Too dead? Image analyses of humanitarian photos of the Kurdi brothers

Alan and Galip Kurdi, aged three and five years respectively, drowned in the Mediterranean in 2015. The name of one of these brothers became profoundly imprinted in people’s minds as a symbol of the refugee crisis, while the other’s name barely was noticed at all and now seems totally forgotten. After being washed ashore at a Turkish tourist resort, the bodies were documented by the photojournalist Nilüfer Demir. The images went viral, and mainstream news media broke a long-lasting social taboo by publishing some of them to evoke people’s emotions. Despite quite similar circumstances, why did the images of Alan Kurdi become iconic, while the images of Galip did not attract public attention in the same way? This study focuses on four images of the brothers, which are examined using a semiotic framework derived from Barthes and Mitchell. The results suggest that there is a fine line between generating a deeper understanding of the plight of migrant children in Europe and causing even more distance to the objects. Obviously Galip was not worthy of the same degree of compassion as his younger brother, for instance, because his images were more gloomy, lacking any glimmer of hope; Galip seemed ‘too’ dead.     

Visual social media and affectivity: the impact of the image of Alan Kurdi and young people’s response to the refugee crisis in Oslo and Sheffield

This article focuses on the reception of the image of Alan Kurdi by a group of young volunteers in Oslo and Sheffield, and their understanding of the subsequent civic and political engagement. Methodologically, the study draws on a series of in-depth interviews conducted with a group of young volunteers who saw the photograph when it went viral on Twitter and who had followed the media coverage and participated in on- and offline activities related to the case. To analyse the views of the research participants on the Alan Kurdi case, I draw on feminist theoretical perspectives on affectivity, theoretical literature relating to news images and iconic photography, and online social movement theories. The study shows that the iconic image of Alan Kurdi offered a way of transforming complex and unsettled aspects of the refugee crisis into something concrete and understandable, contributing to galvanize affective resonance and immediate public response among the involved subjects. The infrastructure of social media, enabling the rapid global circulation of the image, contributed to shaping social assemblages to which connective emotions and common meanings were ascribed.     

Philanthropists,Professionals and Feminists: Refugee NGOs and the Empowerment of Syrian Women in Gaziantep,Turkey

The diversification of gender‐based priorities and the necessities of refugees have led refugee NGOs to launch activities specifically for women, or urged women‐only NGOs to take action particularly for refugee women in Turkey. Drawing upon a qualitative research in Gaziantep in Turkey, which host a large population of Syrian refugees, this study seeks to answer the question “How effective are NGOs in empowering Syrian refugee women in Turkey?” It is argued that NGOs working in the provision of assistance to refugees cannot be treated as a homogeneous group in terms of the degree and form of their influences on the empowerment of refugee women, and the individual NGO’s standpoints may shape their effects. Data from interviews with NGO representatives and Syrian women who have received support from NGOs indicate that the NGOs’ perceptions of women’s issues and their contribution to the empowerment of women are closely linked to their type.     

"Active" and "Passive" Resettlement: The Influence of Support Services and Refugees' own Resources on Resettlement Style

This paper explores the process of resettlement among recent refugees in Perth, Western Australia. We propose four refugee resettlement styles created through the interaction of a number of factors. These factors can be clustered as: (1) the social features of refugees (their human, social, and cultural capital), and (2) the host society's responses to refugee settlers (Australia's resettlement policy and services and the broader influence of the host society's responses to refugees). We propose that refugees approach their resettlement in predominantly active (“achievers” and “consumers”) or passive (“endurers” and “victims”) ways and that these are differentially successful strategies. Medicalization of the refugee experience in Australia is a factor that may influence refugees to adopt a passive “victim role”, so we propose that a greater emphasis during early resettlement should be placed on refugees' own culturally defined priorities such as employment and stable housing. The argument developed in this paper is supported by data from two qualitative research projects conducted in Western Australia. The fieldwork consisted of interviews, focus groups, and participant observation, and targeted refugees from the former Yugoslavia and the Horn of Africa who arrived in Australia during the 1990s and 2000s, as well as resettlement service providers.     

Generation,Displacement, and Deservedness among Karen Refugees in California

In this article, we draw on ethnographic interviews with sixteen Karen refugees living in San Diego, California to explore how experiences of exile, displacement, and resettlement differ along generational lines and complicate straightforward dichotomies between “involuntary refugees” and “economic migrants”. While older‐generation Karen experienced political violence and displacement first‐hand, younger‐generation Karen were born in refugee camps in Thailand and usually experienced violence and displacement through its impacts on extended families. Across both generations, Karen exerted agency in exile, displacement, and diaspora. The older generation used stays in refugee camps strategically as a means of economically supporting family members in Burma, while the younger generation view resettlement in the US as a way of achieving educational aspirations. This research points to the importance of generation as a dimension of refugee experience and to the problem of reinforcing victimhood within refugee communities rather than acknowledging refugee agency and resilience.     

