A New PhD Course: Refugee Migration, Communication and Governance

Preceding the 2016 Ørecomm Symposium, it is a joint specialization course within the research areas MUSA (Migration, Urbanisation and Societal Change) and NMOG (New Media, Public Spheres and Forms of Creation).

Contents

The profound and lasting consequences of the so-called refugee crisis that shook Europe in 2015 call for academic analysis as well as humanitarian action. In the last year, Europe has seen the largest mobility of people on its soil since the Second World War.

The course puts the current refugee situation in Europe in global perspective, with focus on media and communication and governance, and specifically humanitarian technologies and communication. What is the nature of the crisis, from the perspective of the refugee migrants? How do they communicate with migration authorities, traffickers, and among themselves? How do they document their own journey? What new channels of information or public spheres are emerging? What are the short and long term political and cultural implications of Europe’s on-going transition?

Learning outcomes

After completing the course, the student will have attained a deep understanding of the European so-called refugee crisis in global perspective, with regard to media, governance and civic participation, and specific focus on humanitarian communication and technologies

Learning activities

The course consists of a joint workshop in conjunction with the Transit Europe symposium, and an individual assignment, to be completed two weeks after the symposium. The workshop, 22 September, 9-15, preceding the symposium, is coordinated by PhD students Erliza López Pedersen (NMOG) and Ioanna Tsoni (MUSA), and includes the keynote speakers Nina Glick Schiller and Mirca Madianou.

Assessment

The course has 3 credits.In addition to active participation in the workshop, students are required to submit an individual reflexive paper, 3000-4000 words, based on the symposium and the course literature. Deadline for submission: 6 October.

Course literature

Bhimji, F. (2016). “Collaborations and Performative Agency in Refugee Theater in Germany”. Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies, 14/1: 83-103. DOI: 10.1080/15562948.2015.1024813

Derrida, J. (2001). On cosmopolitanism and forgiveness [e.-book], [orig. Cosmopolites de tous les pays: encore un effort, 1997]. London: Routledge

Glick Schiller, N. (2012). ”Situating identities: towards an identities studies without binaries of difference”. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power,19/4: 520-532. DOI: 10.1080/1070289X.2012.741525

Glick Schiller, N. & A. Irving (eds.) (2015). Whose cosmopolitanism?: critical perspectives, relationalities and discontents. New York, NY: Berghahn Books

Madianou, M. Longboan, L. and Ong, J. (2015). ”Finding a voice through humanitarian technologies? Communication technologies and participation in disaster recovery”. International Journal of Communication, vol. 9 (1-19)

http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/4142

Madianou, M. (2016) ”Ambient co-presence: transnational family practices in polymedia environments”. Global Networks. vol 16 (2): 183-201. DOI: 10.1111/glob.12105

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/glob.12105/abstract

Madianou, M. (2015) ”Digital inequalities and second-order disasters: social media in the Typhoon Haiyan recovery”. Social Media and Society, vol. 1.

http://sms.sagepub.com/content/1/2/2056305115603386.full

Madianou, M. and Miller, D.  (2012) Migration and New Media: transnational families and polymedia, London: Routledge.

https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415679299

Nikunen, K. (2016). ”Hopes of hospitality: Media, refugee crisis and the politics of a place”. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 19/2: 161-176. DOI: 10.1177/1367877914530314

Povrzanović Frykman, M. (2015). ”From Bounded Cultures to Situated Practices: Exhibiting commonalities, not difference”, in Braun, K., Dietrich, C-M, and A. Treiber (eds.) Materialisierung von Kultur : Diskurse, Dinge, Praktiken. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann

Robins, K. And A. Aksoy (2015). Transnationalism, Migration and the Challenge to Europe : The Enlargement of Meaning (e-book). London: Taylor and Francis

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