A few years ago, after seven years of investigations in refugee camps mainly in Africa, I could not imagine a better way to give a generic meaning and horizon to these ethnographic situations than by designing the dystopya of a world organization, fictitious certainly but nevertheless only composed of real facts. This fiction was made of an official and visible world, and another one remaining invisible, although its existence would not be totally ignored. Behind very high walls, barriers and across long stretches of deserts and seas, forests and camps, some charitable organizations would be responsible for keeping these remnants alive, alarming permanently about their distress… Sometimes people come into the “world” for short stays. They enter and exit through narrow corridors, filtered by cameras, finger scanners, weapons and virus detectors. Those who succeed to go throw spend the day working in the works of building, maintaining and cleaning the cities of the “world” and their h...
Designing the undesirable: politics and imagination
Editor's notes
Ce texte est celui de la communication (« keynote speech ») présentée lors de la session d’ouverture de la Conference on Humanitarian Studies organisée par l’IHSA (International Humanitarian Studies Association), à Paris, le 3 novembre 2021 par Michel Agier (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement).
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Bibliographical reference
Michel Agier, “Designing the undesirable: politics and imagination”, Les Cahiers d’Outre-Mer, 286 | 2022, 329-334.
Electronic reference
Michel Agier, “Designing the undesirable: politics and imagination”, Les Cahiers d’Outre-Mer [Online], 286 | Juillet-Décembre, Online since 01 January 2025, connection on 08 October 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/com/14005; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/com.14005
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The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.
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