#forcedmigration

“All my dreams, they take place in the village.”

Stories of Migration: One Who’s Seen Pain Doesn’t Inflict Pain Upon Others (2008)

Zana Kibar and Yeter Tan from Göç İzleme Derneği (Migration Monitoring Association) on the Role of the Housing Development Administration (Toplu Konut İdaresi–TOKİ) After the Destruction of Cities and Urbanicide Between 2015–2016

https://www.gocizlemedernegi.org

Sur: Ax û Welat

MIPJ: Media, Information, International Relations, and Humanitarian Affairs Refugees, IDPs and Statelessness Deadline: June 1, 2016

The MIPJ is a print, digital and multimedia publication exploring the convergence of media, information, international relations, and humanitarian affairs.

Topics

The primary interest for this issue concerns the paramount importance of reliable, accountable and timely information during times of crisis. Also paramount is the capacity to communicate information, via whatever medium and as ethically as possible, so that those who are most vulnerable are represented in the international sphere for actionable purpose, and especially where human security considerations are most necessary.

Accepted content:

Photo features

Multimedia

Video

Text features

Editorials

Interviews

Prague Media Point Conference 2016 - Media and Migration A pre-conference to ECREA’s European Communication Conference Prague, November 7-9, 2016 Deadline: May 31, 2016

The event will address the broad topic of media and migration, focusing on topics such as the role of the media in the so-called refugee crisis; media depictions of refugees, asylum seekers, immigrant and migrant communities; and the media’s influence on belonging and identity, especially in the context of transnationalism, multiculturalism / diversity, and a globalised world. We are seeking papers that will contribute to a critical examination of this topic and result in fruitful discussion panels at the event. 

Topics

The organisers invite abstracts of any of the following topics:

The narratives used by mainstream media to cover the so-called refugee crisis

The depiction of refugees, asylum seekers and migration in the media

The ways that new / social media are changing our perception of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants

Comparisons between the approaches of public and private media

The role of the media in culturally diverse democracies

Journalist as observer or actor when covering the crisis

The role of immigrant / diaspora / minority media

Discourses of racism and anti-racism in European media

This is not an exhaustive list of topics. The organisers will review any abstracts related to the media and migration / immigration / multiculturalism and related topics.

Association of Internet Researchers Conference - ‘Internet Rules!’ Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, October 16, 2016 Deadline: February 19, 2016

Kevin Smets (postdoc, University of Antwerp, Belgium) and Koen Leurs (assistant professor Gender & Postcolonial Studies, Utrecht University, the Netherlands) are seeking participants for a panel / roundtable proposal on ‘’forced migration & digital connectivity in Europe' for the October 16 AoIR conference in Berlin.

Daily, Europeans witness Syrian asylum seekers arriving on the beaches of Greek and Southern-Italian islands. TV news footage shows how freshly arrived migrants use smartphones to take selfies or use Skype to happily announce their safe arrival on European soil to loved ones elsewhere. In response, prejudicial discourses about migrants have centered on smartphones; for example, anti-immigrant politicians and various social media memes frame refugees who own ‘luxury’ smartphones as less deserving of asylum. Forced migrants, who are digitally connected, embody Europe’’s Janus-faced character in an age when advanced technologies are celebrated for increasing communication speed and economic prosperity.

[...] Mainstream media have devoted significant attention to the situation of refugees along their migration routes in(to) Europe. Interestingly, these instances often included digital technologies as central anchoring points in the lives of refugees. Detailed reports were made of refugees using smartphones, keeping in touch with their relatives, or documenting their journey through social media. Other accounts, albeit less frequently, focused on the ways in which governments seek to deal with forced migration via digital technologies, for instance by making use of GPS tracking in smartphones, or by setting up online deterrence campaigns to discourage refugees to migrant to specific countries.

Topical urgency:

While it is clear that forced migration and digital connectivity are increasingly intertwined, there is still a lack of in-depth, critical research into this topic especially in the context of Europe. With this roundtable / panel we seek to bring together cutting-edge research on forced migration in(to) Europe and the way in which digital technologies and digital connectivity and in particular social media play a role in the lives of forced migrants. The roundtable / panel aims not only to present empirical evidence for discussions about forced migration and digital connectivity, but also to offer new theoretical perspectives on the issue. Approaching forced migration as a complex societal, political and cultural phenomenon, we seek to consider different aspects of digital connectivity, such as the affective use of social media by migrants themselves as well as activists and trolls, political economy, as well questions related to gender, media literacy, policy, legislation and human rights.

Topics:

We envision contributions may for example address the following issues:

connected migrants in Europe

social media use in refugee camps and asylum seeker centres

migration and digital communication rights

forced migration and selfie citizenship

transnational communication and affectivity

encapsulation & cosmopolitanisation

differences and similarities different migrant groups (class, gender,

age, generation)

digital migrant identities

alternative migrant cartographies

migrant recruitment and radicalization online

governmental surveillance systems

digital deportability and algorithmic sorting

migrant networked learning

migrant acculturation online

affective digital connectivity practices

trolling, extremism and anti-migration protest online

political economy of migrant digital connectivity

communication rights

Requirements:

Kindly register your interest in joining a panel / roundtable on the topic with Koen Leurs ([email protected]) and Kevin Smets ([email protected]) by emailing a 250-300 word abstract and short biographical statement to both by February 19, 2016.

Context:

This proposed panel / roundtable seeks to build momentum for the colloquium on Collected Migrants: Cosmopolitanisation & Encapsulation, to be held in Amsterdam on December 14-16, 2016.

Global Histories of Refugees in the 20th and 21st centuries The University of Melbourne, 7 October – 8 October, 2016 Deadline: March 31, 2016

The plight of refugees has become the global issue of our times. The United Nations has estimated that over 59 million people worldwide are displaced as a result of conflict and persecution, the highest number since the 1990s.  In most recent events, an estimated 9 million Syrians have fled their homes since the outbreak of civil war in 2011. Throughout the twentieth century and now into the early decades of the twenty-first century, involuntary displacement of peoples has become a defining feature of the modern era. This international conference seeks to explore all aspects of the history of the past and present plight of refugees.

It aims to address a broad range of questions relating to this history such as: What has defined different refugee crises at different times in history? What has been the magnitude of the refugee crisis and how can we explain its scale?

How have governments, humanitarian aid agencies, philanthropic and other organisations responded to refugee crises in modern times?

What have they learnt from past campaigns?

How have refugees experienced displacement?

How has the refugee experience changed over time?

Papers are welcome on the following topics:

History of particular refugee groups over time

Child refugees and their experiences

Gender issues relating to refugees

Violence and refugees

Public policy relating to refugees

Photographic and visual material of refugees

Memory, trauma and the refugee experience

Humanitarianism and refugees

Digital media and refugee histories  

Government responses to refugee crises

Economic histories of refugees

Refugees and their narratives   

Global Media Journal Refugees, Migration and the Media Deadline: February 29, 2016

The Global Media Journal - German Edition invites papers for the spring / summer 2016 issue tackling the various relationships of refugees, (forced) migration and the media.

The current refugee-influx has been one of the top issues in media coverage in the year 2015. How media report on refugees is therefore a central question that will be dealt with in the following edition of the GMJ-DE. How do the mass media in Germany and other countries deal with the supposed “crisis”? What kinds of images are produced by the media? Can we speak of differences or similarities compared to the asylum-debates of the 1980s and 1990s? Is reporting on refugees mainly aligned with the political agenda? And what kinds of reactions are provoked by the media coverage about refugees?