Ti ricordo questo uomo? :

A creative and critical investigation into crossing cultures, countries, and identities

Abstract

A significant proportion of the world’s population lives outside its place of origin; often displaced by war and desperation. What these people have in common are human needs and desires. This research seeks to address, through the creative practice of writing, what happens to the identities of individuals from two different cultures and countries when they come together to live in a third culture, where they are neither native-born nor naturalized. Against the background of the Second World War, the story of first generation immigrants to the UK is told through the lens of a partially assimilated second-generation immigrant of dual heritage.

The hybridity of the researcher’s own cultural position, being both outside and inside the subjects’ experiences, produces a double dialectic that works towards criticality and creativity. The form of the work is a hybrid post-memoir, incorporating fragments of known facts and historiography. Using double dialectics, academically researched material informs and contextualises the stories of a forced migrant (a political refugee) from Poland and an economic migrant from Italy.

The research reveals how and why polarised positions may come about and the inherent dangers of ideological binaries. Its creative outcome enables readers to engage deeply with issues around sense of place, of self and of loss, as subjects adjust to the transition from rural obscurity to urban obscurity.

In generally understanding not only experiences but how people have responded to them, a deeper engagement will be reached with what it means to be both outside and inside a culture.

The work addresses: ethical issues in connection with biography; synergies between images, history, memory, and memoir, including forgetting.

Date of Award	15 Aug 2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Winchester
Supervisor	Andrew Melrose (Supervisor), Inga Bryden (Supervisor) & Ruth Gilbert (Supervisor)