Syrian refugee men as objects of humanitarian care

Critical feminist scholars of conflict and displacement have demonstrated that “womenandchildren” (Enloe 1993) have become an uncontroversial object of humanitarian concern in these contexts (Carpenter 2003; Hyndman and Giles 2011). Yet very little scholarly work has attempted to understand the position of refugee men as a demographic within humanitarianism. Through an analysis of the Syria refugee response in Jordan, this article investigates how humanitarian workers relate to refugee men and think about refugee masculinities. It argues that refugee men have an uncertain position as objects of humanitarian care. Seeing refugee men as objects of humanitarian care would disrupt prevailing humanitarian understandings of refugeehood as a feminized subject position and of gender work as work that “helps women” (Cornwall 2007; Johnson 2011). It would furthermore challenge prevailing binary visions of refugee men as agential, political actors, and refugee women as in need of “empowerment” through the implementation of technocratic programming. In the context of the Syria refugee response, these gendered and racialized understandings of refugee men and masculinities are mediated by particular conceptions of “Arabness.” This research is based on ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews with humanitarian workers and Syrian refugees, which was undertaken in Jordan in 2015–2016.     

“We will Manage It” – Did Chancellor Merkel's Dictum Increase or Even Cause the Refugee Movement in 2015?

In public and scientific debates about the dynamics of the so-called refugee crisis of 2015, there are highly controversial positions concerning the statement on August 2015 by Chancellor Merkel: “We will manage it” Did this dictum actually increase or even unleash the refugee migration towards Europe in 2015? Was Germany's governmental policy against the legal European and national frame? Based on an analysis of legal documents and public statements, the article first reconstructs the development of refugee immigration into the EU, especially to Germany, in 2015 and reviews whether the German government violated law and opened one-sided borders. Based on survey data of 4,500 refugees in 2016, it then analyses whether the Merkel dictum significantly changed the volume and the reasons why refugees decided to flee to Germany. Finally, some conclusions are drawn.     

Is the Education of Local Children Influenced by Living near a Refugee Camp? Evidence from Host Communities in Rwanda

This article studies the extent to which educational services and schooling outcomes of local children are influenced by the presence of a refugee camp in or near their community. Investigating Congolese refugees in Rwanda and relying on a mixed‐method approach, we examine schooling rates and access to school‐based feeding programmes in communities closer to and further away from three refugee camps. We conduct cohort analyses to compare the schooling outcomes of Rwandans residing at different distances from each of these camps. Our results highlight that children residing closer to the camps have better schooling outcomes and that locals residing closer to the camps have mostly positive views regarding the effects of refugees on local education. These results contribute to the literature on the effects of refugees on host communities and inform policy debates on how refugees need not be a “burden” if a long‐term vision shapes educational investments.     

Refugee Hospitality in Lebanon and Turkey. On Making ‘The Other’

This paper examines the hospitality provided to Syrian refugees during the refugee crisis spanning from 2011 to 2016 in the border areas of Gaziantep (southeastern Turkey) and the Akkar region (northern Lebanon). Hospitality, apart from a cultural value and societal response to the protracted refugee influx, is a discursive strategy of socio‐spatial control used by humanitarian agencies, local and national authorities. This paper, first, argues against hospitality as an assessment to ethically compare host countries (i.e. more welcoming versus less welcoming states). Second, drawing on Walters’ notion of “humanitarian border”, it shows how the governmental, humanitarian, and everyday workings of hospitality exercise an assertive politics of sovereignty over the social encounter between locals and refugees. We examine the state‐centered hospitality in the Turkish case and a humanitarian‐promoted hospitality in the Lebanese case. We also show how the hospitality discourse shapes the spaces that refugees, citizens, and earlier migrants partake in.     

Motherhood Motivations: African Refugee Women Resettled in Australia and Return Visits to a Country of First Asylum

This article expands on conceptualizations of refugee “return” by examining why African women resettled as refugees in Australia return to visit the country of first asylum from which they were previously resettled. I show that their return visits do not relate to attachment to place, but are motivated by social obligations to practise “motherhood” to family members who, due to conflict‐induced displacement, remain in a country of first asylum. I argue that the phenomenon of refugee “return” cannot be conflated exclusively with return to country of origin but is, for African women in particular, centred on the reinvigoration of care relationships across diasporic settings of asylum in which family remain. Building on an emergent focus on feminization in migration studies, I show how these gendered dynamics of refugee “return” are an entry point from which to re‐consider how scholarship and policy take into account “family” in contexts of forced migration.     

