Experiences of Migration

In the context of heated political and societal debates about migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, this book asks what singular people on migratory trajectories are experiencing and what their motives and hopes for travelling are. The answers to this question will be found in literary fiction, the book’s main thesis being that it is in fiction, in the creative invention of characters in time and space, that we can find in-depth knowledge on migratory experiences. Although in most migration studies, literature is left out, because it is considered the opposite of academic reasoning, this project starts in literary fiction and relates the imaginary work to concepts and topics discussed in migration studies: hospitality (asylum procedures in a city), courage (female migrants), hope (re/settlement), home country (return migration). In the interconnection of literary fiction and interdisciplinary research, ‘sensate knowledge’ is built as the interconnection of senses and intellectual thinking.