Roundtable: Ethical considerations of research with people in forced migration

Christina Clark-Kazak, University of Ottawa; Ulrike Krause, Ruhr University Bochum; Michaela Hynie,  York University

 

How do is research with refugees carried out? Which challenges can arise? How can harm be prevented? These are just some of the fundamental, yet crucial questions which arise when reflecting on field research and research ethics in forced migration and refugee studies. Although empirical fieldwork has become an inherent part of this interdisciplinary field of research, ethical debates have thus far not been central. To initiate discussions and further exchange, this workshop sets out the current state of the field, raises questions and invites scholars from diverse fields to contribute. The aim of the workshop is to identify gaps in academic debates as well as resources needed for ‘ethical’ research into forced migration.

 

Roundtable: Refugee Self-Representation in Practice: Through/Action/Reflection  

Anita Fabos, Clark University; Leora Kahn PROOF: Media for Social Justice; Craig Mortley, LGBT Asylum Task Force; Omar Imam, Photographer/Artist

What does refugee-centered representation and advocacy look like? While many of us (practitioners, scholars, and forced migrants) are committed to pursuing a social justice oriented praxis, we often pay lip service to ethical standards in the urgency of the need to help. From ill-fitting ideas of what the advocacy needs of forced migrants are, to advocacy practices that do not completely account for the specific context of forced migrant needs, to advocacy actions that preempt or sidestep a fully considered collaboration with forced migrants themselves—each stage of advocacy (thought/action/reflection) is fraught with small but powerful decisions that shape the politics of representation. This roundtable addresses IASFM’s call “to bring refugees squarely back into academic, policy, non-governmental and citizen debates and praxis” by bringing together a group of practitioners, academics, and forced migrants for a discussion of refugee self-representation and its pitfalls.

 

This roundtable builds on a series of panels (Situating Refugee and Forced Migration Narratives: Process, Products, and Power) presented at IASFM 16 (Poznan, Poland) sponsored by the Working Group on Refugee and Forced Migration Narratives. The participants in those sessions challenged representations that use generic images or tropes, and laid out a range of critiques that presented the tensions over control of these narratives, and the power relations inherent in the processes of collecting, presenting, and disseminating them. But how to walk the fine line of advocacy that brings together the skills, resources, and access of helpers with the understanding, context, and lived experience of forced migrants? There are a number of ‘best practices’ in human rights-based research (e.g. anti-oppressive social work, participatory action research, and reciprocal research) to draw upon, and many have been applied to advocacy work across a range of fields. We address incorporating refugee self-representation in all stages of an advocacy campaign, and the importance of reflecting on past efforts for continued vigilance around whose decisions shape what we see, read, experience, and witness.

 

The participants in this roundtable have been working separately and together on refugee-centered representation—visual, via objects, academic writing, and translation–and advocacy. This innovative roundtable will include participant role-play to illustrate some of the pitfalls we have encountered in the process of developing and implementing projects for social justice. Included around the table are voices from the global north and south, people from settled and mobile backgrounds, and include a practitioner of social justice advocacy, a museum curator, an activist from a refugee background, an academic, and a translator in a medical NGO.

 

Panel: Displaced Narratives: Storytelling in Displacement and Forced Migration – Part One

Cindy Horst, PRIO; Co-chair: Katarzyna Grabska, The Graduate Institute Geneva

 

Sebnem Koser Akcapar and Umut Kuruuzum, Koç University

Story sharing through visual ethnography

In this presentation, we will share our first-hand experiences on our ongoing project of documenting and filming life stories of Syrian refugees living in Turkey coming from different backgrounds. ‘Visual ethnography’ method is important for ensuring that the oral histories of refugees meet the broader society and contribute to the peaceful co-existence of both host and refugee communities through self-disclosure, namely story sharing. In this project, the stories of refugees are recorded in a short video format from their own personal perspectives and positions, in their own styles, and preferred contexts. Each participant tells us a story and share a segment of his/her life – about who they are, migration trajectories and future aspirations – as a medium of communication to the rest of the world, in our current historical, local (Turkish) and global time. Story sharing is one way of humanizing differences, deepening understanding of each other, and a “vital human strategy for sustaining a sense of agency in the face of disempowering circumstances” (Jackson 2002: 15). For this reason, this project is based on the centrality of narrative in human communication (McLeod 1997), formation of social identity (Joyce 1994), and self (McAdams 1993). By giving refugees a voice to talk about their own experiences, evident racism in society and social exclusion as well as their hidden agency in coping with everyday social problems experienced in the urban areas, we, as researchers, were also transformed and questioned well-known concepts such as power, gender, majority-minority relations, and exile through a different lens.

 

Sébastien Bachelet, Laura Jeffery, University of Edinburgh

Regards en Mouvement: Sharing Visual Stories of Migration – Process

These two linked presentations (paper 2 and 3)  ask (how) can arts-based methods enhance traditional social research practices in forced displacement contexts, and (how) can participatory methods disrupt power relations and enable creative co-creation? Drawing on creative workshops with Moroccans and Sub-Saharan migrants, we evaluate the capacity of participatory methods and creative outputs to generate disruptive accounts of mobility/immobility and inclusion/exclusion. Part I explores the participatory processes ethnographically, while Part II explores the resulting creative outputs from a cultural studies perspective.

 

This presentation recounts a 9-day creative workshop in Rabat facilitated by two Moroccan artists – a theatre practitioner and a visual artist – along with sixteen participants who ranged from young Moroccan students to sub-Saharan migrants from Western and Central Africa with diverse immigration statuses (refugees, asylum seekers, recently regularised, etc.). The theatre practitioner’s exercises focused on bodily presence, expression, sharing, and engagement. Meanwhile, the visual artist facilitated video-making of and by the participants, so participants performed and shared not only with one another but also with a wider imagined public through these ever-present cameras. This presentation explores the implications of stories not simply being elicited from participants by an external camera, but rather emerging from exercises that encouraged participants to engage with one another in deciding what they wanted to share, actively listen, and record themselves.

 

Regards en Mouvement: Sharing Visual Stories of Migration – Output

Mariangela Palladino, University of Keele

This presentation focuses on the video installation entitled Regards en Mouvement (Rabat, December 2017). Realised by Morocco-based photographer Amine Oulmakki, the installation is composed of a set of nine videos and it articulates both visually and orally a synchrony of stories about displacement. Viewers are subjected to the gaze of those who tell and of those who listen; a sound installation plays voices in several languages. The presentation explores how Oulmakki’s Regards en Mouvement debunks power dynamics, representing mismatched and broken up visual and oral accounts. His work presents voices, faces, speakers, and listeners all out of sync in a dissonant choir which contests the much sought-after coherence of refugee narratives. The visual and oral experience is a challenging one: viewers are invited to navigate a space where bodies trace their own emotional and physical journeys, while the emboldened presences emerging from the screens are unsettled by the displaced temporality and sequencing between frames and sound. Oulmakki’s installation proposes counter-narratives of migration which depart from confessional and ‘authentic’ accounts of victimhood, and offers novel ways to engage with mobility.

 

Panel: Displaced Narratives: Storytelling in Displacement and Forced Migration – Part Two

Cindy Horst, PRIO; Co-chair: Katarzyna Grabska, The Graduate Institute Geneva

 

Giorgia Dona, Marie Godin and Crispin Hughes, University of East London, University of Oxford and Independent Researcher

Narratives about, in and beyond displacement: Forced migrants in transit at the France-UK border

The paper examines visual narratives collected in the context of displacement, at the border of France and the United Kingdom, where a group of forced migrants participated in the ‘Displaces’ project, which was part of the Life Stories course offered to residents of the Calais ‘Jungle’. The lives of people in transit across Europe are generally portrayed through the lens of victimhood, criminalisation or political activism. In a different way to these dominant representations, ‘Displaces’ brings to light less visible narratives created by forced migrants that are about, in and beyond displacement. These visual records speak of the politics in and of displacement, portray the ‘beauty’ of everyday life in transit, and are declarations of ‘anything but’ displacement. First, the visual narrative of political displacements – personal and collective –addresses not only the root causes of conflicts and their global responses but also the proximate politics of unfair treatment, border security and the right to move. Second, the visual pieces offer an artistic portrayal of intimate images of daily life in the camp, celebrations of momentary ‘togetherness’ in transit and snapshots of the beauty that migrants uncovered in the ‘Jungle’ and its landscape.  Third, there is the uncovering of a distancing/avoidance narrative, which reveals stories of personal aspirations, develops reassuring pictures that life can be good and displaces the transit camp somewhere else in the distance, spatially and temporally. Overall, the findings support the argument that narratives produced in context of displacements cannot be conceptualised only through the storytelling lens of displacement but that they are better understood as narratives that are about, in and beyond displacement.