The Impact of GCR on Local Governments and Syrian Refugees in Turkey

In the last couple of years, more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees have been hosted under the “temporary protection” scheme in Turkey. Despite these high numbers Turkey did not have a centralized refugee settlement and integration policy. As a result, various stakeholders including local governments have played critical roles in providing refugee assistance services. This research looks at the role of local governments in delivering services evolving from emergency response to local integration. This article argues that this role with respect to the United Nations’ Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) has to be further strengthened. The data for this research were collected through a comprehensive study based on interviews and surveys carried out in ?stanbul with local authorities, ?stanbul Metropolitan Municipality, and its 39 district municipalities in 2016‐2017. Although this research has its focus on ?stanbul as the selected case study, the findings can reveal conclusions relevant to global implications and perspectives.     

Framing Syrians in Turkey: State Control and No Crisis Discourse

The mass arrival of Syrian refugees and their continuing presence have triggered many new debates regarding migration in Turkey, which – as a result of its open-door policy – now hosts the highest number of refugees in the world. Yet, when we investigate the ways political institutions and actors have framed migration, we observe, unlike in European discourses, the complete absence of the word “crisis”. In public statements by politicians, “control” emerges instead as a recurrent (albeit implicit) theme. Here, management of the refugee issue becomes a sign of state power, exercised through various mechanisms. Through analysis of state discourse on Syrians in the Turkish media, we find that crisis framing has been deliberately avoided, which we contend is a sign of an implicit “silencing” via media control. This choice of discourse reflects a clear policy to manage public reactions to the mass arrival of refugees.     

Navigating a Hostile Terrain: Refugees and Human Rights in Southeast Asia

Countries in Southeast Asia serve as origins, transit routes, and destinations for an increasing number of refugees, asylum seekers, and other people displaced by conflict and persecution. In this article, I consider existing academic literature on refugees and forced migration and situate current trends and processes related to refugees in Southeast Asia within such work. I begin by surveying sociology material on refugees and forced migration processes in general, also drawing from related fields of human geography and interdisciplinary refugee studies. I then review current mixed migration trends and corresponding state responses in the context of globalization and contemporary conflict in Southeast Asia, placing refugee movements within this setting. Finally, using examples from the region, I consider two rough areas of inquiry in need of further sociological exploration – (i) purposive transnational refugee actions and processes and (ii) the dynamic social spaces created and developed out of refugee migration. Human rights implications of these issues are considered throughout, and suggestions to reconsider human rights protection beyond nation‐state‐focused models are given.     

Binding the Generations: Household Formation Patterns among Vietnamese Refugees1

Much of the analysis of refugee and immigrant adaptation has stressed the interaction of prior experience with the requirements of life in a new country. For refugees, that interaction has often been jarring because of the after‐effects of their flight and their relative inability to prepare for a new life in a new country. Yet refugees have often done rather well in economic terms in that new country. The reasons for that relative success have been phrased in cultural terms (e.g., the predisposition toward education) and in general socioeconomic terms (e.g., refugees as educated and skilled). This article examines a set of factors that lie between these customary cultural and socioeconomic categories. Specifically, the paper examines key features of household formation among Vietnamese refugees. An examination of historical data from southern Vietnam indicates patterns in household formation that appear durable over time yet are not shared across the breadth of Vietnam and cannot thus be viewed as “cultural” in the usual sense. A comparison of the historical data with recent national survey data on refugees in the United States indicates that these patterns continue among Vietnamese refugees and are ‐ as compared to other refugees ‐ distinctive to them. These patterns of household formation provide Vietnamese refugees with important options in adaptation to a new country.     

Culture,Structure, and the Refugee Experience in Somali Immigrant Family Transformation

This analysis suggests a theoretical refinement of migrant acculturation theories to deal specifically with refugee acculturation experiences. Using the case of family dynamics among Somali refugees in Minnesota, we find that the same factors that are theorized to affect voluntary migrants are also important for refugees. Specifically, the nature of exit from the sending society, the reception in a new location, and group characteristics all appear to be important. However, within the category of exit from the sending society, there are specific concerns that will be more relevant to refugees than to “voluntary” migrants. Specifically, the ongoing condition of the sending society and the effects of any transitions on transnational ties are critically important in the refugee context. We demonstrate how the societal upheaval that created the Somali refugee community also affected culture and connections within Somalia, and how this has an ongoing impact on the US Somali refugee community. We argue that it is valuable to refine the acculturation framework when considering refugees.     

