“Migration is an unprecedented experience tearing you out of the habitual ambient and away from the roots that used to nourish you. When I ask myself what is it for – I usually arrive to the idea of transformation.
The main image that comes to my mind when I think about immigration experience is a journey. Person who changes his surroundings in a such serious way, starts from the feeling that (s)he is not here and is not there, (s)he is always between: between languages, between economic systems, between cultures, etc. It is like a riddle to be solved. And if you solve it, you will learn something about yourself, you will enrich your being with new experience.
There are good parallels, as it seems to me, with alchemical/psychoanalytic magnum opus, where first step is nigredo, dissolving and disintegration when you first time immerse in a new habitat. It is hard time when everything is so unfamiliar that it breaks and dissociates you; new is not found, old is lost.
Then comes albedo – revival and attempts to find your path in new circumstances, reterritorialization of yourself on the new ground. Time passes, you get used to your new life. It becomes natural to be here and to be there, now you are not between, on the contrary, you have two places that you can call “home”, two lines of existence.
And it finishes with rubedo – seeing your destiny in more clear way, individuation and integration of different aspects of self in a new superior assembly.
If we are talking about people and relations in this sense, there is always an abyss over which the bridges should be built. In that case I address gratitude to people who have love and imagination to lay paths to someone different from them, who give space to others in their behaviour, words and actions.
An important role in my journey has played and continues to play Master’s Philosophy (Philosophical Sciences) where I am studying (Verona, Italy). It is social institution that supports and gives opportunities (experience, knowledge, contacts), also it is home for lots of students. Studying process here has some specifics such as ability to choose courses and sessions in which you do exams.
Although I would love to have more seminar work in program, a lot of conferences and events are organized during the whole year (now, unfortunately, everything is stopped because of the covid-emergency; a situation that the university is managing, by the way, very well). Program in itself has some national specifics: on the whole, all philosophical directions are widely represented, yet there is a big part of Italian authors in program and there is no some contemporary world-wide movements (such as new materialism or object oriented ontology).
However, personally for me, most important was to find here open-minded, hearty and creative ambience, in which I see a place for me and horizons of the future.”
Anastasia, studentessa di Scienze Filosofiche
Instagram: @pipistanse