 

Susan Banki and Nicole Phillips, University of Sydney

Studying the “double diaspora” through non-traditional methods: resettlement and the Nepali-Bhutanese

Nepali-Bhutanese who have resettled to countries of the Global North are what we might call a ‘double diaspora’. As residents in Bhutan, their collective identities were solidified around their common ethnic Nepalese heritage. Then, expelled from Bhutan because of that ethnicity, they lived in refugee camps in Nepal for 20 years. Following the mass resettlement of Nepali-Bhutanese refugees to countries of the Global North beginning in 2008, the majority of these refugees are reconstructing their identities for the second or third time. This research explores the elements and manifestations of this ‘double diaspora.’ What identities and narratives do they cling to, and which have been discarded? What objects are related to these histories, and do these represent a longing for a Bhutanese homeland, a Nepalese one, or something else entirely? One method of exploring these questions employs a non-traditional method of collecting narratives: adapting the ‘cultural probe’ approach used in design studies, the researchers created a multimedia package that allowed refugee respondents time to share their ideas about their homeland through stories, video, objects, jokes, songs, and other non-traditional commentary. Given the oft-cited problem of imbalance between researchers and respondents, the approach aims not only to gather information from participants, but explicitly to develop a process that is, at its best, enjoyable and/or whimsical. In addition to offering some thoughts on what a ‘double diaspora’ might mean for a construction of homeland, the paper discusses the merits and drawbacks of this non-traditional approach, focusing on, among other elements, design and preparation, the potential for participant involvement, ethical questions (and the only partially related question of ethics review boards), and possibilities for large-scale research of this nature in the context of an approach that is exceptionally resource-intensive.

 

Rumana Hashem and Paul V Dudman, University of East London

Using bottom-up oral history approach for archiving hidden refugee narratives

This paper reflects on the work we have undertaken with the Refugee Council Archive at the University of East London, and examines how a bottom-up approach to oral histories and narrative method can contribute to the documentation and preservation of the genuine voices and testimonies of displaced people. Drawing on a civic engagement and outreach work with documented and undocumented migrants and refugees from non-European countries in London, we argue that a bottom-up approach to traditional life history method enables researchers to understand the differential acculturation and diverse trajectories of displaced population of different ethnicities e.g. migrants and refugees from the global south and non-EU states in the UK. The paper also discusses the major challenges in applying oral history approach to forced-migration and refugee research. The paper demonstrate that despite the challenges, the power of oral history is irrefutable, especially in the context of refugee research, because life narrative of the displaced person does not only help to recognise the hidden agency but also enables archiving and [re]construction of ‘moving memories’ of the displaced. By way of illustrations we also show how the voices of refugees and migrants of different ethnicities and ‘race’ are often marginalised or left un-heard within the Archive, and even deliberately overlooked in favour of the dominant narratives of the nation, and how these people themselves resist and continue to debunk the dominant notion of nation through the making of or giving meanings to their temporal and spatial aspects of displacement.

 

Katarzyna Grabska, The Graduate Institute

Visual and literary story-telling about war, displacement and exile: research method or collective creation?

In this paper, I propose to look at film and short stories (novels) as methods to study experiences of war, displacement, inclusion and exclusion by refugees and conflict-induced displaced populations. In what ways do these methods reveal different understandings of the temporal and spatial aspects of displacement and refugee experience? What are the challenges in designing such research, and what type of insights can we develop from it as researchers? What are the limits of using a story-telling approach? How is this approach a way of excavating both hidden agency and power hierarchies in displacement? I ask to what extent can film and writing by refugees and displaced and with them be tools to research and analyse refugee and displaced populations’ own experiences of war and exile. In what ways do these methods reveal different understandings of the temporal and spatial aspects of displacement? I will analyse a recent film by a Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Pahn entitled ‘Exile’, his installation under the same title in Geneva, and an interview with the filmmaker to tell a ‘story’ of exile. I juxtapose this against the analysis of short-story writings by an acclaimed Sudanese-South Sudanese writer, Stella Gaitano, who is inbetween the status of refugee and citizen in Khartoum.  By analysing the personal experiences of choosing film and writing as methods opens up a space for alternative narratives and research methods, alternative ways of ‘telling stories’ about and by exiles.  In this way, as bell hooks argues, theorizing about personal experience not only posits the personal as critical to understanding socio-political social boundaries; but makes it possible to consider how the personal provides room to create alternative narratives.

 

Panel: Auto-ethnography, ethics and exile: the new film-makers

The panel comprises three papers, each engaging with the combined problematics of auto-ethnography, collaborative film-making and the cinematic representation of contemporary refugee experience. Panellists include academics (a social scientist, an historian and a film scholar), film-makers who are themselves people of refugee background, and a student who works with film. Through the papers presented, we will collectively debate the challenges of collaboration, the impacts on the film text, and the value of talking back to victim narratives, and of questioning story structures that exclude or deny the subject from telling her or his story directly through film.

 

Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, University of Lincoln

Tenderness and Intimacy in Chauka 

The UNHCR Special Rapporteur described the Australian detention facilities on Manus and Nauru as ‘a punitive approach to maritime arrivals’ (2017). Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian Kurdish journalist, had been detained on Manus for three years when he started shooting the footage for ‘Chauka Please Tell Us the Time’ (2017) on a mobile phone. His co-director Arash Kamali Sarvestani is based in Amsterdam. The film is a work of record and work of activism, but it is also an aesthetic irruption into the discourse of detention. This paper explores Boochani’s auto-ethnography as a poignant example of what the anthropologist Christopher Pinney describes as Benjaminian ‘vitality’ in the power of the visual image (2016: 73). Here, the image is not simply a record of deeds done, but a ‘critical image on the side of a necessary and desirable crisis’. Chauka breaks down the door of the ‘waiting room of history’ (Chakrabarty, quoted in Pinney) and thereby recasts a crisis as a matter of conscience and reciprocity, where it has previously been cast as a question of control, border management and national security.  Boochani shares the auto-ethnography with his fellow inmates and subjects, producing an aesthetic of tenderness and intimacy.   I also refer to  ‘Chasing Asylum’ (Orner, 2016), arguing that the film-maker’s exteriority– she used whistle-blowers to film inside the camp and did not use interviews with detainees – produces a valuable auto-ethnography of support workers, but not of the refugee.

 

Jolyon Hoff, Independent film-maker; with Muzafar Ali, Independent film-maker

The Staging Post – auto-ethnography and everyday activism

This presentation recounts how a creative connection and the use of films and social media allowed two Afghan Hazara refugees, Muzafar and Khadim, and an Australian filmmaker, Jolyon, to bring together refugees in transit to build a community, develop that community’s sense of worth, and then connect them with the outside world. Muzafar started documenting the beauty of his hometown Bamyan in Central Afghanistan. He posted images online and quickly became well known. Khadim started making a film about a bomb blast in Pakistan that destroyed his school and killed his best friend. A voice in his head said ‘I have to raise my voice. I have to let people know what is happening here’, but he was smuggled out of Quetta before he could finish it. After a chance encounter outside UNHCR Jakarta, Muzafar encouraged Khadim to start making films on his mobile phone. Jolyon, Muzafar and Khadim then collaborated on the development of a school for Afghans in Indonesia, and at the same time made The Staging Post, a feature documentary which follows their story. The film was released in July 2017. The presenters will reflect on their collaboration in filmmaking, visual communication and community building, and how their exploration of each other’s perspective created the unified but un-conventional refugee narrative of The Staging Post.

