Refugee News, Refugee Politics


Book Description

The unprecedented arrival of more than a million refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants – plus the political, public, and policy reactions to it – is redefining Europe. The repercussions will last for generations on such central issues as security, national identity, human rights, and the very structure of liberal democracies. What is the role of the news media in telling the story of the 2010s refugee crisis at a time of deepening crisis for journalism, as “fake news” ran rampant amid an increasingly distrustful public? This volume offers students, scholars, and the general reader original research and candid frontline insights to understand the intersecting influences of journalistic practices, news discourses, public opinion, and policymaking on one of the most polarizing issues of our time. Focusing on current events in Greece, Austria, and Germany – critical entry and destination countries – it introduces a groundbreaking dialogue between elite national and international media, academic institutions, and civil society organizations, revealing the complex impacts of the news media on the thorny sociopolitical dilemmas raised by the integration of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in EU countries.




Bad News for Refugees


Book Description

Bad News for Refugees analyses the political, economic and environmental contexts of migration and looks specifically at how refugees and asylum seekers have been stigmatised in political rhetoric and in media coverage. Through forensic research it shows how hysterical and inaccurate media accounts act to legitimise political action which can have terrible consequences both on the lives of refugees and also on established migrant communities. Based on new research by the renowned Glasgow Media Group, Bad News for Refugees is essential reading for those concerned with the negative effects of media on public understanding and for the safety of vulnerable groups and communities in our society.




The Ungrateful Refugee


Book Description

A Finalist for the 2019 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction "Nayeri combines her own experience with those of refugees she meets as an adult, telling their stories with tenderness and reverence.” —The New York Times Book Review "Nayeri weaves her empowering personal story with those of the ‘feared swarms’ . . . Her family’s escape from Isfahan to Oklahoma, which involved waiting in Dubai and Italy, is wildly fascinating . . . Using energetic prose, Nayeri is an excellent conduit for these heart–rending stories, eschewing judgment and employing care in threading the stories in with her own . . . This is a memoir laced with stimulus and plenty of heart at a time when the latter has grown elusive.” —Star–Tribune (Minneapolis) Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel–turned–refugee camp. Eventually she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton University. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement. In these pages, a couple fall in love over the phone, and women gather to prepare the noodles that remind them of home. A closeted queer man tries to make his case truthfully as he seeks asylum, and a translator attempts to help new arrivals present their stories to officials. Nayeri confronts notions like “the swarm,” and, on the other hand, “good” immigrants. She calls attention to the harmful way in which Western governments privilege certain dangers over others. With surprising and provocative questions, The Ungrateful Refugee challenges us to rethink how we talk about the refugee crisis. “A writer who confronts issues that are key to the refugee experience.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer and The Refugees




The Politics of Suffering


Book Description

With a focus on the residents of three refugee camps, “Gabiam’s nuanced study of Syria’s Palestinian community is an engaging and informative read” (Journal of Palestine Studies). The Politics of Suffering examines the confluence of international aid, humanitarian relief, and economic development within the space of the Palestinian refugee camp. Nell Gabiam describes the interactions between UNRWA, the United Nations agency charged with providing assistance to Palestinians since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and residents of three camps in Syria. Over time, UNRWA’s management of the camps reveals a shift from an emphasis on humanitarian aid to promotion of self-sufficiency and integration of refugees within their host society. Gabiam’s analysis captures two forces in tension within the camps: politics of suffering that serves to keep alive the discourse around the Palestinian right of return; and politics of citizenship expressed through development projects that seek to close the divide between the camp and the city. Gabiam also offers compelling insights into the plight of Palestinians before and during the Syrian war, which has led to devastation in the camps and massive displacement of their populations.




Migration, Refugee Policy, and State Building in Postcommunist Europe


Book Description

Why do similar postcommunist states respond differently to refugees? Why do some states privilege certain refugee groups, while other states do not? This book presents a theory to account for this puzzle, and it centers on the role of the politics of nation-building and of the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). A key finding of the book is that when the boundaries of a nation are contested (and thus there is no consensus on which group should receive preferential treatment in state policies), a political space for a receptive and nondiscriminatory refugee policy opens up. The book speaks to the broader questions of how nationalism matters after communism and under what conditions and through what mechanisms international actors can influence domestic polices. The analysis is based on extensive primary research the author conducted in four languages in the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.




Refugee 87


Book Description

A young refugee crosses continents in this timely, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting novel of survival. Shif has a happy life, unfamiliar with the horrors of his country's regime. He is one of the smartest boys in school, and feels safe and loved in the home he shares with his mother and little sister, right next door to his best friend. But the day that soldiers arrive at his door, Shif knows that he will never be safe again -- his only choice is to run. Facing both unthinkable cruelty and boundless kindness, Shif bravely makes his way towards a future he can barely imagine. Based on real experiences and written in spare, powerful prose, this gripping debut illustrates the realities faced by countless young refugees across the world today. Refugee 87 is a story of friendship, kindness, hardship, survival, and -- above all -- hope.




