This Special Collection “Forced migration and digital connectivity in(to) Europe” historicizes, contextualizes, empirically grounds, and conceptually reflects on the impact of digital technologies on ...forced migration. In this introductory essay, we elaborate digital migration as a developing field of research. Taking the exceptional attention for digital mediation within the recent so-called “European refugee crisis” as a starting point, we reflect on the main conceptual, methodological and ethical challenges for this emerging field and how it is taking shape through interdisciplinary dialogues and in interaction with policy and public debate. Our discussion is organized around five central questions: (1) Why Europe? (2) Where are the field and focus of digital migration studies? (3) Where is the human in digital migration? (4) Where is the political in digital migration? and (5) How can we de-center Europe in digital migration studies? Alongside establishing common ground between various communities of scholarship, we plea for non-digital-media-centric-ness and foreground a commitment toward social change, equity and social justice.
This paper reports on an exploratory, qualitative study of media
use among Syrian refugees in Turkey, focusing on two locations: a
refugee camp in Sanliurfa (South-Eastern Turkey) and a community
...center in Istanbul. It seeks to provide new angles for conceptualizing
the “connected refugee” by adopting a non-media-centric and
ethnographic approach that emphasizes diversity, local contexts and
everydayness. Firstly, the paper discusses the interplay between
individual and collective ownership of media and ICTs, which is linked
to certain power dynamics and an informal economy of solidarity.
Secondly, the role of popular media (e.g., music, television series,
football) for establishing ontological security in an interstitial and
unstable position is discussed.
Can we think about the role of media and information and communication technologies in the lives of forced migrants through the lens of immobility? The dominant focus in the communication studies ...literature is on mobility, movement and connectivity. Migration studies and anthropology however offer productive ways to conceptualize the mobility–immobility spectrum as well as the imaginative dimensions of (im)mobility. Building on two studies that were situated at the temporal and geographical edges of the ‘European refugee crisis’ – a 2015 study in a Syrian refugee camp in Turkey and a 2017–2018 study with Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi refugees in Belgium – this article develops a conceptual framework of media and immobility in the context of forced migration. It coins the pair concepts affective immobility and symbolic immobility to highlight and understand practices of disengagement with media and information and communication technologies, agentic disconnectivity and feelings of symbolic fixedness.
The SAGE Handbook of Media and Migration offers a comprehensive overview of media and migration through new research, as well as a review of present scholarship in this expanding and promising field. ...It explores key interdisciplinary concepts and methodologies, and how these are challenged by new realities and the links between contemporary migration patterns and its use of mediated processes.
In this study, both performance and polymedia serve as important conceptual lenses to examine how university students in the Global South handle the social media landscape in enacting cultural ...identity. Based on 17 focus groups with 105 students from Bolivian universities, we argue that in performing their multiplex identities, this group of Bolivian young people navigate social media as polymedia environments, taking advantage of its possibilities and testing its constraints. The research generated three key findings: (1) students mainly reported examples of cosmopolitan and national identity performances; (2) performances of national belonging showed an ambiguous mixture of self-glorification and self-reflexivity; (3) indigenous identities were rarely performed on the platforms used.
Drawing on fieldwork among Kurdish broadcasters in Turkey and Europe, this article shows how ethnic media mediate nationhood in a conflict context. Despite rising interest in the media–nationhood ...nexus, and the expansion of studies on ethnic media, little is known about ethnic media in conflicts involving state and non-state actors. This study investigates three Kurdish broadcasters, Roj-TV, Gün-TV, and TRT-6. The collected data include expert interviews and informal conversations with employees. Through a grounded theory approach, a model is developed that proposes four modes of mediated nationhood, in which the relation to the state and the role of ethnicity are key elements. Next, it is demonstrated how mediated nationhood in conflicts is characterized by multiple constraints, and how this affects the perceived roles and ethnic belongings among media professionals.
Media are fundamental to the way communities make sense of conflicts. This also holds true for diaspora communities, who are involved in and affected by distant/homeland conflicts. Shifting away from ...the dominant focus on ‘radicalization’ through media in this context, this study looks at the role media play in making sense of such conflict among young Kurds in London. Data consist of focus groups with Kurdish youth, participant observations in community centres and ethnographic conversations. While media are generally perceived as the central forces through which diaspora youth experience and engage with the Kurdish conflict in Turkey, ethnic media, in particular Kurdish broadcasting, play a very limited role. The distance vis-à-vis ethnic media is analysed and explained through respondents’ discourses on diasporic cosmopolitanism. The results show that their shift away from ethnic media facilitates more solid ethnic identities and more enhanced engagements with the Kurdish conflict.
Abstract
The mediation of migration has inspired ample scholarship in the past decades for understanding global power dynamics and the role of communication processes in maintaining, questioning, and ...reverting those very dynamics. This article sheds light on the experiences of migrants and their tactics for creating more humane, inclusive, and authentic media representations. It reports on one year of participatory action research (PAR) with six undocumented migrants living in Brussels, Belgium, which included participatory video-making and a combination of walking interviews and visual artefact production. The findings revolve around three counter-documentation tactics developed during the study to oppose hegemonic ways of representing (undocumented) migrants. The article aims to make a methodological contribution by reflecting on ethics and the pragmatic combination of different participatory methods while offering a conceptual vocabulary for approaching mediation, migration, and alterity from the perspective of progressive social change.
Memory processes influence the emotional narratives that shape the meanings of borders. However, the field of border studies has traditionally neglected the extent to which ordinary people recreate ...borders through everyday emotional relations in spaces of social interaction and leisure. This research addresses cinema as a bordering experience in the context of Ireland. The Irish border has been marked by an intense political conflict that informed everyday relations between groups over the years and still has a relevant influence. This situation has impacted not only the emotional significance of the border for inhabitants of border areas but also the processes of othering shaped by memories of periods of violence and animosity. In this study, ethnographic research was conducted in various border towns, which included 44 interviews and three cineforums. Based on the findings, this article details how the interdependence of memories and emotions relating to cinematic experiences is part of everyday bordering processes.
•Cinematic experiences evoke emotional practices and shared meanings about borders.•Emotions are triggered by interactions that are experienced, remembered, or imagined in distinct geo-political situations.•A non-film-centric approach contributes to understanding cinematic experiences as sites of memory.•Methodological challenges open up the possibility to enrich the field of new cinema history with visual methods.
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