 

Panel: Images of the refugee in the age of populism: the role of the academia, NGOs and social media

This panel brings together perspectives from a variety of research contexts in order to offer a critical analysis of the imaginaries of refugees and immigrants shaped through policies and practices. To this end, we will be discussing how policies and practices affect the well-being of newcomers in relation to the right to education and good life. Toward this direction, we will problematize the role of academics and how the dominant type of professionalism contributes to civic society. One question that we will be asking, then, concerns the emergent value system in academia and, to what extent, this new value system addresses, for instance, populist fear mongering against refugees. In addition, academic practices of integration will be discussed as well as educational policies and the current discourse in order to understand who is included and who not, who benefits and who loses. This whole issue is not separated from the need to understand the psychosocial dimensions of being a refugee. Another question, therefore, that we will be addressing concerns uncertainties and how these are negotiated by practitioners in the field in relation to day-to-day work in the current waves of humanitarian emergency. Finally, the role of the social media will be analyzed and how refugees are represented in digital discourses and visual material online.

 

Anna-Leena Riitaoja, The Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki

Critical analysis of higher education policies and practices on refugee and immigrant inclusion in Finland and beyond: Lip-service or sustained changes?

In autumn 2015, Finland received larger numbers of asylum seekers compared to previous years. Other European countries receive far greater number of immigrants and refugees, but the increase in the Finnish numbers changed the discourse about immigration throughout the country. As a result, the focus of mainstream political elite quickly shifted toward hostility and deportation from a “welcome asylum seekers” politics. Also, Finnish universities expressed their interest in “welcoming” asylum seekers, with various events, such as seminars and law clinics. In spring 2016, the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture launched the SIMHE-project aiming to steer and support the HEIs effort to integrate those immigrants who are eligible to apply to HE or with a previous HE degree. Universities’ and educational policy makers’ interest toward asylum seekers’ academic educational success is interesting because very few people from previous refugee populations in Finland have entered academic education and scholarly positions. Also, the number of international scholars in Finnish universities is small and international degrees are rarely recognized or accredited as equivalent to Finnish ones.

 

This presentation focuses on the following questions: Who is the imaginary asylum seeker/refugee/immigrant in current discourses? Who is included and who benefits? What concrete changes have taken place in HE structures and “welcoming” practices and how has strong conservative political pressure influenced them? The presentation contrasts discourses, histories, societal realities and universities’ actions in Finland, Kenya and US-Arizona. The data include policy documents, statistics and interviews of university representatives volunteering with or being responsible for SIMHE initiatives.

 

D. Anagnostopoulou,  Aristotle University of Thessaloniki; A. Baka,  Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, I. Bibou-Nakou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki;  E. Figgou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki; M. Rapti  & M. Sourvinou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki;

Temporality as a contested issue of the psychosocial role of NGOs in responding to refugees in Greece

The increasing confusion regarding the psychosocial well-being of refugee population draws on the humanitarian policies and the political decisions about refugees and asylum seekers in Greece and in Europe (Fassin 2005, Watters 2017). This study analyses 10 focus group interviews with 30 professionals (e.g. NGO’s and refugee advocates) working in refugee camps. The paper is based on the European Project S.U.C.R.E (Supporting University Community Pathways for REfugees-Migrants ) that addresses the response of Universities to the academic and psychosocial needs of refugees (students and scholars). The current presentation examines the ways field practitioners understand and negotiate temporality in day-to-day work with refugee populations under the current rise of declared humanitarian emergencies. According to the thematic analysis, variations of temporality (e.g. life course mental health trajectories, normative development, cultural conceptualizations of time, chronic uncertainties regarding legal status and integration, time as being stuck, etc.) represent a shared pattern of inability/ unwillingness to consider contingency plans to move on: practices desist from clinical and professionalized approaches to mental health to community-based practices. In addition, the politics of compassion (or pity) contest with politics of order (or repression). The implications of the study are discussed in terms of intervention within the moral ethics of the humanitarian system.

 

Marianna Vivitsou, University of Helsinki

Social media, networks and social movements: digital discourses and representations of the ‘refugee’

Nowadays the social media have a share in social action, as social movement activists use them to mobilize participants and spread the message, validate the relevance and enlarge the scope through a wider coverage of activities. More than organizing and spreading mechanisms, the new media encompass the expectation to democratize communications. And so, they do. But they also invite unsupported opinions, and spread out hate speech and fake news. It is therefore timely to open up the discussion about the role of the media, whether they fight untruth and injustice and in what ways.

 

One way to answer these questions is by looking into how digital discourses construct the imaginary refugee/immigrant. For one thing, there is confusion in the ways terms are used to eventually equalize notional variations and the ways we conceptualize the phenomenon. One area of investigation therefore is to examine how terms are used and what metaphors they generate. Another concern is the monolithic image projected in visual material, pushing to a normative understanding of the refugee as dressed, acting and imploring in a particular way. As a result, the refugee appears to us as a monomorphic character deprived from a multidimensional identity. And yet, the refugee can be queer, transgender and even a scholar! Unfortunately, these dimensions seem to be ignored in social media outlets affiliated with academic institutions and, even, pro-immigration movements. The third area of investigation here is to examine the representations of these ‘weirdo’ types of refugees online. Do they actually exist?

 

Alexandros Triantafyllidis & S.U.C.RE Consortium

The S.U.C.RE project; Supporting university community pathways for refugees-migrants

The S.U.C.RE. project focuses on the response of Universities to the academic needs of refugees/migrants students and scholars and to the formation of Manuals of Field Testing (Handbook of Good Practices), through the development of training modules addressed to voluntary sector working in the field with the specific population. 

 

Specifically, it focuses on the admissions criteria, processes and preparatory programs (i.e., linguistic support, knowledge level, resource identification) currently established by European universities, that can serve as intermediary solutions for refugees on the road to integration in university degree programs (Intellectual Output 1), as well as on the academic support of refugee students (IO 2) and Scholars (IO 3) after their acceptance into a university. In addition, the programme focuses on psychosocial integration/support of refugees/migrants (IO4) and their proper information on legal and medical issues of interest to them (IO5) through creating open source digital educational/training material to be properly used by trainers for the above stated purposes. A detailed presentation of the project will be given as well focus on some of its achievements.

 

(The S.U.C.RE. Project is granted by the Hellenic National Agency (IKY) via the European Commission. The Coordinator of the Project is the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the consortium also consists of the University of Cologne (Universität zu Köln), VU Amsterdam (Vrije Universeteit Amsterdam) as well as the Greek Council for Refugees. S.U.C.RE. is a two-year KA2 Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership in the field of Higher Education.)

 

Anna-Leena Riitaoja, The Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Marianna Vivitsou, University of Helsinki , Paul Isley, Northern Illinois University (emeritus) and University of Helsinki

No ‘Sisu’ no glory: Production-oriented obedient professionalism in the academia

In this age of blatant class war, fascism and neoliberal capitalism, universities and their graduates are evaluated as commodities, and university teachers and researchers are stripped of the intellectual basis of their work for the sake of a production-oriented practice. Cost effectiveness, and profit, are what matter. Using Said’s (1996) concepts, in this presentation we argue that civic society requires academics who rather than ‘professionals’ identify with ‘amateurs’; public intellectuals who educate the civic society to go beyond the self-evident in the present.

 

Academics, for instance, need to consider ways to ensure funding opportunities. While budgets shrink, and systems become more layered, tenured and fixed-term, social missions are abandoned. Research, for example, favours narrow-scope, highly specialised and formalist studies at the expense of studies raising ontological, epistemological and ethical discussions. Thus, changes impact, among others, the need to act on a sense of mission, how supervision is performed, how a publication-machinery is set up, what role the students have in it and how the reward structure evolves. The killing question is, whose values will we serve? Fascist values? The banks’ values? Corporate voluntarism? While fascism spreads globally, as democracy dissolves into an historical footnote, as we move closer to nuclear annihilation, as hatred toward Muslims lights up religious wars, as social programs to help marginalised groups of people explode, we academics, even those of us on the left, are ineffective bystanders. No matter how excellent our methodological tools permit, we are left with no tools, no vision, no courage.