Failed Securitisation Moves during the 2015 ‘Migration Crisis’

The EU has tried to distinguish itself as respecting human rights in its migration policies. In 2015, mass drownings at sea of refugees from war‐torn and despotic countries like Syria and Eritrea started to rise with the end of Mare Nostrum, the Italian navy's search and rescue operation in the Mediterranean. One EU response was to declare a war on “criminal gangs” of smugglers and traffickers, reportedly responsible for the surge in refugee deaths. Equating smugglers’ activities with a “new slave trade”, this “securitization move” failed to gain legitimacy from EU publics and media. Military solutions to refugee flight continued to be proposed, and a second securitization move continued to target smugglers and traffickers, but this time the “referent object” became the West itself, and the EU.     

A Faithful Alliance Between the Civil Society and the State: Actors and Mechanisms of Accommodating Syrian Refugees in Istanbul

Reception, hospitality and integration are certainly the main challenges of the contemporary world, particularly for countries like Turkey which hosts more than 3 million refugees from Syria. The aim of this article is to analyze the reception practices of civil society organizations and the nature of these bodies’ relationship with state agencies by focusing on Sultanbeyli, a peripheral district of Istanbul. Based on a fieldwork conducted in this district, we present the functioning of various state and non‐state actors in order to uncover not only the role of NGOs, but also the nature of the relations between them and the state in terms of governance of refugee reception in Turkey. We thus argue that the reception of Syrian refugees is undertaken by a “faithful” alliance between the state and certain NGOs, a partnership where civil society assumes a supporting role to the state in refugee reception.     

Refugees and transnationalism on the Thai–Burmese border

The past decade has seen the rapid development of transnationalism research, but transnationalism from below in situations of mass refugee influx has received little attention. However, the case study of Burmese refugees in Thailand clearly demonstrates that those refugees can maintain economic, social, cultural and political links with co‐nationals in all the domains of the refugee diaspora, even if their capabilities are in principle strained. It is argued here that the legal status of the person or diaspora organization concerned, as well as the country of origin and the host country have a larger influence on the type of transnationalism than the label ‘migrant’ or ‘refugee’. The concept of transnationalism should thus be conceived in a more encompassing sense, both geographically, thematically and including all emigrants regardless of their original motivations for migration. The article is based on fieldwork, including over 150 interviews with Burmese refugees and political activists.     

Saving the Savior

This article begins with an autobiographical reflection about what sociology has meant to me as an Iranian intellectual. Sociology has enabled me to think critically about my country's politics and culture, appreciating its strengths without overlooking its unjust and injurious aspects. That experience shapes my answer to the question “Saving Sociology?” If there is anything in sociology that I would like to save–in both senses “to keep” and “to rescue”—it is sociology as a critical, reflective discipline, a discipline that not only studies society but also contributes to its change. As the contemporary world moves toward a “global” society, we are increasingly facing the dilemmas of multiculturalism. Sociologists often investigate other societies or (like myself) look back at their own from a spatial and cultural distance. This situation has created a dilemma for many scholars: Should we criticize problems stemming from “indigenous” beliefs and practices of other societies? Cultural relativism argues that different cultures provide indigenous answers to their social problems that should be judged in their own context. While this approach correctly encourages us to avoid ethnocentrism, it has led to inaction towards the suffering of oppressed groups. Reflecting on the relativist approach to sexual dominance, I question some cultural relativist assumptions. Discussing how “indigenous” responses to male domination in many cases disguise and protect that domination, I will challenge the “localist” approach of relativism and argue for a universalist approach.     

Advancing a sociology of ignorance in the study of racism and racial non‐knowing

By a wealth of indicators, ignorance appears a bona fide if often vexing social fact. Ignorance is socially constructed, negotiated, and pervasive; ignorance is often socially inevitable, even necessary; and, without a doubt, ignorance is socially consequential. Yet, despite its significance, ignorance has appeared a largely secondary concern among sociologists. Perhaps more perplexing, while sociologists of racism, power, and domination have long focused on the ways racial ideologies distort and mystify racial understanding to sustain White supremacy over time, we have done less to elaborate ignorance than is possible and warranted. Here, I join growing calls for a fully‐fledged “sociology of ignorance” and argue that antiracist and decolonial scholars have much to gain from and contribute to such an endeavor. This article traces the historical forebears of a “sociology of ignorance” and explores ignorance as a social concept before turning to examine precedents and increasing attention to ignorance scholarship on racism, racial domination, and racialized non‐knowing. Drawing from this work, I urge race‐critical scholars take advantage of our unique position to advance theory and methodology surrounding ignorance and the social‐cultural production of non‐knowledge as a broader area of social inquiry.