ECREA16-Abstract

Thursday, November 10

1 4 : 3 0 – 1 6 : 0 0

prioritising security over humanitarianism is the closure of national borders. A crucial moment in this respect was therefore September 14 2015, when Hun‑

gary decided to close its borders. We would argue that this also affected the evaluation of the stream of migrants in the other countries. In order to analyse

these two questions, we draw upon the findings of a content analysis of broadsheet newspapers in each of the three countries selected. The use of the same

codebook as well as a shared sampling strategy allows for comparison. In our contribution, we will not only give an overview on the public evaluation for

each country and its change over time. We also try connecting them on the Hungarian decision. Furthermore, we can critically assess the differences in

evaluation between the two print outlets selected for each country.

PN 103

A Progressive Border Politics? (Dis-)Connections of Solidarity at Europe's Borderland

M. Georgiou

London School of Economics and Political Science, Media and Communications, London, United Kingdom

In this presentation, I examine the spaces of communication that inform and, to an extent, shape politics and actions of care outside, sometimes in parallel,

sometimes antagonistically to the institutions of the media, humanitarianism, state, and military. More precisely, I look at the informal networks of solidar‑

ity at Europe’s borderland and, through an investigation of their connectivities, I identify potentials, but also limitations, of a politics of care that depends on

mutuality, participation and dissent. I draw from research with informal networks of solidarity in the island of Chios. Chios, like other Greek islands close to

Turkey, has become the crossing point into Europe for more than a million refugees and migrants. The border is not only a point of human crossing, of con‑

trol and governmentality, but it is also a point of encounters and unforeseen, unplanned, and often undesired constellations. As such, the border shapes

subjectivities, including subjectivities of solidarity, which I discuss here. The border is the space of fervent securitisation, where the fate of many arrivals is

decided – who crosses, who is recognised as refugee, who is stopped, and potentially deported. But it is also a space where the limits of securitisation are

tested and challenged, not least in what I call a progressive politics of the border. Informal networks of activists and volunteers have been formed in re‑

sponse to the new arrivals and in a range of attempts to support them during their journey to safety. As informal structures, networks of solidarity establish

and depend on a range of modalities of connectivity to develop sustained and effective communication and action. Importantly, these connections – that

spill across interpersonal and digital communication systems – do not only function as organisational tools. Instead, they are mechanisms for action,

of mobilisation of narratives of action, and of an ethics of solidarity. In this presentation I examine three elements of the informal networks’ of solidarity

connectivity. These connections constitute parallel communication systems to institutional structures of communication and can be contrasted to those

produced by the mainstreammedia, Frontex, and humanitarian organisations. In their limitations and preoccupations, I argue, these connections represent

glimpses of an ethics of care beyond militarisation and containment of ‘a crisis’.

PN 104

Young Connected Migrants Reimagining Europeanness: Selfies and Transnational Communication as Affective Digital Right Claims

K. Leurs

Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

Young refugees are increasingly connected migrants. Journalists and citizens represent this development as a challenge to Europe. For example on Twitter,

@defendWallst exclaimed “Poverty stricken Syrian migrant takes selfie with her $600 smartphone” (5/09/2015), while the question “Why do those refu‑

gees take selfies all the time” adorned the front-page of the Dutch Daily Algemeen Dagblad (12/09/2015). Voices of migrants themselves often remain

absent. Considered as affective digital right claims, refugees’digital self-representations provide an understudied entry-point to understand their invisible

experiences, affects and imaginaries. Besides the symbolic performativity of digital practices (Isin & Ruppert, 2015), more attention is needed for the role

the senses play in constructing cross-border networks of affinity. I chart the workings of these young electronic diasporas (“ye-diasporas”, Donà, 2014) by

aligning internet, feminist and migration studies debates on affordances, affectivity, imaginaries and communication rights. Young connected migrants

living within and outside Europe are compared on the basis of qualitative, mixed-methods fieldwork among: 1) 16 stranded Somalis in Addis Ababa, Ethi‑

opia awaiting family reunification with family members in Europe. They discussed connections they maintained across geographies, on the basis of a pen

and paper mapping. 2) a target involvement of 50 young Somali and Syrians in the Netherlands. Their smart-phone photo-libraries are mobile, personal

archives of feeling. Innovating photo-elicitation methods, these young informants are asked to reflect on the selfies taken during their journeys and at

their destinations. While connected, refugees are often immobile and far from deterritorialized. The informants, living in the ‘west’and ‘non-west’, expose

the exclusionary notion of white, middle-class European family life which is digitally connected, but bound to a single nation. Reimagining Europeanness

from the inside and outside, digital practices of young migrants reflect affective claims for the right to communicate, identify and associate. References

Donà, G. (2014). Forced migration, and material and virtual mobility among Rwandan children and young people. In A. Veale & G. Donà (Eds.). Child and

youth migration. Mobility-in-migration in an era of globalization (pp. 116–139). NewYork, NY: Palgrave. Isin, E. & Ruppert, E. (2015). Being digital citizens.

London: Rowman & Littlefield.