 

Panel: Representing refugees and legitimating responses to the refugee ‘crisis’: Comparative perspectives on political discourse

This panel explores how refugees have been represented in political and media discourses in the context of the refugee ‘crisis’. Strategies of labelling and attribution of positive and negative qualities to social groups such as refugees are key in shaping representations of social and political issues, and instrumental in legitimating policy and societal responses. At the same time, discourses are highly dependent on the historical, societal and institutional contexts within which it is articulated.  Papers in this panel address three interlinked questions in different contexts. How refugees were labelled and represented in political discourses in each of the case studies – as victims, threatening Others, entrepreneurial and resilient individuals? How are these representations shaped by the historical and socio-political contexts in which they are articulated? In what way have they shaped policy responses and contemporary debates on asylum and migration?

 

Lena Karamanidou, Independent Researcher/Glasgow Caledonian University

Representations of Syrian refugees and policy legitimation in the political discourse of the European Union

This paper explores strategies of labelling and representation of Syrian refugees in official European Union documents and considers their role in legitimating EU policy responses to the ‘refugee crisis’. Drawing on the Critical Discourse Analysis of policy and press documents issued between January 2012 and December 2017, I argue that labelling and representation strategies reflect shifting policy priorities and responses. Between 2012 and 2014, displacement occurred predominantly in countries neighbouring Syria and EU policies prioritised humanitarian responses in hosting countries. During this period, the use of ‘refugee’ label is dominant, while discursive representations construct refugees as victims of violent conflict in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. At the same time, themes of entrepreneurship and resilience are employed to legitimate policies focusing on education and access to labour markets.

Since 2015, labelling and representation strategies become more ambivalent. Constructions of threats to the security of European states and the stability of the European Union posed by unauthorised migratory movements are employed alongside representations emphasising the humanitarian and protection needs of refugees. At the same time, claims to refugee protection are delegitimated through the increasing use of the label ‘migrant’, even though this co-exist with rather than replaces the refugee label. The growing ambivalence of labelling and representational strategies reflects the increasing prioritisation of the securitarian objectives of controlling borders and preventing refugee arrivals over commitments to refugee protection and human rights.

 

Alexandra Bousiou and Andrea Spehar, Center for Global Migration and University of Gothenburg

From failing human rights to failing border control: Securitization and the construction of “Greek failures” in the face of the refugee crisis

Since the 1990’s Greece has received harsh criticism for its failure to uphold the basic human rights of asylum seekers entering the country. Countless reports from human rights organizations as well as statements by representatives of EU institutions and member states have highlighted the inadequacies of the Greek asylum system. This critique culminated in 2011 when the European Court of Human Rights found the Greek asylum system to be both “degrading” and “inhumane”.

 

In the face of the 2015 refugee crisis the focus of the critique has, however, shifted towards an emphasis on the country’s failure to uphold the EU’s external border. Through public statements from the European Commission as well as leaders of EU member states, Greece has been criticized for seriously neglecting its duty to stop refugees and migrants from entering the Schengen Area and for allowing them to move freely through Greek territory towards the borders with F.Y.R.O.M.

 

Using securitization theory as a framework for analysis the following study examines the shifts in the discursive construction of “Greek failures” as a migration/border actor. Through analysis of public documents and media sources the paper traces how such discourses have become heavily securitized – resulting in the downplaying of human rights concern in favor of security concerns related to breaches in the protection of EU’s external border.

 

Responses to ‘refugee crisis’ in Poland and the UK: comparative analysis of discursive representations and policies

Bernadetta Siara, University of Suffolk, England

This paper focuses on discursive representations of refugees and asylum seekers used by government representatives and politicians in Poland and the UK in debates on hosting those seeking refuge. The current right-wing Polish Government (led by Beata Szydlo), in power since October 2015, refused to honour commitments made by the previous centrist government (led by Donald Tusk), which promised to host a number of refugees fleeing war in Syria. Securitising discourses deployed by the current government representatives tend to attribute negative characteristics to refugees, frequently referring to the issue of terrorism and constructing refugees as security threats, consistently with the policy responses referred to above.

 

The current British Government (led by Theresa May), also right-wing, has continued to some extent to honour the promises made by the previous right-wing government (led by David Cameron) that agreed to accept 20,000 refugees over a number of years, but the process of admitting refugees is slow. In the UK, the mixture of characteristics, both positive (e.g. deserving recipients of protection) and negative (security threats) characteristics have been attributed to refugees. This is closely aligned with ambivalent policy responses concerning hosting refugees.

 

This paper situates these discursive representations and their active use to justify asylum policy responses in the wider historical and socio-political context of the two countries, and considers how they have reshaped the politics of international protection.

 

Panel: From physical barriers to social exclusion: “closing” of Europe to forced migrants: different dimensions and contexts – PART ONE

Moderator: Marta Pachocka, Centre of Migration Research, University of Warsaw, Polish European Community Studies Association

 

Recent events in Europe, referred to as the migration, refugee or humanitarian crisis, have contributed to an increasing interest in the issues of forced migration, refuge, asylum and international protection in European countries. Unfortunately, one negative aspect of this is an intensifying phenomenon of closing to any migrants, including forced ones, in various dimensions:

 

• some countries are building physical barriers at their borders (e.g. Hungary, Greece), while the others are temporarily restoring and even strengthening controls at their internal borders (e.g. France, Austria);
• the European Union is working to reduce the influx of migrants into its territory and to provide a greater selection and transparency of incoming people from the outside through the instruments and the agencies at its disposal under the EU migration, asylum and border management policies (see e.g.: European Agenda on Migration, Frontex, , EU-Turkey statement, relocation and resettlement, returns);
• some governments and European societies are increasingly reluctant to accept migrants and refugees, which is reflected in the results of public opinion polls, national media narratives and political discourse (e.g. Poland, UK);
• even the beneficiaries of international protection granted a refugee status or a subsidiary protection are facing a number of difficulties with integration in receiving countries (e.g. limited access to the labour market, poor knowledge of the host country language, cultural differences, social exclusion);
• finally, language can also be a (non)intentional tool that can “build” barriers in the public attitude and perception of migrants, primarily as a result of its politicisation and mediatisation.

 

Taking the above-mentioned aspects into consideration, the aim of our panel is to address the problem of the closing of Europe to (forced) migrants at different levels (EU, state, society, migrants etc.) and on various examples from a comparative, interdisciplinary and cross-sector perspectives. To this end, we propose 8 papers by experts – both researchers and practitioners – from Poland, Greece and the UK.

 

Simon Goodman, Coventry University

“Take back control of our borders”: The role of arguments about controlling immigration in the Brexit debate

 

Witold Klaus, Institute of Law Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences

Closing gates to refugees in the CEE countries – creating physical and mental barriers against refugees and asylum seeker

 

Christos Iliadis, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences; University of the Aegean

Reaction of Greek society to forced migrants in the context of refugee crisis: closeness or openness, hostility or hospitality?

 

Karolina Sobczak-Szelc , Centre of Migration Research, University of Warsaw

From international to internal migration – different choices in face of changing EU migration policy – the case study of environmental migrations from Dades Valley (southern Morocco)

 

Panel: From physical barriers to social exclusion: “closing” of Europe to forced migrants: different dimensions and contexts – PART TWO

Moderator: Christos Iliadis, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences; University of the Aegean

 

Marta Pachocka, Centre of Migration Research, University of Warsaw, Polish European Community Studies Association

Rethinking EU approach to forced migrants in the context of the refugee crisis – between legal framework, moral obligation, self-interest and practical capacities

 

Dominik Wach, Centre of Migration Research, University of Warsaw, Warsaw Family Support Center

Refugees not really welcome – forced migrants’ integration system in Poland and its effectiveness

 

Karolina Podgórska, Centre of Migration Research, University of Warsaw

Virtual borders in forced migration: new technologies as a tool of control or empowerment of “digital” migrants?

