Page - 146 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 1/2015

146 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 1 2o15 Anja Fuchs und Robin Klengel | “There are no cats in America” point in the dramaturgy. At first, euphoria and hopefulness shape the picture, but in a sudden turnabout the hardships of the travel (the boredom, illness, and lack of privacy) become cen- tral to the story. All the while, the mouse migrants on board are portrayed as a heterogeneous group that is united by similar circumstances. They have all had to flee from their homes due to persecution; they have all suffered massive losses and now share the hope for a better future. Just as in Tan’s graphic novel, the ship is a place of deceleration, offering the protagonists plenty of time to think and process events. Reflections on the painful past are depicted and hopeful idealizations of the future are shown: they chorus, “There are no cats in America!” A useful tool in analyzing these representations is Victor Turner’s concept of liminality, which also includes his concept of communitas. It is based on Arnold van Genneps research on rites of passage, which accompany social change and help individuals transition from one social position to another. Turner focuses on the time of the in-between, in which individuals have already left their former social positions but have not yet taken on new ones: the phase that van Gennep called liminality. Turner states that individuals living in the state of liminality, the “threshold people,” sometimes live in a specific social formation called communitas. Com- munitas is understood as a community that is barely structured, if at all, and often stands in opposition to the dominant hierarchical society. The second concept discussed in the article is Michel foucault’s heterotopia. foucault intro- duces this terminology to describe places that are fundamentally different from other places in the sense of being a physical representation of a utopia. Those places of otherness often stand both in opposition and in relation to the hegemonic order and are signified by various attribu- tes. Among other things, a heterotopia is signified by a very specific and limiting form of access, as well as a break with traditional time. It comes as no surprise that foucault himself referred to the ship as “the greatest reserve of the imagination” and as “the heterotopia par excellence.” The ship is a place outside of all places, offering passengers a specific space to reflect and imagine, often in the company of people in similar situations – even if the context they come from might vary drastically from one’s own. Arguably, one might say that leaving behind one’s former social position starts before boarding the ship, just as taking on one’s new social posi- tion does not happen simply by disembarking. It is hard to deny, however, that the sphere of transition is of prime importance and that it includes separation, liminality, and reaggregation. On board, the process of migration with all its momentums and qualities is experienced in condensed form, standing paradigmatically (and also symbolically) for the migration process in its entirety. Authors’ adresses Anja fuchs cand. MA, anja_fuchs @ ymail.com Robin Klengel cand. MA, robin.klengel @ edu.uni-graz.at Extended Abstract of: Anja fuchs, Robin Klengel, ‘ “There are no cats in America!” Szenen der Schiffsüberfahrt in Don Bluths “An American Tail” und Shaun Tans “Ein anderes Land” als Repräsentationen einer liminalen Migrationserfahrung’, Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 1, 2015. <http:// unipub.uni-graz.at/mcsj>