(EUROPE’S) MIGRATIONS AND THE MEDIA – one-day conference in hybrid mode, June 21, 2022

This one-day conference organised by LSE Department of Media and Communications, Collegium Civitas and Polis explores political and media discourses of forced migration in Europe in the contexts of the war in Ukraine and the earlier ‘refugee crisis.’ Anti-refugee and anti-immigration discourses were politically effective during the so-called ‘migration crisis’ of 2015. The collective production of culturally prejudiced knowledge constructed refugees as a ‘threat’ and turned them into Europe’s ‘enemy.’ It drew on discursive patterns of Islamophobia, Euro-scepticism, anti-globalisation, racism and discrimination.

The discourse of threat has been largely absent from the coverage of the war in Ukraine and its refugees. For the Bulgarian Prime Minister, Ukrainian refugees are ‘not the usual refugee wave of people with an unclear past. None of the European countries is worried about them’.

Why are Europeans worried at times, yet welcome refugees on other occasions? What is driving European attitudes to forced migration? What is the role of media in the production of knowledge on migration?

This seminar brings together researchers and practitioners to explore political and media constructions of migrants and refugees, past and present, to engage with questions:

• How are migrants & refugees constructed by word and image?
• What are the new lines of inclusions and exclusions in Europe’s migration policy, discourse and practice? What purpose does this discourse serve?
• What’s driving Europe’s politics of borders? How are borders narrated and justified?
• How do migrants & refugees use media to communicate themselves?

The conference is held in a hybrid mode:
To attend in person, register here
To attend online, register here

The conference is financed by Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA) Project No.: PPI/APM/2018/1/00019.

PROGRAMME

PANEL 1 (10:00-11:30): The real and mediated lives of refugees

The communicative architecture of the wartime border: Control, hope and solidarity; Myria Georgiou, London School of Economics, UK & Marek Troszyński, Collegium Civitas, Poland

Smartphones as personal digital archives? Recentring migrant authority as curating and storytelling subjects; Koen Leurs, Utrecht University, the Netherlands

Images of Ukrainian refugees in Ukraine: statuses, interpretations, values; Anna Taschenko and Ludmila Iuzva, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine

PANEL 2 (12:00-13:00) Europe’s dangerous borders: an academic perspective

The colour line and the externalization of borders; Pierluigi Musaro, University of Bologna

The forgotten asylum seekers at the Polish-Belarussian border; Magda El-Ghamari, Collegium Civitas

PANEL 3 (13:30-15:00): Europe’s dangerous borders: through the eyes of practitioners

Refugees and people on the move: health needs; Apostolos Veizis, Executive Director INTERSOS, Greece

Two borders, two standards of refugee protection in Poland. Experience in organizing humanitarian aid; Anna Dabrowska, Director, Homo Faber, Warsaw

From Criminalising Asylum Seekers to Expulsions to Rwanda: The UK’s Externalisation and Anti-Refugee Policies; Dr Emilie McDonnell, UK Advocacy and Communications Coordinator, Human Rights Watch.

PANEL 4 (15:30-17:00) Media and the construction of cultural borders

A Great Divide: Polish media discourse on migration; Marek Troszyński & Magdalena El-Ghamari, Collegium Civitas, Poland

Albanian media discourse on three refugee crises:  Syria, Afghanistan, and Ukraine in comparative perspective; Elona Dhëmbo & Erka Çaro, University of Tirana, Albania

Migration trends in Kosovo: the rising brain drain phenomena; Labinot Hajdari & Judita Krasniqi; Kosovo Center of Diplomacy, Kosovo

Racism and historical amnesia in the British media coverage of migration; Eva Polonska, LSE