 

Panel: Understanding Forced Migrants as Connected Migrants

This panel considers how different media technologies play important social and subjective roles in the lives of forced migrants. Research situated in Forced Migration Studies tends to foreground the practical usage of ICTs and humanitarian innovation, whereas valuable research in Media and Communication Studies has shown how that mediated practices go beyond functional use alone and interact with migrants’ localized experiences of uncertainty around social and legal belonging. However, little attention has been given however to mediated experiences of forced migrants, for whom uncertainty is often the norm (Horst & Grabska, 2015).

 

The panel addresses this knowledge gap. Through its interdisciplinary character – connecting Media and Communication Studies with Refugee Studies and Anthropology – this panel explores how everyday and affective media use influence experiences of living in displacement, what roles media technologies play in the lives of forced migrants and reactions to dominant media representation and challenges to dominant media representation.

 

We draw upon in-depth research across different geographical locations –  Jordan, Turkey, Greece and Belgium. In each presentation we highlight different key aspects such as sense-making processes of the humanitarian regime, spatial dimensions, identity constructions and transnational social and political participation. We do not aim to celebrate connectivity or romanticize resilience. Instead, we consider how dominant representations play an important role in different difficult experiences of legal and social uncertainty, and how human beings in living in different difficult contextual circumstances can be simultaneously resourceful and vulnerable.

 

Mirjam Twigt, University of Leicester

Communicative Practices around the Humanitarian Regime and Experiences of ‘Stuckedness’ among Iraqi Refugee Households in Jordan

In “prolonged condition of displacement” (Doná, 2015) many forced migrant populations worldwide tend to get ‘stuck’ in the humanitarian system. In line with Brun (2016) however I argue that forced migrants are never entirely stuck. Even if people do not move physically, times change and subjectivities are altered through mediated and situated interactions.  In this paper I consider how mediated technologies play an important role in how making sense of, negotiating and, only sometimes, physically overcoming one’s experiences of ‘stuckedness’ (Hage, 2004; 2015).

 

I draw upon ethnographic research among Iraqi nationals who self-identify as refugees in Jordan. The everyday lives of the Iraqi refugees in this study are marked out by uncertainty, a deeply affective terrain, and much of the hope of the Iraqi refugees is projected upon UNHCR. UNHCR’s main message to ‘wait’ seems to suggest there is something to wait for. The experience of life in ‘waiting’ is far from passive. There is an ongoing anxious assessment of UNHCR’s policies and one’s changes for third country resettlement. Through online and offline interactions information is continuously sought and double-checked. Through different, often contradictory, messages Iraqi refugees continuously try to make sense of their (in)security, to addressing the humanitarian regime and to imagine and potentially plan onwards journeys.

 

İlke Şanlıer Yüksel, Çukurova University

Building a Diaspora: Mediascape of Syrian Refugees in Turkey

After six years of flight, Syrian refugees form the largest diasporic community in Turkey. A big majority of them are living under a temporary protection status, which grants limited rights regarding employment and access to health care, education, and other social services. Alongside these precarious conditions, Syrian refugees also face information precarity. In response, refugees resort to both new and traditional media practices. In this paper I try to understand the role of traditional media practices in the experience of transnational diasporic lives of Syrian refugees in Turkey. Earlier studies on transnational or diasporic media have shown that the establishment of diasporic media outlets requires longer periods of time. But in the case of Syrian refugees of Turkey, the pace and the volume of newly founded diasporic / transnational media is startling. To grasp the media environment of Syrian refugees, I draw upon interviews with representatives of media outlets. In the case of Syrian refugees as a contemporary diaspora, the multitude of different outlets including radio channels and newspapers demonstrate how diasporic mediated communication becomes a social and political form of expression. To grasp the picture of mediascape, I have identified three major roles diasporic media plays for Syrian diaspora:  Linking the voices of refugees inside Turkey to the outside world including “home”, trying to get their messages through to more mainstreams Turkish media outlets and shaping the “homeland” politics.

 

Maria Nerina Boursinou, University of Leicester

On Smartphones and Cardphones and Life in Transit: The Appropriation of ICTs by (Forced) Migrants in Greece

In response to what was framed as Europe’s refugee/migrant crisis, while Greece announced the construction of refugee camps and detention centres in the name of security, protection and humanitarianism. In my PhD-project I seek to understand how people living inside immigration detention centers, refugee camps and squatted houses organize their temporary everydayness. I consider if, how and why access and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) matters inside these different places they inhabit. I draw upon multi-sited ethnography. Preliminary findings suggests that the politics of space influence the access and ways Internet and ICTs are used. In this paper I show how ownership of a (smart)phone is far from a given for all forced migrants and discuss what alternatives there are in case of digital exclusion. Moreover, I wish to elaborate on the multiplicity of purposes, from using ICTs to pass the time and maintain affective relationships, to raise one’s voice and intensify one’s struggle for freedom and rights.

 

Integration and Resilience

 

Filyra Vlastou-Dimopoulou, School of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens

Do we all speak the same language? A genealogy of integration and its use nowadays

The ongoing global migratory flows, the closure of the borders and the increasing constraints of movement within Europe, give the migrants’ stay in the countries of arrival, more permanent features. In this context, the issue of immigrant integration is an important and complex challenge for both Europe as a whole and for each country in particular. Over the course of the century, but especially in 2015 to date, following the so-called “refugee crisis”, the notion of integration, has been widely used by academics, policy makers, social actors working in the field of immigration and the media. Moreover, in the last few months, more and more European-funded programs concern the integration of migrants. However, the term integration has been and still is, a very difficult concept to define and usually acquires its meaning according to the epistemological, political, and temporal context in which it is placed. This research suggests exploring the concept of integration through two approaches: one historical and one contemporary. The first concerns the historical exploration of integration, that focus on the European historical moments where the predominant integration ideologies were born, while the second is about identifying the way integration is nowadays perceived. As far as the second approach is concerned, interviews with social actors active in the field of migration will take place. This research considers that it is critical to see this term again, on the one hand in the light of the contemporary situation and on the other hand within history, because integration ideologies are after all those, that produce the real and symbolic borders within in cities and therefore form new identities.

Maria Psoinos, Canterbury Christ Church University; Eleni Hatzidimitriadou, Canterbury Christ Church University

Developing the representation of the resilient refugee: moving from coping to psychosocial activism

This paper discusses the development of the concept of refugee resilience and critically considers the context where the representation of the ‘resilient refugee’ unfolds.

 

There has been increasing research on refugees’ strength and coping skills which allow them to overcome migration-related adversity. Studies come from: psychology (Papadopoulos, 2007), social psychology (Psoinos, 2010), public health and community development (Pahud et al., 2009) and transcultural psychiatry (Porter, 2007).

 

This literature indicates a move from conceptualising refugee resilience as a rather static psychological trait, to approaching it as an increasingly dynamic process, where risk and protective factors interact at various levels (individual refugee, sending and receiving community, society) (Prilleltensky, 2008).

However, despite the above conceptual shift, refugees’ agency to overcome adversity and help their community develop, unfolds in a representational context which underemphasizes important socio-political dimensions.

 

Today’s refugees differ from those of previous decades because they are diverse in terms of country of origin, profile and motivation (OECD, 2015). This means that the ways in which they mobilise themselves and their communities for better integration are new and these ways should be included in their representations.

 

The paper draws on the authors’ empirical research, which explores issues of empowerment and community activism in migrants and refugees (Hatzidimitriadou & Çakir, 2013; Hatzidimitriadou & Psoinos, 2014; 2017). By drawing on the above, the paper suggests that representing refugees not simply as resilient individuals but as psychosocial activists can also prompt well-informed policies for promoting refugees’ integration and their communities’ well-being in the best possible way.

Shailja Sharma, DePaul University

Evaluating Integration courses in Germany

My paper studies German integration courses taught in Berlin, Germany in order to evaluate whether the structure of the courses actually impacts better integration outcomes with regard to citizenship and social integration.

