Abstract

Abstract:

This article offers a carefully contextualized, qualitative-thematic analysis of migrants' biographies published in the Styrian monthly street magazine Megaphon. The primary contexts to this material are twofold: the protracted discussions in Europe about the past, present, and future of multicultural localities and institutions and second, the eff ects of the much-debated refugee crisis of 2015/16 on Austria. Seen in this light, the migrants' Megaphon portraits enrich our understanding of lived, "convivial multi-culture" in three ways: They encapsulate a distinctive genre of cultural representation in which biographical accounts are co-produced by a migrant' often an asylum-seeker' and a local writer or the magazine's editor; second, such bridging representations both reflect on and counter nationalist exclusions; and finally, the Megaphon portraits constitute a particular kind of "subaltern counter-public" shared by local actors of vastly different life experiences, cultural backgrounds, and structural positions.

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