINKING” – an independent video journal providing summaries of research findings covering a wide range of academic fields. Dr. Tchokothe recalls: “Being featured on the platform as the first scholar from the University of Bayreuth was an experiment, but a challenging and rewarding one.”

“How Can Literary Works Help Us to Understand the Politics of Migration?”

The video “How Can Literary Works Help Us to Understand the Politics of Migration?” presented on LATEST THINKING is based on Rémi Tchokothe’s paper “‘Balladur Visa’ or ‘Visa of Death’? Questioning ‘Migration’ to Europe via the Comoros Archipelago” (Journal of Identity & Migration Studies. 2018. 60-80). It examines the question of ‘illegal’ migration to the EU while still on African soil. Specifically, Rémi Tchokothe takes a closer look at the island of Mayotte, which is part of the Comoros archipelago in the Indian Ocean. By meticulously analyzing writings by authors such as Nassur Attoumani and Soeuf Elbadawi he investigates the problem on a literary basis. While Mayotte is part of France and the EU, other islands of the archipelago like Grande Comore and Anjouan are not. Using critical geography, close reading and field observation, Tchokothe concludes that according to the writers’ historically established patterns of internal movement between the islands, this form of migration cannot constitute an ‘illegal action’. For the video please go to: https://lt.org/publication/how-can-literary-works-help-us-understand-politics-migration

About LATEST THINKING

LATEST THINKING is an independent open access video journal providing summaries of research findings covering all academic fields from anthropology to physics, from biology to philosophy. The original videos are abstracts of peer-reviewed academic publications, brought to the interested public by the authors in person and impressively visualizing the scholar's individual flow of ideas. The project’s goal is to increase the impact of scholarly findings and promote transparency for the sake of progress and innovation in all areas of society. (sg)