 

Under German law, resettled refugees are required to attend the national German Integration Course, equivalent to 100 hours. Attendance is obligatory for all refugees.

The content for the integration course is developed federally and different organizations across Germany are certified to deliver it. Unlike language courses, which are also mandatory, the integration course focuses on German history and culture, the German legal system, social values (including freedom of worship and equal rights) and rights and obligations in Germany. There is a final integration test after two years.

 

Using a study of curricula for the integration courses, combined with interviews with instructors and students, my paper argues that integration courses do not often achieve their stated objective: better integration into German society. In built biases about other cultures, and values, often skew the course content so that the courses offer at best a normative view of German society, rather than a practical, welcoming road map for the refugees.

 

Ayar Ata, London South Bank University

Transnational Migration, Integration, and Identity; a study of Kurdish diaspora in London

To understand the Kurdish diaspora in London requires answering two interrelated questions of Kurdish forced migration history and Kurdish cultural identity. Thus, this study firstly examines the history of Kurdish forced migration and displacement, exploring a common historical argument which positions the Kurds as powerless victims of the First World War (WW1). To this end it looks critically at the post-WW1 era and the development of the modern nation state in the Middle East, namely Turkey, Iraq and Syria. This first part sets out the context for explaining and gaining a better understanding of the systematic sociopolitical marginalisation which led to the forced migration of the Kurds from the 1920s onwards.

 

Secondly, this study evaluates the integration experiences of some members of the Kurdish diaspora in London, who have settled in this city since the1990s. Furthermore, this part attempts to describe the shifting position of the Kurds from victims in the Middle East, with trends in ethnic integration, and their negotiations of multiculturalism in London. This capital city has historically held a promise and attraction for many migrants of becoming Londoners, and this now includes Kurdish-Londoners.

Moreover, the comparison is made between the positions and perspectives of the first generation that came to Britain in the 1990s and the second generation Kurds born in Britain in this period. This allows an exploration of the notion of identity and ideas of home and belonging in light of contemporary changes and concomitant theories of diaspora and refugee studies, and, where necessary, challenges those ideas. Therefore, with the dual questions of history and identity in mind, this study attempts to innovate in terms of its methodology.

 

Syrian Refugees (2)

 

Dina Taha, York University

 “Shadow of a man is better than a shadow of a wall” – On Syrian refugee women, marriage, politics and economics – Critical reflections on Fieldwork in Egypt

This paper is part of a broader study that I conducted for my fieldwork in Egypt during the summer of 2017 where I interviewed thirty-three Syrian refugee women who escaped the conflict in Syria and married Egyptian men post 2011 once they settled in Egypt. By utilizing an anticolonial analytical framework, I seek to understand those women’s subjectivities and experiences in ways that go beyond Eurocentric and Orientalist modes of representation. The objective of this paper, thus, is to contrast this practice with the current global human rights and feminist discourses that often stigmatize similar forms of marriage under notions such as exploitation, forced marriage and sex trafficking. Through some critical reflections, I aim to highlight interesting themes that emerged during my conversation with those women regarding how they interpret their decision to marry Egyptian nationals? How their understanding of marriage dynamics and gender relations vary from Egyptian women? Where do their narratives and interpretations intersect with or diverge from their families’ as well as those of humanitarian and refugee service providers? And how some of them strategically adopt “traditional gender roles” associated with the private sphere, for empowerment and survival?

Tulay Yildirim Mat, İstanbul Medeniyet University

Social Integration of Syrian Refugees in Turkey

As a result of the massive influx of Syrian immigrants which continues since April 2011 and the civil war that did not cease or could not be ceased, Turkey and Europe had to confront a huge wave of immigration movements. Approximately 4 million Syrian refugees are now living in Turkey, where they were granted the legal status of provisional protection. This provisional protection status is not the same as the refugee status, not to mention that the rights and opportunities that come with it are limited. Moreover, security-based EU approach and bilateral agreements concluded with Turkey do not leave any other choice for Syrians but to stay in Turkey. The subject matter of this research is how this legal status based on provisionality affects, in the mid and long term, the social integration of a large number of Syrians who will be apparently residing in Turkey and the possible consequences of this situation.

 

Alizee Zapparoli-Manzoni-Bodson, Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (CARFMS)

Education and Integration for Syrian Refugees in Turkey

With the ongoing war in Syria since 2011 over 3.2 million Syrians have sought refuge in Turkey. Half of this population consists of school age children under the age of 18 but due to various obstructions, currently only 54% (Turkish Ministry of Education, September, 2017) are receiving an education in Turkey. Integration is the most promising of the 3 durable solutions for the future of Syrians in Turkey and education plays a pivotal role in shaping integration. My paper explores the evolving education framework and policies for Syrians in Turkey and the various challenges they face in accessing education. Weaving together a policy discourse analysis with ethnographic fieldwork this paper engages with the concept of governmentally through humanitarianism and the factors shaping Turkey’s evolving approach to integration.

 

Wa’ed Alshoubaki, Tennessee State University; Michel Harris, Tennessee State University

The impact of Syrian refugees on Jordan: A frame work for analysis

The civil war in Syria has caused a mass influx of Syrian refugees all over the world. As a neighboring country, Jordan has received a large share of Syrian refugees, now reaching an alarming number. The presence of Syrian refugees drains the Jordan as a vulnerable state with limited resources. In an effort to better understand the impact of the humanitarian crisis and the challenge to the Jordanian government, this study attempts to develop a comprehensive analytical framework to explore impact of refugees on receiving states.

 

 The analytical framework has been constructed to determine refugees’ impact through four contextual factors: political, economic, sociocultural, and environmental. Particularly, it goes on to provide evidence from Jordan to describe the political, economic, sociocultural, and environmental effect of Syrian refugees’ presence on Jordan as a receiving state. Systematic review of grey literature and refugees’ reports has been utilized to assemble the scientific evidence and integrate the analytical facts.

This analysis has resulted in a better capacity to discover the potential consequences of a massive refugee influx, including vital factors that contribute to shaping refugees’ burden and formulating policies based on specific critical arenas that need more attention and resources in response to the influx of the refugee crisis.

 

Theoretically speaking, this comprehensive analytical framework can be considered an exploratory framework that is applicable on an ontological basis. It is a new paradigmatic trend to analyze the impact of Syrian refugees’ inflow on Jordan as a receiving state, which has been created based on systems thinking approach.

 

Representation & Self-Representation

 

Alice Bloch, University of Manchester

Changing identities and attachments: Inter-generational transnationalism

Drawing on data from qualitative interviews with the UK born second generation from three refugee backgrounds – Tamils from Sri Lanka, Kurds from Turkey and Vietnamese – this paper sets out to fill a gap in the literature by taking a comparative and inter-generational approach to changing identities and attachments through the lens of transnationalism. The paper explores the activities, experiences and connections of the second generation to the ancestral home by understanding their transnational social, cultural, economic and political engagement. By comparing second generation from different backgrounds the paper is able to examine the significance of their parent’s histories on their everyday practices. While the focus of this paper is on the views and experiences of the second generation, their reflections and interpretations of the histories and actions of their parents are significant in understanding how they frame their own narratives. For this reason the paper takes an inter-generational perspective that sheds light on the affects of history and generational changes on transnationalism.

Natalie Slade, Massey University

Contesting ‘refugeeness’: Exploring the paradoxes between discourses of hospitality and refugee (self)representation in New Zealand

Discourses of hospitality – the welcoming of refugees – are largely driven by humanitarian concern and a sense of moral duty towards refugees.  However, they also risk encouraging a regime of compassion and charity that may speak more about ourselves as humanitarian actors than the very people we purport to help.  Refugees are thus framed as objects of ‘our’ humanitarian concern and moral responsibility, stereotyped as helpless vulnerable victims without agency who are reliant on others to speak on their behalf.  These discourses consequently produce a generic type of refugee – an imagining of ‘refugeeness’ – that consigns individuals to an anonymous presence, stripping them of their history and humanity, and rendering them ‘speechless’.  Therefore, there is a need for more stories told from the perspective of those seeking refuge, rather than from the perspective of humanitarian agencies or civil society movements.   Personal narratives give voice to the individual experiences of displacement and resettlement, and help host societies to understand the complexities of what it means to be a refugee. Drawing on media analysis from New Zealand’s response to the current refugee crisis and interviews with former refugees in New Zealand, this presentation reflects on the relationship between discourses of hospitality and the politics of representation, and the various ways people from refugee background contest and create spaces for the construction of their own identity.

