Representation of migration
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Representations of migration and mobility or migrants and other mobile individuals (see “Figure of the migrant”) can be found in a wide range of discourses, media, and genres. These include literary texts (e.g., novels, short stories, plays; see also “Fictions of migration”), non-fiction books, newspaper articles, policy narratives and political speeches, as well as feature films and TV series.
Discourses of migration frequently draw on narrative as a dominant mode of representation. The main reason for this is probably that narrative may appeal to audiences differently than other modes of representation (e.g., argument, description, or explanation). Psychologists and media theorists have repeatedly argued that “stories have the power to influence minds and motivate action” (Bech Sillesen et al. 2015, n. p.), as they evoke empathy by causing their audiences to become emotionally involved with the characters presented in these stories (see Green and Brock 2000). This ‘strategy of affect’ is particularly effective in stories presenting vulnerable, marginalized, or even stigmatized groups such as migrants, refugees, or asylum seekers (see Oliver et al. 2012).
⇢ see also Empathy, Fictions of migration, Figure of the migrant, Narrative, Stories of migration, Narratives on migration
References and further reading:
Bech Sillesen, Lene, Chris Up, and David Uberti. 2015. “Journalism and the Power of Emotions.” CJR: Columbia Journalism Review May/June 2015. URL: https://www.cjr.org/analysis/journalism_and_the_power_of_emotions.php.
Green, Melanie C., and Timothy C. Brock. 2000. “The Role of Transportation in the Persuasiveness of Public Narratives.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79.5: 701–721.
Juvonen, Annimari, and Verena Lindemann Lino, eds. 2021. Negotiations of Migration: Reexamining the Past and Present in Contemporary Europe. Berlin and Boston, MA: De Gruyter.
Oliver, Mary Beth, James Price Dillard, Keunmin Bae, and Daniel J. Tamul. 2012. “The Effect of Narrative News Format on Empathy for Stigmatized Groups.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quaterly 89.2: 205–224.
Category: A
Work Package: 2, 4, 5, 8
[CG]
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Risk
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As a noun, risk is defined as a situation involving danger or “([e]xposure to) the possibility of loss, injury, or other adverse or unwelcome circumstance” (see the entry in the Oxford English Dictionary). Risk as a verb means ‘to endanger; to expose to the possibility of injury, death, or loss; to put at risk” (see the entry in the Oxford English Dictionary). In both senses a ‘risk’ situation implies the chance of a potential loss.
Note that risk is different from uncertainty, which describes a situation in which you are not certain about future outcomes. Migration involves various risks as well as uncertainty in relation to questions of travel/route, income, unemployment at destination, poverty, cultural shocks, discrimination, etc. (for further discussions of risk in migration studies see the respective entries provided by the International Organization for Migration Williams and Balaz 2012).
⇢ see also Migration
References and further reading:
The International Organization for Migration. 2021. “Migration and Risks.” IOM: International Organization for Migration. URL: https://gmdac.iom.int/section/migration-and-risks.
Williams, Allan, and Vladimir Balaz. 2012. “Migration, Risk, and Uncertainty: Theoretical Perspectives.” Population Space and Place 18.2: 167–180.
Category: A
Work Package: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
[MM]
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Rural-urban migrant
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The term rural-urban migrant is used to designate any person who migrates from a rural location to the city. In recent years, African cities seem to serve as springboards for migrants heading for other countries in Africa and beyond.
⇢ see also Migrant
References and further reading:
Tandian, Aly. 2013. “Nouvelles figures des migrations au Sénégal : Quand les migrants internes et internationaux se côtoient.” Blocs 1. 2–19.
Tandian, Aly. 2018. “Migrer pour une réussite évidente : la construction de routes migratoires à partir de représentations.” Série Anthropologie 3 (November 2018): 106– 114.
Category: A
Work Package: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
[AT]
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Scale
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The easiest way to think about “scale” is through visual representations such as maps. The scale of a map is the degree to which it compresses real-world space: for example, 1 cm on the map represents 1 km in the real world. Maps can represent the world at multiple scales, from the street level to an entire continent – or even the whole planet. However, the concept of scale is not limited to the domain of spatial representation: it can be used to refer to temporal duration, or to different levels of abstraction in the understanding of a certain phenomenon.
It is in this last sense that the idea of scale can be usefully applied to migration. Migration involves individuals, with their motivations for migrating, their aspirations and hopes, their unique background and experiences (personal scale). But migration is also a global trend that can be linked to war, political oppression, structural inequalities leading to extreme poverty, and climate change (planetary scale). Migration is further influenced by local attitudes and cultural biases (local scale); even more significantly, it is shaped by policies and legislation on national and regional (e.g., EU-level) scales. Migration is thus a complex phenomenon that spans multiple scales.
