Advanced Workshop (Theory)
30 October, 9-13
0,5 ECTS

Outline
The workshop examines the context and processes of border crossing of a large number of people that is construed as instability, insecurity and sense of apprehension at the places where mobile people arrived. The spectacle of civil wars, military intervention and exodus of people has been understood, analyzed, written about in diverse ways in electronic, print and social media. This portrayal has informed and influenced the common sense and polices in myriad ways. The stories and visuals of boat-train-road journeys and its associated perils, the depiction of crime and terror, idea and realities of migrant settlement and camps and imaginaries of border sieges delineate various aspects on 'crisis'. The recent 'migrant crisis' that engulfed Europe has a parallel in the south and southeast Asia where thousands of people were persecuted in the name of ethnicity. However, these people had nowhere to go as they were rendered stateless. The differential approach by media towards the ‘crisis’ in global north and south was discernible. In one place, sense of unease, anxiety and magnitude of the crisis was apparent by its attention; on the other silence and numbness provided some insights about newsworthiness. Articulation of nationalism, the depiction of terror and security drawing from Islamophobia and the larger political context of the nation-state will be discussed in the workshop. The migrant's vulnerability towards trafficking, disease, etc. becomes an important marker in understanding the media representation of migrants the 'crisis' they create. This brings us to interrogate few questions: How is this crisis constructed? How do borders enter into this discourse? And, how is identity positioned? The workshop shall engage with the frame of reference and representation; the idea of nation-state and nationalism, the role of religion, economy and polity in influencing the depiction and discourse.
Pedagogy: Media content analysis, documentary discussion, and lecture.

Readings
• Berry, M., Garcia-Blanco, I., & Moore, K. (2016). “Press coverage of the refugee and migrant crisis in the EU: a content analysis of five European countries.” Geneva. Retrieved from http://www.unhcr.org/56bb369c9.html
• Goodman, S., Sirriyeh, A., and McMahon, S. “The Evolving (re)Categorisations of Refugees throughout the ‚Refugee/Migrant crisis‘.“ Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 27 (2017): 105–114. https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.2302
• Greussing, E., and Boomgaarden, H. G. “Shifting the refugee narrative? An automated frame analysis of Europe’s 2015 refugee crisis.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 43.11 (2017): 1749–1774. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1282813org/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1282813
• Jha, M. K., and Wani, M. I. “The Marginal Refugee in the ‘Migrant Crisis’: Crisis, Othering and Border Walls in Mainstream Western Media Discourse.” Refugee Watch 49 (2017): 42–61. Retrieved from http://www.mcrg.ac.in/rw files/RW49/RW49.pdf
• Lenette, Caroline and Cleland, Sienna. “Changing Faces: Visual Representations of Asylum Seekers in Times of Crisis.” Creative Approaches to Research 9.1 (2016): 68-83.