Page - 81 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 2/2016

Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 2 2o16 Tony Kushner | Lampedusa and the Migrant Crisis 81 Much of what follows is based on the author’s visit to Lampedusa in summer 2015 and it fol- lows Flanagan in the quest to ask how the migrant crisis fits into ‘history’. Whilst I am no way a trained ethnographer, I have studied those who are (past and present), especially within the grassroots social anthropology organisation, Mass Observation (1937-1951 and 1981 onwards).92 I was thus conscious of the dilemmas faced when confronting a different world – whether geographically or experentially – and the need for self-reflexivity. In this respect, the choice of place and timing of my visit needs some explanation. Colin Richmond, the maverick English medievalist (and observer as early as the 1950s of Polish responses to the Holocaust) has insisted that the historian understand where it happened and the ‘necessity of “being there”’.93 The problem with migration, and especially modern migration, is which ‘there’ to focus on. From the late twentieth century, a growing number of (often high quality) journalistic accounts following particular migrants in their journeys across land and water from all corners of the globe have been published.94 Such work is important in showing the risks taken by migrants and the complexity and length (temporal and physical) of the routes towards a hoped for better life and freedom. At their best, this literature gives individuality to the migrants and allows 92 Tony Kushner, We Europeans? Mass-Observation, ‘Race’ and British Identity in the Twentieth Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). 93 Colin Richmond, Doing History (Woodbridge: Colin Richmond, 2012), 214. 94 One of the earliest and best is Jeremy Harding, The Uninvited: Refugees at the Rich Man’s Gate (London: Profile, 2000). Fig. 14: Local fishing boats used to rescue migrants, Lampedusa Beach, Photo: Tony Kushner