Scale is also an important factor in narratives of and on migration, and combining multiple scales in stories can be seen as a form of multiperspectivity. It is widely recognized in narrative theory that narrative has an “anthropomorphic bias,” in Monika Fludernik’s (1996, 13) words: that is, it tends to foreground human or human-like protagonists and their embodied experience. This entails that narrative as a practice favors the personal scale. Typically, the protagonist of a story will be the main focus of the audience’s attention, eliciting responses such as empathy and sympathy. This bias towards the individual is an asset for narrative, but it is also a limitation when it comes to representing phenomena, such as migration, that go beyond individual experience. How can stories convey not only the experience of a single migrant (or group of migrants), but also the larger local, regional, and global processes that bear on their experience? Put otherwise, how can narrative capture interactions as well as discontinuities across scalar levels (see Woods 2014 for more on these discontinuities)? These questions point to the problem of multiscalarity (see Caracciolo 2021, 43-46) – that is, of integrating multiple scalar levels in a narrative context. Multiscalarity calls for different approaches depending on a narrative’s broader pragmatic context and goals: for instance, novelistic strategies for imagining migration as a multiscalar phenomenon may not translate easily into the context and vocabulary of journalism (see Adinolfi and Caracciolo 2023). Nevertheless, more exchanges between artistic and media practices revolving around migration are certainly desirable and may help address biases inherent in these discourses. Creating awareness of multiscalarity remains a priority for narrative-based approaches to migration.
⇢ see also Experiential storytelling, Life story, Multiperspectivity, Narrative, Narratives on migration, Representation of migration, Stories of migration
References and further reading:
Adinolfi, Simona, and Marco Caracciolo. 2023. “Narrative, Scale, and Two Refugee Crises in Comparison in Italian Media.” Ghent University. [Working paper of the OPPORTUNITIES project 101004945 – H2020.]
Caracciolo, Marco. 2021. Narrating the Mesh: Form and Story in the Anthropocene. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
DiCaglio, Joshua. 2021. Scale Theory: A Nondisciplinary Inquiry. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Fludernik, Monika. 1996. Towards a “Natural” Narratology. London: Routledge.
Woods, Derek. 2014. “Scale Critique for the Anthropocene.” Minnesota Review 83: 133–42.
Category: A
Work Package: 2, 3, 5, 6, 7
[MC]
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Segmentation analysis
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In a research report of which Leen d’Haenens, promoter for IMS in the OPPORTUNITIES project, is co-author (see Verhoest et al. 2019), the phenomenon of segmentation is synthesized as follows: “Segments are population groups with similar consumption patterns that can be identified on the basis of common characteristics. In the context of news consumption, such characteristics may include political attitudes, psychological dispositions, socio-economic profiles, or any other shared properties that explain observable consumption patterns.” (Verhoest et al. 2019, 4–5) Segmentation analysis is possible on both primary and secondary data (see “Survey analysis”).
⇢ see also Survey analysis
References and further reading:
Verhoest, Pascal, Arno Slaets, Leen d’Haenens, Joeri Minnen, and Ignace Glorieux. 2019. Fragmentation, Homogenization or Segmentation: A Diary Survey into the Diversity of News Consumption in a High-Choice Media Environment. DIAMOND report. URL: https://soc.kuleuven.be/fsw/diamond/fragmentation. Date of access: August 24, 2021.
Category: A
Work Package: 2, 4, 5
[DC / LH / SM]
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Social network analysis
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Social Network Analysis involves the representation of individuals and how they relate to each other. Preceding the age of the Internet, this involved the use of sociograms, whereby the application of methods like in-depth interviews were used to identify ties between individuals. Social network analysis involves a methodological challenge. A method needs to be found to identify relationships between individuals. This methodological challenge has disappeared in the use of Twitter data, as foreseen OPPORTUNITIES, because Twitter data contain information on who follows whom and who retweets messages from others. Hence the nodes of activity will be identified and potential filter bubbles can be identified, especially when there is a large amount of tweeting and retweeting going on between certain individuals.
⇢ see also Filter bubble
Category: A
Work Package: 2, 4, 5
[DC / LH / SM]
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Solidarity (with migrants)
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The Oxford English Dictionary defines solidarity as “the fact or quality, on the part of communities, etc., of being perfectly united or at one in some respect, esp. in interests, sympathies, or aspirations.” In the context of migration, solidarity is often equated with migrant support and refugee help: i.e. migrant solidarity refers to the idea of citizens assisting and encouraging migrants and refugees in their attempt to participate in communal and societal life on various levels (e.g., social, political, cultural, etc.). While refugee support can have different motives, ranging from a (seemingly altruistic) moral and humanitarian urge to help to political activism, recent studies in the field of solidarity research have argued that such practices of solidarity always represent some form of political action and resistance (Fleischmann 2020; Fleischmann and Steinhilper 2017; García Augustín and Jørgensen 2019). The political dimension of practices of migrant solidarity can, for example, be seen in various movements that arose from different political situations such as the phenomenon of (German) welcome culture during the long summer of migration in 2015 as well as the global movement #StandwithUkraine, including the numerous peace demonstrations organized worldwide, which immediately followed Russia’s attack of Ukraine in February 2022.
