(Be)Longing through visual narrative: Mediation of (dis)affect and formation of politics through photographs and narratives of migration at DiasporaTürk

Abstract

Our article explores how diasporic journeys and identities are remembered and represented through the visual narratives of DiasporaTürk, a Turkish diasporic media presence consisting of a Twitter account, an Instagram page, and two books. These engagements revive past (dis)affects and highlight the contemporary relevance of nostalgia, sorrow and victimization as key themes in the migration experience of ‘guest-workers’ from Turkey. The evidentiary force of the index, inhabiting fictional characters while looking like factual and archival material, seems thus to both acknowledge and validate migrated ‘guest-workers’, who, as subaltern groups, have otherwise received little praise or recognition in Turkey or ‘host’ countries. At the same time, while converging past and present (dis)affects associated with Turkish migration, DiasporaTürk contributes to reaffirming the reduction and homogenization of official/normative collective memories of migration via concrete visibilities/presences and invisibilities/absences.