Balamane: Variations on a Noisy Ground

2020

This contribution concentrates on a discussion of four conceptual keywords – Helmut, Sunglasses, Water, Language – which we explore as semiotic variations on a ground. This approach to the contradictory everyday realities of the touristic setting in Mallorca is the result of our (self-)critical reflections on how to write about language, migration, encounters, the normal and the liminal in the party tourism spot – and on how to give a (personal) insight into the world of contradictions at the Ballermann. We are considerably grateful to our research colleagues Angelika Mietzner and Janine Traber, with whom we have been working on the complex entanglements of tourism and migration since 2016 …