⇢ see also Agency, Attitudes, beliefs, and values, Conviviality, Empowerment, Integration, Narratives on migration, Stories of migration, Welcome culture
References and further reading:
Bachmann-Medick, Doris, and Jens Kugele. 2018. “Introduction: Migration – Frames, Regimes, Concepts.” In Migration: Changing Concepts, Critical Approaches, edited by Doris Bachmann-Medick and Jens Kugele, 1–18. Berlin and Boston, MA: De Gruyter.
Fleischmann, Larissa. 2020. Contested Solidarity: Practices of Refugee Support between Humanitarian Help and Political Activism. Bielefeld: transcript.
Fleischmann, Larissa, and Elias Steinhilper. 2017. “The Myth of Apolitical volunteering for Refugees: German Welcome Culture and a New Dispositif of Helping.” Social Inclusion 5.3: 17–27.
García Augustín, Oscár, and Martin Bak Jørgensen. 2019. Solidarity and the ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Europe. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Category: A
Work Package: 2, 4, 5
[CG]
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Survey analysis
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Interviews with large amounts of individuals using a standardized questionnaire and allowing for subsequent statistical analyses on the gathered material are the usual basic ingredients of survey analysis. Two basic types of survey analysis can be distinguished: A first approach is to gather new data within a research project. A second approach is to analyze existing data, because many reputable international databases contain material that has already been gathered. In the OPPORTUNITIES project both approaches are combined. Secondary analysis of different waves of the European Social Survey will be combined with new data within the four OPPORTUNITIES countries (n = 1.500 in each of the four countries, i.e., Austria, Germany, Hungary, and Italy, resulting in total n = 6.000).
⇢ see also data, data set, data mining
References and further reading:
De Coninck, David, Stefan Mertens, and Leen d’Haenens. 2021. “Cross-Country Comparison of Media Selection and Attitudes Towards Narratives of Migration.” KU Leuven. [Working paper of the OPPORTUNITIES project 101004945 – H2020.]
Gideon, Lior, eds. 2012. Handbook of Survey Methodology for the Social Sciences. New York, NY: Springer.
Wolf, Christof, Dominique Joye, Tom W. Smith, and Fu Yang Chi, eds. 2016. The SAGE Handbook of survey Methodology. London et al.: SAGE Publications Ltd. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473957893.
Category: A
Work Package: 2, 4, 5
[DC / LH / SM]
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Tellability
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Tellability is a term from narrative research. Having its origins in conversational storytelling analysis, the concept “[refers] to features that make a story worth telling, its noteworthiness” (Baroni 2014, §1). In conversational scenarios a story’s reportability “is often negotiated and progressively co-constructed through discursive interaction” (Baroni 2014, §1). Generally, stories are considered to display a high degree of tellability if they have a “point”– that is, if storytellers judge these stories “worthy of being reported in specific contexts” (Baroni 2014, §1), for example because they depict events that are unexpected, newsworthy, or for some other reason significant to the storytellers and/or interlocutors. Stories with a low degree of tellability, by contrast, are often perceived as boring and irrelevant.
Foregrounding the “dark side of tellability” (Norrick 2005), linguistic work on conversational analysis has shown how stories can transgress the upper-bounding side of tellability if they present content that puts either the storyteller or the interlocutors in uncomfortable situations. In OPPORTUNITIES Cross Talk scenarios, the act of sharing migrant or refugee experiences may evoke traumatic memories or put storytellers in danger. Such circumstances not only raise ethical issues that deserve thoughtful consideration, but also lead to a ‘narrative dilemma.’
⇢ see also Migrant narrative, Stories of migration, Narrative dilemma
References and further reading:
Baroni, Raphaël. 2014. “Tellability.” In The Living Handbook of Narratology, edited by Peter Hühn, Jan Christoph Meister, John Pier, and Wolf Schmid. URL: https://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/node/30/revisions/338/view.html.
Norrick, Neal R. 2005. “The Dark Side of Tellability.” Narrative Inquiry 15.2: 323–342.
Category: A, B
Work Package: 2, 3, 5, 6, 7
[CG]
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Terrorism
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There is no universally accepted definition of terrorism. In the United States, the FBI distinguishes between international terrorism – i.e., “[v]iolent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups who are inspired by, or associated with, designated foreign terrorist organizations or nations (state-sponsored)” – and domestic terrorism – i.e., “[v]iolent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.” The European Council’s anti-terrorism strategy puts emphasis on the prevention of radicalization, which “is not a new phenomenon,” but “has become a more serious threat in recent years”; a key part of the strategy is stricter control of online communication: “In April 2021, the EU adopted a regulation on addressing the dissemination of terrorist content online. The new rules will apply as of 7 June 2022. Competent authorities in the member states will have the power to issue removal orders to service providers requiring them to remove terrorist content or disable access to it within one hour.” (original emphasis)
⇢ see also Anti-racism
References and further reading:
Council of the European Union. 2023. “The EU’s Response to Terrorism.” European Council. URL: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/fight-against-terrorism/.
FBI. 2023. “Terrorism.” FBI. URL: https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/terrorism.
Category: C
Work Package: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
[RS]
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