Abstract

In this essay we talk about books that, like paper archives, preserve the traces of a history in the making concerning contemporary migration. A history made of stories that focuses on the protagonists, the people who migrate, the institutions involved, the regulatory apparatuses. All available to those who want to understand the mobility that in the 20th century concerned and concerns people from the South to the North. The selected books propose a reading rooted in time and space, advancing the demand for the documentation of a collective phenomenon defined as undocumented. The picture that emerges is rich but problematic. It returns the contradictions of international legislation, of the humanitarian system, highlights the structural inequalities and symbolic differences in level that characterize it, suggests the need to change course by radically rethinking contemporary migrations