Documents 

This diploma thesis aims to contribute to the broad discourses of transnationalism, migration and nomadism. It looks at contemporary circus artists* within the European contemporary circus field, the daily mobility realities they experience and the challenges they face. Aiming to draw conclusions about the interconnectedness of mobility and different forms of belonging, the thesis therefore focuses on individual conceptualizations of “space,” “home” and “identity”.
In a first step, the thesis introduces current debates around transnationalism, nomadism and artistic mobility, positioning their relevancy for circus mobility. This thesis draws on post-colonial and queer-feminist concepts of spatiality, home and identity in order to approach circus artists’* mobile realities. In a second step, the thesis gives an introduction to the European contemporary circus field and its infrastructure, before analysing six narrative interviews with circus artists* and deriving different mobility archetypes to better capture the phenomenon of circus mobility.
The thesis assumes a tension between the co-existing sedentary and mobile realities that circus mobiles* encounter and suggests that a conception of home as feeling of belonging, rather than home as place can help the artist* to find stability in flexibility. The thesis furthermore points out mobile artists’* difficulties to form solid relationships and puts a focus on the artist’s* body and the performance as such, as a stable point of reference for identity formation processes.
The findings allow for new perspectives on belonging in the context of spatial instability and contribute to a better understanding of the emotional costs of migration processes in general and artistic mobility in particular. [author summary]