Belgheis Jafari, Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University (ACKU)

Migration and Migrants in Afghan Oral Culture: Always Forced, Always Painful

Given the long history of migration from Afghanistan, it is unsurprising that oral culture is replete with poems and songs in the national languages that address this phenomenon. Scholars have noted the usefulness of poetry and songs as a window into particular cultures, and with this in mind, we collected more than 400 short poems and 100 songs that speak of migration in order to see what they could tell us about the place of migration and migrants in Afghan culture.

Although Afghans have migrated for many different reasons in different periods, the poems and songs that form the basis of our study appear to focus exclusively on the reluctance of Afghans to leave their homeland, the agonies of separation, and the longing to return. Most (but not all) of them date from the past 40 years, years marked by conflict and war so perhaps this emphasis is unsurprising, but it becomes clear that the representation of homeland and of the receiving country changes over time (but the receiving country never becomes or replaces home). Our analysis explores the emotions and images contained in this demotic art form and how the different stages of forced migration (departure, transit, exile, return) are represented.

Carrie Dawson, Dalhousie University

Fiction and Fraud: Telling Refugee Stories

“Liars and frauds.” That’s how the two young African men at the heart of Dinaw Mengestu’s 2014 novel, All Our Names, describe themselves. And they are not wrong. Indeed, this is a reasonable — if unsympathetic — description of many of Mengestu’s characters. For example, it’s true of the narrator of Mengestu’s 2010 novel, How to Read the Air. While working in a refugee resettlement center, he helps clients falsify the personal narratives at the heart of their refugee claims. A co-worker justifies this practice, arguing, “It’s all really the same story. All we’re doing is changing around the names of the countries…but after that there’s not much difference.” His argument is dehumanizing and familiar, because the idea that “there’s not much difference” among similarly persecuted peoples is a sentiment that undergirds most visual and written representations of displaced peoples as a nameless, undifferentiated mass, an unsolvable problem often called “Africa.”

 

By necessity, refugees are storytellers. Much rests on their ability to tell stories that satisify the state. And those lucky enough to get refugee status often get asked to repeat their stories of past trauma and enduring gratitude. In contrast, Mengestu resolves to leave “speakers in control of their story” and his refugee storytellers refuse to use a confessional mode. Instead, they tell imaginative stories full of occlusions and omissions. Paying close attention to questions of truth, expediency, and readerly expectations, this paper uses Mengestu’s fiction to contemplate what non-refugees ask of “refugee stories.”

The Politics of Representation

 

Umoh Samuel Uwem, University of Kwazulu-Natal; Gbadebo Gbemisola, Independent Researcher, Brainstorm Consults

Politicization of Migration in South Africa and management of international migration in South Africa

Concerns have been raised about  illegal immigrant, in  South Africa. One of the Mayor’s in the municipality of South Africa was quoted as saying illegal foreigners are the cause of problems in South Africa, wanting to take permission from the court to uproot illegal migrants. This indicates that  anti-migration sentiment is also becoming a tactic gain popular support  during elections.

 

This has brought about many policies and laws to address this such as operation fiela, and one-stop border post amongst other. One of the  other means South Africa  is  also managing migration  is embracing the African Union’s Agenda 2063. As well as putting in place interventions that controlled migration, such as border management. The AU 2063 agenda is focused on integrating and politically uniting Africa while ensuring the free movement of people, capital, goods and services.

Based  on round table discussion at m roundtable discussion on the application of the South African legal framework on arrest and detention and its impact on Migrants . 

 

The paper discuss the role of state actors in management of migration and how effective migration  issues are been tackled in South Africa. What are the effects of the AU agenda on migration. Findings reveal that migration issues in South Africa is becoming  highly politicised, because of votes, scarce resources and the government is at cross road on tackling this issues.

Shakoor Wani, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Refugees, Census and the Politics of Minoritisation in Pakistan: An Appraisal of Ethnic Assertion in Balochistan

Since its inception in the colonial period censuses in South Asia continue to remain a subject of contestations and controversies. Colonial censuses infused a distinctive communal consciousness that was later instrumental in polarizing the subcontinent. In the newly independent states, census continued to spawn controversies, more so in Pakistan where it remains a highly politicised subject. All the results of previous censuses from 1951 to 1998 were disputed by one or more provinces for either overstating or understating their population figures. The sixth census commenced in March 2017 after a gap of 19 years. It was initially to be held in March 2016 but later postponed indefinitely after protests in Balochistan where opposition to census is most trenchant and widespread. The presence of Afghan refugees in the province has emerged as a highly contentious issue. Around 80 percent of Afghan refugees are Pashtuns which considerably augmented the province’s already powerful Pashtun population. Pashtuns along with the Baloch are the province’s two major ethnic groups. The Baloch are anxious that census might relegate them to a minority status. Historically, the Baloch have developed an aggressive awareness of their distinct ethnicity, the presence of refugees accentuated this consciousness. The perception of an ‘impending’ shift in the province’s demographic structure engendered a pervasive discourse of an ‘imminent minoritisation’, which has in turn provided a renewed fillip to Baloch ethnic assertion. This paper while underlining the highly politicised nature of census in Balochistan analyses how the discourse of minoritisation is impinging on Baloch ethnicity.

Jiaqi Liu, University of California, San Diego

Compatriots or Foreigners? The Rise and Fall of Ethno-Nationalist Narratives in China’s Refugee Politics

While most of the current discourse analyses of refugee politics focus on the representation of refugees in Western democracies, there is little research into the discursive framework of refugee politics in non-democratic countries in the Global South where there is little freedom of the press and strong governmental control over the media. This article attempts to make a concrete contribution to the emerging field of sociology of forced migration by conducting a critical examination of the shifting narratives of China’s policies towards ethnic Chinese refugees from Southeast Asia (SEA). It analyzes the representation of SEA refugees in Chinese official documents and state media in four major refugee inflows from the 1950s to present. It finds that the end of the Cold War marked a significant watershed: before the 1990s, ethnic Chinese refugees from SEA were framed as “return refugees” whose flight to China was portrayed as a patriotic return to the ancestral homeland; from the 1990s onwards, ethnic Chinese refugees have been depicted as “border residents” or “illegal migrants” and the ethno-nationalist discourse has been replaced with a discursive framework characterized mainly by economic pragmatism. Drawing upon the world system theory, this study sheds light on how global geopolitical transformations reshape the discourse of refugee politics in the Global South.

Raul Felix Barbosa, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul

Emotions in motion: the construction of the ‘good’ and ‘evil’ refugee in the mainstream Brazilian media

The recent flow of refugees to Brazil has made the public aware of the plight of asylum seekers and refugees. It may seem obvious that people who have fled violence or persecution in their home countries, who have often traveled on a long and dangerous journey and are in a new country whose language they do not speak and where they are alone, without friends or family, suffer with strong emotions. The image in the mainstream media about refugees from feelings of sadness and fear makes us think of these individuals as vulnerable and incapable, but in fact, in many cases these people hide their real emotions like anger, hatred, shame and humiliation. Hiding the emotions is necessary, because in the eyes of the West the ‘good’ refugee, deserving of protection and the right of residence in that continent, must be submissive and in a situation of social dependence. Emotional issues are further aggravated by gender issues. This research questions how the need to be recognized as a ‘real’ refugee imposes restrictions on the expression of these people’s emotions, and sometimes leads to the repression of perceived ‘inadequate’ emotions in some situations. To do this, we conducted oral history interviews with asylum seekers and refugees during their stays in Brazil, more precisely in the city of Rio de Janeiro.

