The Mediatization and the Politicization of the “Refugee Crisis” in Europe

Abstract

Mediated politics in/and the "refugee crisis" Much has been said in 2015-2016 and beyond about the so-called Refugee Crisisthat is, yet another pan-European "crisis" caused by the sudden massive asylumseeker flow from countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Iraq. Across Europe and especially in the key EU countries, there have been divergent interpretations of this process. Therein, various mobilizing and politicizing conceptsincluding humanitarianism, security, diversity, protectionism-were deployed in public discourses to legitimize the ever-new restrictions of migration and asylum policies and diverse expressions of solidarity or lack thereof. While, in general, we have experienced and witnessed many calls for control and urgency to manage the European borders more tightly-and to illustrate the sheer existence and plausibility of an EU-wide coordinated asylum policy response-there have also been many comments about a presumed regionally specific, including "Eastern" versus "Western" way of dealing with the issue. While central and eastern European countries generally seem to have failed to fulfill their asylum obligations, central, western and northern EU countries did, or at least attempted to, honor their commitments. Nevertheless, there has generally been a huge degree of change in attitudes towards openness and inclusion with, in the majority of cases, increased hostility and at best various reservations towards the incoming asylum seekers (for an extensive outline, see Triandafyllidou's article concluding and summarizing the findings of this Special Issue). Moreover, diverse interpretations have been put forward as far as this "new odyssey" (Kingsley, 2016) and a genuine human tragedy, indeed unprecedented in the postwar period, is concerned. These interpretations not only pertained to the geopolitical and politico-economic ontology of the so-called Refugee Crisis. They CONTACT Micha» Krzy_ zanowski

The Remigration of Afghan Immigrants from Russia

“…This relatively silent, invisible, and large group of immigrants reveals some important aspects of Russia as a country of immigration: racism, discrimination, abuse of power, and the severe impact of everyday struggles as irregular migrants. The study contributes to the growing scholarship on the European "migration crisis" or "refugee crisis" (e.g., Braghiroli and Makarychev 2018;Crawley et al 2018;Krzyżanowski, Triandafyllidou and Wodak 2018;Virkkunen 2018;Greussing and Boomgaarden 2017) and claims that Russia, including its Arctic areas, functions as an alternative route for Asian, African, and Middle Eastern migrants to Europe (Iivari 2018;Piipponen and Virkkunen 2017;Moe and Rowe 2016).…”

Leaving Europe: New Crises, Entrenched Inequalities and Alternative Routes of Social Mobility

“…Contemporary media representations and political discourses of immigration to Europeparticularly in recent years -tend to stress the large-scale nature of the phenomenon. Moreover, they use ideologically charged terms such as "crisis" and "invasions" of immigrants proceeding from the Global South in order to legitimize urgent and exceptional measures taken to deal with increases in arrival of newcomers (Krzyżanowski, Triandafyllidou and Wodak 2018). In contrast, representations of European overseas migration continue to represent the phenomenon as individualistic and "exceptional" while insisting on social capital and skills of new European emigrants.…”

The Refugee Reception Crisis : Polarized Opinions and Mobilizations

“…"Refugee Reception Crisis" Rather than "Refugee Crisis" In the media and in political debates, and sometimes even in scientific output (Krzyżanowski et al 2018;d'Haenens et al 2019;Bets and Collier 2017), the long summer of migration was referred to as a "refugee crisis" or as the "European migrant crisis". In this book, we (like many others) argue that it was rather and above all a "refugee reception crisis".…”