Utopian Projections: Urban Spells Against the Fury of Exile

The psychological prehistory of migration characteristically involves utopian projections. However, the nature of these, their role in preparing for flight and their influence on post-migration behavior, are little studied. A personal view of this topic arises from the author’s ‘year in Venice’ when voluntary exile in Australia was foreseen. The utopian prejudice against migration is discussed. A distinction is made between inner and outer migration, leading to a discussion of migrant utopianism. In Venice this manifested itself as a distinction between an outer city of well-known views and an inner city known progressively through nocturnal wanderings. These wanderings developed an ‘in-between’ sensibility useful in managing the nostalgia conventionally associated with departing: perceptual landing places were cultivated that made the migrant’s provisional attachment to the new country bearable. The poetics of urban praxis described here is, it is argued, ultimately anti-utopianist, as it counters the construction of migration in terms of sharp division and decisive distance. Reflection on these preparations after living in Australia shows the impact they had on the development of a migrant poetics; but it also illuminates an erotic blockage, a resistance to being recognized.In this regard, migration may have been therapeutic