Migration from a gender-critical, postcolonial and interdisciplinary perspective

Abstract

The article introduces the special issue's subject-matter. The intention of this volume is to overcome a number of major omissions and curtailed interests in the field of migration studies -deemphasizing gender and sexuality, ignoring the "intersectional" interplay of gender with other dimensions of inequality in migration societies, Eurocentric preoccupation, non-consideration of the agency of migrants and caught up in methodological nationalism.The authors come from different institutional contexts and academic disciplines and address quite different questions. However, all the contributions share a methodologically transnational and postcolonial-feminist analytical perspective, the perception of migrants as subjects provided with agency and a critical attitude towards the prevailing policies with regard to migrants and refugees in Europe. Schlüsselwörter Migration · Geschlecht · Sexualität · Postkolonialismus · Transnationalität

The Victim, the Villain and the Rescuer

“…The construction of the 'victim, villain, rescuer' narrative both endorses and advocates the continued invisibility of women within debates about migration unless they conform to the 'sex slave' or 'victim of trafficking' stereotypes. Migrants are continually classified as passive objects and victims of external circumstances such as war, natural disasters and poverty (Gatt et al, 2016) or victims of 'slave traders' or 'traffickers'. The continued focus upon evil traffickers, slave traders serves to underline the assumption that all migrants lack agency and are not capable of acting.…”

Introduction

“…Through the emphasis on the aesthetic qualities and the thematic focus on transnational migration, the contributions in this volume also share a critical potential as they may challenge and decenter dominating discourses on migration and exile. Several of the contributions examine the representation of voice, agency and subjectivity in transnational narratives, thus deconstructing stereotypical narratives of the migrant, female refugees in particular, as passive and lacking in agency (see Gatt et al, 2016). While acknowledging that the study of transnational narratives of migration and exile always poses the risk of appropriating the voice of the transnational and exilic subject, of "speaking in their place" (Galitzine-Loumpet & Saglio-Yatzimirsky, 2018), the contributions in this book nevertheless aim to provide a critical rethinking of the literary and aesthetic representation of migration in the form of transnational narratives.…”

The “Refugee Crisis” as a Eurocentric Media Construct: An Exploratory Analysis of Pro-Migrant Media Representations in the Guardian and the New York Times

“…That is, it reproduces the idea that "They, the savages/victims, make us civilised" (2007,12), which is associated with the civilising mission of Christian missionaries aiming at saving colonised people with Christianity (Cashmore 1996, 82). Therefore, practices coupled with predominant discourses reproduce colonially instigated perceptions about the West or the Global North's civilisation mission towards migrants from the East (Gatt et al 2016).…”