Media coverage of the “refugee crisis”: A cross-European perspective


Book Description

Media have played an important role in framing the public debate on the “refugee crisis” that peaked in autumn of 2015. This report examines the narratives developed by print media in eight European countries and how they contributed to the public perception of the “crisis”, shifting from careful tolerance over the summer, to an outpouring of solidarity and humanitarianism in September 2015, and to a securitisation of the debate and a narrative of fear in November 2015. Overall, there has been limited opportunity in mainstream media coverage for refugees and migrants to give their views on events, and little attention paid to the individuals’ plight or the global and historical context of their displacement. Refugees and migrants are often portrayed as an undistinguishable group of anonymous and unskilled outsiders who are either vulnerable or dangerous. The dissemination of biased or ill-founded information contributes to perpetuating stereotypes and creating an unfavourable environment not only for the reception of refugees but also for the longer-term perspectives of societal integration.




Solidarity in the Media and Public Contention over Refugees in Europe


Book Description

This book examines the ‘European refugee crisis’, offering an in-depth comparative analysis of how public attitudes towards refugees and humanitarian dispositions are shaped by political news coverage. An international team of authors address the role of the media in contesting solidarity towards refugees from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Focusing on the public sphere, the book follows the assumption that solidarity is a social value, political concept and legal principle that is discursively constructed in public contentions. The analysis refers systematically and comparatively to eight European countries, namely, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Treatment of data is also original in the way it deals with variations of public spheres by combining a news media claims-making analysis with a social media reception analysis. In particular, the book highlights the prominent role of the mass media in shaping national and transnational solidarity, while exploring the readiness of the mass media to extend thick conceptions of solidarity to non-members. It proposes a research design for the comparative analysis of online news reception and considers the innovative potential of this method in relation to established public opinion research. The book is of particular interest for scholars who are interested in the fields of European solidarity, migration and refugees, contentious politics, while providing an approach that talks to scholars of journalism and political communication studies, as well as digital journalism and online news reception.




Discrimination and Delegation


Book Description

What explains the variety of responses that states adopt toward different refugee groups? Refugees might be granted protection or turned away; they might be permitted to live where they wish and earn an income, pursue education, and access medical treatment; or, they might be confined to a camp and forced to rely on aid while being denied basic services. However, states do not consistently wield their capacity for control, nor do they jealously guard their authority to regulate. In this book, Lamis Elmy Abdelaaty asks why states sometimes assert their sovereignty vis-à-vis refugee rights and at other times seemingly cede it by delegating refugee oversight to the United Nations. To explain this selective exercise of sovereignty, Abdelaaty develops a two-part theoretical framework in which policymakers in refugee-receiving countries weigh international and domestic concerns. Policymakers in a receiving country might decide to offer protection to refugees from a rival country in order to undermine the sending country's stability, saddle it with reputation costs, and even engage in guerilla-style cross-border attacks. At the domestic level, policymakers consider political competition among ethnic groups--welcoming refugees who are ethnic kin of citizens can satisfy domestic constituencies, expand the base of support for the government, and encourage mobilization along ethnic lines. When these international and domestic incentives conflict, the state shifts responsibility for refugees to the UN, which allows policymakers to placate both refugee-sending countries and domestic constituencies. Abdelaaty analyzes asylum admissions worldwide, and then examines three case studies in-depth: Egypt (a country that is broadly representative of most refugee recipients), Turkey (an outlier that has limited the geographic application of the Refugee Convention), and Kenya (home to one of the largest refugee populations in the world). Discrimination and Delegation argues that foreign policy and ethnic identity, more so than resources, humanitarianism, or labor skills, shape reactions to refugees.




The Palgrave Handbook of Gender and Migration


Book Description

This handbook adopts a distinctively global and intersectional approach to gender and migration, as social class, race and ethnicity shape the process of migration in its multiple dimensions. A large range of topics exploring gender, sexuality and migration are presented, including feminist migration research, care, family, emotional labour, brain drain and gender, parenting, gendered geographies of power, modern slavery, women and refugee law, masculinities, and more. Scholars from North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania delve into institutional, normative, and day-to-day practices conditioning migrants ́ rights, opportunities and life chances based on material from around the world. This handbook will be of great interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including Women’s and Gender Studies, Sociology, Sexuality Studies, Migration Studies, Politics, Social Policy, Public Policy, and Area Studies.