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transcended political and religious propensities ( Gorin, 2014 ). 18 Refugees themselves were seen as too politically tarnished, carrying with them the complicated baggage of (former and future) nationalities, and of political and economic necessities that could translate into claims of rights and entitlements for displaced people. While the European child emerged as a universal humanitarian subject and the object in the construction of an American humanitarian identity, the figure of the American child further displaced the European refugees from view. In the same May
groups (see UNHCR, 2020 ). The simplistic imaginaries of governance actors have shaped the creation of digital interventions that do not reflect refugees’ actual adoption of technology ( Alencar and Godin, 2022 ). These disconnects became visible during the so-called ‘European refugee crisis’ in 2015 and beyond with the proliferation of digital initiatives – such as hackathons, tech-company supported apps, and platforms developed by activists, aid
third-world woman’ is depicted as leading ‘an essentially truncated life’ involving being ‘sexually constrained’, ‘tradition-bound’ and ‘domesticated’ (65). Such narrow assumptions are part of what Jennifer Fluri (2012) suggests is an interest in the ‘dark side’ of people’s experiences (45). For example, in the context of the so-called ‘European Refugee Crisis’, UN Women (2015a) describes the ‘general profile’ of women refugees
This book talks about the mass displacement of civilians, estimated to be 14 to 15 million, in the twentieth-century Europe during the First World War. It looks at the causes and consequences of the refugee crisis and its aftermath, and the attempts to understand its significance. Key sites of displacement extended from Belgium to Armenia, taking in France, Italy, Austria-Hungary, East Prussia, the Russian Empire, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey and Serbia. The German army's occupation of Belgium, France, Poland and Lithuania prompted the mass flight of refugees, as did Russia's invasion of East Prussia in 1914. Jewish, Ruthenian and Polish civilians in the Habsburg Empire fled their homes or were deported by the military to distant locations. Following Italy's attack on Austria-Hungary in May 1915, the Habsburg authorities ordered around 100,000 Slovenian subjects of the empire to leave. The Austrian and Bulgarian invasion of Serbia brought about a humanitarian catastrophe as civilians and the remnants of the Serbian army sought safety elsewhere. However, mass flight of civilian refugees did not begin in 1914 nor did it come to an end in 1918. Muslim refugees fled to the relative safety of Anatolia in order to escape violent persecution by Bulgarian and other forces during the Balkan Wars on 1912-13. There were complex movements of population between Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey before 1914. The complex process of repatriation and resettlement affected soldiers and civilians alike and rarely took place in stable or peaceful circumstances.
and W. Davies ( 2017 ), Go Home? The Politics of Immigration Controversies ( Manchester : Manchester University Press ). Kingsley , P. ( 2016 ), The New Odyssey: The Story of Europe's Refugee Crisis ( London : Guardian Faber Publishing ). Lewis , H. , P
The book explores how we understand global conflicts as they relate to the ‘European refugee crisis’, and draws on a range of empirical fieldwork carried out in the UK and Italy. It examines how global conflict has been constructed in both countries through media representations – in a climate of changing media habits, widespread mistrust, and fake news. In so doing, it examines the role played by historical amnesia about legacies of imperialism – and how this leads to a disavowal of responsibility for the reasons people flee their countries. The book explores how this understanding in turn shapes institutional and popular responses in receiving countries, ranging from hostility – such as the framing of refugees by politicians, as 'economic migrants' who are abusing the asylum system – to solidarity initiatives. Based on interviews and workshops with refugees in both countries, the book develops the concept of ‘migrantification’ – in which people are made into migrants by the state, the media and members of society. In challenging the conventional expectation for immigrants to tell stories about their migration journey, the book explores experiences of discrimination as well as acts of resistance. It argues that listening to those on the sharpest end of the immigration system can provide much-needed perspective on global conflicts and inequalities, which challenges common Eurocentric misconceptions. Interludes, interspersed between chapters, explore these issues in other ways through songs, jokes and images.
Music Box not only points to the regrettable fact that some of the European refugees admitted after the Second World War were among the ‘willing executioners’ of national socialism’s plan to remake the culture of the continent. It also provides the only cinematic treatment of the murder by Hungarian fascists who belong to the notorious Arrow Cross movement, of Budapest’s Jews – an episode of the Holocaust that had, before the release of this film, largely slipped from view. This chapter offers an in-depth discussion of the various historical events that are treated in the film and also formed the context of its reception. This is the ‘work’ of memorialization and illumination that Costa-Gavras intended his films to inspire.
The chapter explores citizen initiatives in response to the ‘European refugee crisis’, based on online ethnography of Facebook groups and crowdfunders in the UK and Italy. Social media plays a central role in these initiatives. It is used by refugees to organise the journey (often in unsafe and clandestine conditions). Social media is also used by solidarity groups to organise donations, hosting, medical help and other forms of mutual aid, in the face of xenophobic public attitudes and state hostility – and in Italy, the criminalisation of solidarity. However, there are questions to be asked about the implications of using social media platforms which are the property of Silicon Valley tech giants, and are not publicly accountable. The chapter ends with an exploration of anti-refugee groups in both countries, and their use of social media platforms to spread hate and circulate conspiracy theories.
Given the significant similarities and differences between the welfare states of Northern Europe and their reactions to the perceived 'refugee crisis' of 2015, the book focuses primarily on the three main cases of Denmark, Sweden and Germany. Placed in a wider Northern European context – and illustrated by those chapters that also discuss refugee experiences in Norway and the UK – the Danish, Swedish and German cases are the largest case studies of this edited volume. Thus, the book contributes to debates on the governance of non-citizens and the meaning of displacement, mobility and seeking asylum by providing interdisciplinary analyses of a largely overlooked region of the world, with two specific aims. First, we scrutinize the construction of the 2015 crisis as a response to the large influx of refugees, paying particular attention to the disciplinary discourses and bureaucratic structures that are associated with it. Second, we investigate refugees’ encounters with these bureaucratic structures and consider how these encounters shape hopes for building a new life after displacement. This allows us to show that the mobility of specific segments of the world’s population continues to be seen as a threat and a risk that has to be governed and controlled. Focusing on the Northern European context, our volume interrogates emerging policies and discourses as well as the lived experiences of bureaucratization from the perspective of individuals who find themselves the very objects of bureaucracies.
Does European integration contribute to, or even accelerate, the erosion of intra-party democracy? This book is about improving our understanding of political parties as democratic organisations in the context of multi-level governance. It analyses the impact of European Union (EU) membership on power dynamics, focusing on the British Labour Party, the French Socialist Party (PS), and the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). The purpose of this book is to investigate who within the three parties determines EU policies and selects EU specialists, such as the candidates for European parliamentary elections and EU spokespersons.
The book utilises a principal-agent framework to investigate the delegation of power inside the three parties across multiple levels and faces. It draws on over 65 original interviews with EU experts from the three national parties and the Party of European Socialists (PES) and an e-mail questionnaire. This book reveals that European policy has largely remained in the hands of the party leadership. Its findings suggest that the party grassroots are interested in EU affairs, but that interest rarely translates into influence, as information asymmetry between the grassroots and the party leadership makes it very difficult for local activists to scrutinise elected politicians and to come up with their own policy proposals. As regards the selection of EU specialists, such as candidates for the European parliamentary elections, this book highlights that the parties’ processes are highly political, often informal, and in some cases, undemocratic.