As I write about the historical expatriate, attempting to assemble a definition of this term and this figure–attempting to distinguish the modernist expat from the immigrant, the traveller, the tourist, the migrant–this week’s topical conversation about the language we use for the current flood of not-so-voluntary travelers seeking refuge in Europe feels urgent and familiar.
Rob McNeil of the Migration Observatory is quoted in this lengthy BBC exposition on the matter as saying “Words matter in the migration debate,” and news sources are examining their decisions to call those on the move migrants or refugees, assessing implications for necessity and voluntarity of these voyages.
These questions that I am trying to answer for the somewhat privileged individual in a historical moment are playing out right now for the less privileged. As I think about voluntarity and reversibility in the academic abstract, these same questions on UN paperwork are anything but theoretical.
I must not forget this as I write.
Nissa Ren Cannon 