Yentl de Lange

Yentl de Lange is arabist, anthropologist and theater maker, currently working on her PhD dissertation at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). Her thesis is an ethnography on how Tunisians navigate visa procedures towards the Schengen Zone. Departing from migration studies, critical border studies and science and technology studies, Yentl is not just interested in borders and how they ‘work’, but also in how borders affect daily life in Tunisia, and how daily life affects borders, specifically in the context of visa procedures. Yentl’s interest in how people in North Africa deal with the impact of (bureaucratic) borders is also evident in her article published in the Journal of North African Studies, where she examines the case of stateless Tuareg in Libya, and how for some migration became a solution to ‘solve’ their statelessness.

Yentl is currently directing the theatre play Vis-à-vis(a), in collaboration with the Centre National des Arts de La Marionette in Tunisia and Cat Smits Company in the Netherlands. The show explores the real experiences of four Tunisian actors applying for visas to perform in the Netherlands, highlighting the complexity and challenges of the visa process compared to the ease of travel for European passport holders. Utilizing puppetry, the performance symbolizes the harsh realities of border restrictions: while the puppets (representing the actors) can travel as checked baggage, the actors need to go through a complex and uncertain procedure that takes up months before ever boarding the plane.

 
 

 

 


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