Research seminar information
Time: Friday, 29.8.2025, 13:00-14:00 (UTC +3 / Helsinki time)
Place: Room 247 (2nd floor), Unioninkatu 33 (inner courtyard), you can also join in by Zoom, Passcode: 791038
Survival and Witness at Europe's Border: The Afterlives of a Disaster
From states to activists, people and communities insert their politics into memorialisation of deaths of unknown strangers at Europe's borders. Memorializing tells something about those who memorialize. This talk discusses the intersections of different memorials and memorial performances, focusing on a decade of afterlives of the Lampedusa shipwreck in 2013. It shows how public memorializing of migrant deaths at borders in Europe serves two functions. First, memorialization is instrumentalized to make a political point or to create a community. Second, memorializing serves a therapeutic function as it helps people to cope with loss or having witnessed mass death – either in person or through the media. The politics of memorialization are multifaceted and can be transformative. In the afterlives of the Lampedusa disaster, Eritrean diasporic politics intersect with European politics creating new identities as survivors and the families of the victims make border violence visible, real and grievable. In doing so, they question the honesty of European values of equality and democracy. They project the unsustainability of the horrific present and future, and in doing so they become part of Europe.
The seminar is based on Dr Horsti's book of the same title.
About the speaker
Karina Horsti is University Lecturer in Cultural Policy at the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy (2013-) and Docent in Communication Studies, University of Helsinki (2010-). Her research focuses on migration, media, memory politics and culture. She also collaborates with artists and museums, assisting with exhibitions and artwork related to migration and writing essays in catalogues.
She has been Visiting Professor in Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota (2023-2025), Visiting Scholar at the Department of Media, Culture & Communication, New York University (2009, 2011-2012, 2019), at the Media and Communication Studies, Freie University Berlin (2022), Research Unit in Public Cultures, Melbourne University (2017), at the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science (2016).