 

Fortress Europe

 

Hasan Saliu, AAB College

The role of media on refugee issues

Person who emigrates to a new society can be filled with intolerance about the society or culture in the country where he emigrates. This hatred he may have received from many stereotypes that are served in the country of origin through the educational system, traditional teachings, or online forums. This novice immigrant filled with memories of his origin can also be a potential risk for the country that he goes.

 

The paper will address the channels of communication and contents of message that encourage intolerance towards other cultures, spread more through online forums, where communication actors are often Muslim clerics.

 

As the wave of Asian and Africans immigrants to Europe is increasing, the host authorities are unable to identify, to manage or to neutralize the anger with which certain immigrants come. Having in consideration the dimension of memory of origin that immigrants have, the paper recommends the increase of commitment and serious cooperation by the authorities of the countries of origin where the immigrants come from, in order to reduce the inflammatory language against others and especially in public religious preaching, particularly a global cooperation in the “global public sphere” – internet. In other words, a global cyber police against inflammatory messages and against intercultural and interreligious hate speech, in the era of “global migrant”.

Piro Rexhepi, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity

The Racial Hierarchies of Fortress Europe: Refugees, Race and Radical Muslims on the Balkan Route

This presentation explores the racial hierarchies of the European Union ‘integration’ and bordering regimes in the Balkans. It examines how the production of Balkan Muslims as white and European has relied on the racialization of Black and Brown Muslim and migrant Others. From populations marked for death and displacement in the 1990s, in the last decade, Muslims in the Balkans have been designated as the model European Muslims whose tentative Europeaness is premised and promised on their ability to become the guardians of the EU frontiers in the face of intensified racial anxieties over Black and Brown refugees along the Balkan Route. Specifically, I look at how the representation and racial categorization of Muslims in the Balkans as moderate, secular, white and European over and against the darker, radical and religious Arab and African Other coincide with EU spatialization and legitimation of its geopolitical border regimes. The discursive analysis of Balkan Islam in this presentation are structured around academic, media and policy debates that come together to mediate and produce Balkan Islam in the larger (post)socialist debates around EU integration, counter-terrorist assemblages and more recently the refugee crisis whereby local Balkan Muslims are produced as victims under threat by Black and Brown Muslims. Bringing them together allows for the identification of European cross-field racist regularities and governmentalities despite European claims of colorblindness.

 

Maysa Ayoub, American University Cairo

The Social Construction of ‘refugeeness’: How Syrian Refugees are perceived in two European Countries

The theory of the Social Construction of the targeted population, as developed by Helen Ingram and Anne Schneider, argues that policies have target populations and the extent by which policy design would benefit or burdens the target population of the policy depends on how the target population is perceived. According to theory, the extent by which policy design allocates benefit or burden to a target population depends upon two factors: the political power of the target population and their positive or negative social construct (Ingram, Schneider, & deLeon, 2007:94-101).

 

Focusing on Germany and France as case studies, this paper will analyze comparatively the results of public opinion polls and media coverage to understand how refugees are socially constructed in the two countries. The findings of the paper will feed into a larger research on the determinants of asylum policies and the relation between the making of asylum policy and its social construction.

 

Salomi Boukala, Panteion University Athens

From European solidarity to national sovereignty: Analysing Greek political and media discourses on the ‘refugee crisis’

 

Refugees/ IDPs in South/Southeast Asia

 

Farhana Rahman, University of Cambridge

Stories of Survival: Violence, Migration, and Memories of Rohingya Refugee Women

Until very recently, Rohingyas making the perilous trek across the Andaman Sea to Southeast Asia were predominantly male, as they were not only denied citizenship and legal rights in Myanmar but they also lacked economic opportunities within the country to support their families and community. The 2012 attacks in Rakhine state resulted in a drastic increase in women and girls undertaking the boat journeys to escape intense violence in Myanmar – including mass sexual violence – targeted against the Muslim Rohingya community. The journeys of these women to Malaysia through Thailand entail not only violence and hardship but also accounts of trafficking and rape, as well as regular incidents of forced marriage. Based on narrative interviews and oral histories of two Rohingya refugee women presently living in an urban squatter settlement on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, this paper traces the impact of women’s memories – of violence and conflict in Myanmar as well as their dangerous journeys through Thailand to Malaysia – on their everyday lives as refugees. Studying the increased displacement of Rohingya women to Southeast Asia can help reveal the gendered impacts of forced migration on the Rohingya community, and the ways in which Rohingya women – as targets of abuse, exploitation, and sexual violence during times of conflict – learn to negotiate and navigate new environments by employing “strategies of survival”. Rohingya refugee women’s narratives reveal the construction of new gendered identities in displacement, and evidence women’s incredible resilience in spite of profound trauma and suffering.

 

Ashvina Patel, Southern Methodist University

Negotiating Rohingya Identities in Urban Spaces

In 2012, thousands of Rohingya fled en masse to India following escalating violence in Rakhine state. Currently ten to thirteen thousand live in New Delhi, officially registered as refugees under the protection of the UNHCR. The United Nations’ human security framework identifies political human insecurity as unrest, disappearances of individuals, and abuses of government control over information. However, this paper expands the concept of a person-centered political security by adding lack of state identity as a constituent element. Ethnographic data collected over an eleven-month period explores how state identity is as vital an element of political security. Rohingya refugees in India negotiate these identities daily to build resilience. India’s lack of national refugee laws has implications not only for local integration, but also for their holistic identity, because the state, along with its media outlets, teaches citizens how to view, and thus behave towards ‘illegal foreigners’. Labels such as asylum seeker, refugee, foreigner, migrant, and Bengali are founded in legal precedents, painful national histories, and variations of Islamaphobia. The broader impacts of this study reframes the political dimension of human in/security, explores the challenges of a modern democracy, and recognizes the role state level identity plays on displaced populations in urban spaces.

Bitopi Dutta, Dublin City University

Defining processes of Gender Restructuring: The case of the Displaced Tribal communities of Northeast India

Development Induced Displacement (DID) has been an issue of intense debate in India. While many existing research have studied the general impact of DID on subaltern groups, the role of displacement in reordering gender relations has not yet been systematically researched. Few of the research that have tried to understand the gendered aspects of displacement has limited itself to an impact analysis framework alone, which fail to capture the nuances of “what” are the processes that lead to these transformation and “how” do they operate. In the light of new questions and an alternative framework, this paper not only problematizes the existing findings on the impacts of displacement in tribal indigenous women but also attempts to locate the cracks in traditional social systems that the discourse of displacement manipulates for its own benefit. The context of the paper will be Meghalaya in North East India which is predominantly inhabited by a tribal population following a matrilineal tradition and frequently quoted as a relatively gender equal society as compared to the other parts of India. This analysis will be based on but not limited to the acquisition of Common Property Resources (CPRs) for mining purposes which has devastating consequences for the tribal women since CPRs forms the basis of their high status, identity and autonomy. DID in this sense will not only be understood as only physical displacement, but also as social and cultural displacement.

Mrutuyanjaya Sahu, Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani Dubai Campus,

Neoliberal Urban Development and Involuntary Resettlement: Experiences from Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project, India

Since the 1990’s, large Indian metropolises have experienced a restructuring of their urban space in line with the requirements of globalizing cities.  There is a sense of jubilation on the part of authorities and the dominant class living in cities with the direction of the urban development policy and the remarkable gains scored thus far. What remains unnoticed is that thousands of slum people have been displaced and adversely affected by the process of urban redevelopment projects especially infrastructure expansion, urban renewal and beautification projects. Besides disrupting the family life of the displaced and the social fabric of communities, it has also led to further geographical and social exclusion by increasing spatial segregation and denied their right to the opportunity to live in the city.  The paper seeks to address the processes of forced eviction of slum people around the major urban redevelopment initiatives in India in general and specifically focuses on Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project in Ahmadabad, India. It examines the socio-economic impact of the urban development policy and practice on displaced slum households, and argues that the nature and process of implementation of urban development projects needs to create more opportunities that can accommodate diverse interests of the society and not appropriated or monopolised by few sections of the society.