Refugee Advocacy, Traumatic Representations and Political Disenchantment

Abstract

Most studies of how refugees are represented focus on negative media representations. Less attention has been paid to sympathetic counter‐representations. This article explores the representations preferred by refugee advocacy organizations and how they tend to exclude the mass of ordinary refugees and the difficult arguments required to defend refugee rights. The article outlines the rise of the health paradigm for understanding the conditions of refugees. The contemporary representation of refugees as traumatized victims is inspired by compassion. However, the trauma framework implies impaired capacity and the need for individuals to surrender their welfare to expert authorities. The article argues that casting refugees in the sick role risks compromising their rights. The article is informed by the writing of the sociologist Talcott Parsons on the sick role and the philosopher Hannah Arendt on refugees.

Supervision Found Wanting: Experiences of Health and Social Workers in Non-Government Organisations Working with Refugees and Asylum Seekers

“…However, it highlights a new area of practice and notes that workers are often professionally and ethically challenged (Kohli 2007;Dowling and Sextone 2011;Guhan and Liebling-Kalifani 2011). Key debates in the health and social care literature tend to polarise the asylum seeker and refugee as either a victim suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or as a resilient survivor (Sales 2007;Pupavac 2008). The needs are varied and complex, and yet there is a danger of treating all asylum seekers and refugees as the same, and not taking into account their individual experiences.…”

Selling displaced people? A multi‐method study of the public communication strategies of international refugee organisations

“…Displaced people often are perceived as economic migrants (Loescher, ; Koser, ), as threats to established patterns, such as the culture and economy of the host country and local social cohesion (Ivarsflaten, ; Frelick, ), or even as (potential) security risks (Kagwanja and Juma, ; Betts, Loescher, and Milner, ). News media frequently perpetuate negative public opinion by representing displaced people as fundamentally ambivalent figures: they are both the ‘victims’ of a geopolitical conflict as well as ‘threats’ to the global order (Pupavac, ; Chouliaraki, ). The current climate regularly triggers xenophobia and increases the popularity of the far right (Skran, ; Frelick, ), potentially resulting in political ‘us–them’ discourses, based on stereotypes as the aforementioned (Klaus, ; Colombo, ), and more restrictive refugee policies (Betts, Loescher, and Milner, ).…”

“…Refugee organisations primarily portray displaced people from the Global South in a traditionally ‘negative’ manner, as anonymous, corporeal, displaced, helpless, and/or speechless masses (Demusz, ; Fass, ; Bettini, ). In addition, the focus often is on needy and innocent‐looking women and children (Moeller, ; Pupavac, ; Johnson, ; Vasavada, ). Clark‐Kazak () partly contests this claim, though, as she found that adults are portrayed more than children in the photographs of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).…”

Refugees, Theatre and Crisis

“…However, the examples discussed here will also demonstrate some of the problems that have arisen through ignoring or downplaying the complexities involved. This has meant that refugees have gained a rather saintly glow in a number of productions and I will show how the representation of refugees generally oscillates between the extremes of gifted and traumatised (Pupavac, 2008). In their efforts to encourage empathy for refugees among audiences for this theatre there is a temptation to present only 'endearing refugees' and ignore the fact that 'a well-founded fear of persecution is not confined to nice people' (Ibid.…”