Shamailang. Una mappa di parole

Shamailang: Una mappa di parole (Shamalilang: A Map of Words),^[1] is a five-episode narrative podcast which explores the life trajectory of Roger Sciama, an Egyptian Jew born in Cairo in 1927 who migrated to Milan, Italy, in 1968. Roger Sciama’s story[2] was collected by the Fondazione Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea (CDEC, an Italian Jewish institution) as part of an oral history project called Edoth (‘ethnic communities’ in Hebrew) aimed at preserving the recollections of Jewish life in the Middle East and Nord Africa through the testimonies of Jews born in those regions and now living in Italy.[3]

Between Egypt, France, Sweden, Italy, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other parts of the world, Roger’s story was not only fascinating but also equally unpredictable, irreducible and always moving. Is there a way, I asked myself, other than the ‘usual’ academic ones (journal articles, book chapters and conference papers), to try making sense of life trajectories like that of Roger Sciama, both unique and ‘ordinary’?[4]

The audio documentary Shamailang represents a collaborative attempt (by artist Martina Melilli, the Botafuego audio documentary lab and myself) to map the story of Roger Sciama creatively and to connect the dots of his life’s trajectory across different cultural milieux and multiple identities and scales. Moreover, it shows how research–creation, which is the combination of creative and academic research practices,^[5] represents a stimulating environment for training, in the words of sociologist Les Back, our ‘art of listening’ that is, ‘an imaginative attention [that] takes notice of what might be at stake in the story itself and how its small details and events connect to larger sets of public issues’.[6]

Piera Rossetto

[1] The podcast was broadcast in September 2022 on Tresoldi, an audio-documentary platform of the Italian national radio, Rai Radio Tre. Tresoldi has an audience of 100,000 per day. The producers include Martina Melilli (original idea and writing), Botafuego (production, sound design and writing) and myself (scientific advice and collaboration in writing). It features the participation of Sandra, Silvana and Sabrina Sciama (the daughters of Roger Sciama), Professor Emanuela Scarpellini, Professor Elisa Giunchi and journalist Marta Serafini. https://www.pierarossetto.eu/eijm-creative-mapping/a-map-of-words/.

[2] Interview with Roger Sciama, by Liliana Picciotto, CDEC Foundation, Progetto Edoth, three parts: 16/06/2011, 22/06/2011 and 24/06/2011.

[3] On the project Edoth, see https://www.cdec.it/ricerca-storica-e-progetti/aree-di-ricerca/edoth-ebrei-del-mediterraneo-e-del-medio-oriente/.

[4] Florence Haegel and Marie-Claire Lavabre, Destins ordinaires Identité singulière et mémoire partagée, Paris, Presses de Science Po, 2010.

[5] The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) defines research creation as follows: ‘An approach to research that combines creative and academic research practices, and supports the development of knowledge and innovation through artistic expression, scholarly investigation and experimentation. The creative process is situated within the research activity and produces critically informed work in a variety of media (art forms)’. https://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/programs-programmes/definitions-eng.aspx#a22.

[6] Les Back, The Art of Listening, London & New York, Bloomsbury Academic, 2007, p. 7.