Displaced memories in the Trieste border area: a neverending historical entanglement

This paper aims to analyse the intertwined migrant mobility and the role of migrants’ memories by comparing different refugee flows arriving in the border area of Trieste (Italy) in different phases: the Italian exodus after the Second World War, refugees from the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, asylum seekers arriving through the Balkans since 2015, and the more recent Ukrainian displacement (2022). Adopting an ethnographic approach, the main objective is to identify places, objects or other forms of identity expression in which refugees’ memories are embedded during different stages of displacement. Specifically, the paper explores how these memories are layered and intertwined with other migratory transits in the same border area, analysing both presences and absences through the traces left by migration.