Secondary Source Blueprint

I

Anam, Nasia. “The Migrant as Colonist: Dystopia and Apocalypse in the Literature of Mass Migration.” Project Muse, Johns Hopkins University Press, Sept. 2018, muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/711837/pdf. Accessed 03 Oct. 2024.

II

1.  “British and French migrant dystopias illustrate the particular anxiety that results from the simultaneous fear of being overtaken by Islamic hegemony paired with the fear of being colonized by former colonial subjects” (656).
2. Books circulating in British and French circles show how people are scared about two different things when it comes to migration: they’re scared about being taken over by Islam and everything becoming Islamic, and they’re scared of the people that they formally colonized coming back and colonizing them.

III

I really enjoyed the way that the author started out by writing a very strong they say. Anam started out by emphasizing how many of these works place a large emphasis on a fear of there being an apocalypse that comes from migration. Then, Anam quickly adds that these works differ on how the apocalypse would come about. What does it actually look like for Western Civilization to crumble?

Anam then dives into the pieces of literature examined and looks at how each book portrays migration. Some books, like Locust Girl: A Lovesong talks about the perils that come with trying to go to a different country (654). Anam depicts this as being a colonization in reverse. The article then continues to explain how the basic idea is that this literature captures the idea that people are coming to Europe and people are scared that these new people will mess up their ‘perfect’ countries.

Anam then talked about how there is a specific fear of the rise and growth of Islamic growth and overflow into other areas (655). For example, if we specifically look at Exit West, Anam brings up the argument that the migrants are being dumped into random places and disrupting the people there. Anam emphasizes this point by making it sound like a ‘they say’, keeping her opinion for when she says it at the end, but she clarifies how it is a hostile location that our protagonists Nadia and Saeed are dumped into.

A very interesting thing about this argument architecture is that the thesis comes very late in the piece. However, although I was confused because I was looking for it early on, I do think at the end of the day it works really well because the author has a chance to introduce lots of other information before the thesis that is helpful for me as the reader to understand and to agree.  This point is also emphasized by the fact that Anam waits until the very end of the article to make the most impactful argument: That migration can be diffused and normal, not an apocalyptic chaotic nightmare. Migrants can be elastic and adaptable in the midst of a world full of people who do not want to change.

IV

• the author ends by taking an idea that was used earlier in the article as a negative thing and makes it a positive thing at the end: “Instead, the subjectivity of the migrant becomes one of infinite elasticity and adaptability in a time of global tumult—a truly utopian idea indeed” (676). I love the way that Anam ends on a very clear “I say” that plays on a twist of a “they say”.

• Rhetorical questions. These are awesome for making people think deeper and interact with the text without even realizing they’re doing it.

“Is mass migration a new form of colonization, or is it simply the only possible means of survival on our increasingly unstable globe?”  (657).

• Anam rewrites our ideas of words and helps us reshape our ideas by giving us new words

“he capacity to face apocalyptic conditions as simply that—conditions to which one adapts, as opposed to catastrophic civilizational collapse” (675).

V

I’m not sure if I loved the length of the intro. I think a shorter intro with a point made more quickly and then more support in some inro – like paragraphs afterwards might have been better.