(MY)GRATION • Things of Value
Sometimes the best stories about migration start with a telling detail. What are the objects that migrants hold dear?
Listen to a treasured object’s story & follow its trail across the world.
Click on one of the EIGHT PHOTOS below to start your journey
Objects that migrants carry can be large or small, common or uncommon, mass-produced or intensely personal. They can tell of families lost and families found. They can speak of a heritage and an identity. They can be a link to the past as well as a bridge to the future.
Objects, like ideas, can spark connections. Objects, like people, migrate.
This (MY)GRATION Project
This project joins together stories of migration as told through objects. The objects pictured here are a different way to experience a signal story of our time: the story of migration.
Some migrants flee conflict. Other migrants seek opportunity. All carry something with them. The individual objects in this project may call to mind the human suffering behind many refugee stories but others hint of hospitality won through active engagement with others.
Each object tells of journeys made. Taken together they trace a hopeful, humanizing, cross-cultural network of people and places.
To Learn More • The Academic Story
The issue of migration is complex, emotional, complicated.
Most often the decision to migrate is forced upon migrants; they migrate because there is no better choice in the face of difficult or dangerous conditions at home (Song, 2013). We’ve all heard their stories: of desperate refugees fleeing violence in Syria or Afghanistan or Sudan, of workers crossing dangerous borders in the Americas.
Migrants are often met with exclusionary attitudes. Those attitudes reflect the perception of migration by individuals, groups, countries, regions.
Attitudes towards migration have an impact on policy responses. (Canoy et al., 2006, 11). Policy responses from governments can take the form of “tighter border controls, crackdowns on human trafficking, clearer asylum rules, [and] continued emphasis on integration policies and cooperation…” (Canoy et al., 2006, 2). Negative public perception of migration constrains both policy responses as well as coordinated efforts between and among governments. (Canoy et al., 2006).
Protectionist forces engage in fearmongering, often believing in good faith that they must respond to a perceived threat from the ‘other’ (McLaren, 2003). Xenophobic responses can be attributed to the perception that migrants pose a threat to the economic well-being and security of the host country. (McLaren, 2003).
Alexseev, 2003, has argued that xenophobic responses towards ethnic ‘others’ are deep-rooted in perceptions of economic costs. (p. 89–90). If those economic costs are perceived to be high, then perceptions of migration overall will be negative. If a public perceives that migration may improve the economic environment, then xenophobic hostility can decrease. When a public is uncertain as to the economic costs — there is incomplete information, for example—perceptions tend to be negative.
Perceptions, however, are a flawed basis for policymaking. (Canoy et al., 2006, 11–12) A resident in a host country might believe that migration is a net cost to taxpayers because of the services needed by migrants, while in actuality migration taken overall may make a significant net contribution to the economy. (Potocky, 1996). The cost of services needed may be balanced by the migrants’ arrival “relieving labour shortages, increasing labour market efficiency, and acting as catalysts for job creation, innovation and growth.” (Canoy et al., 2006, 3). Observers have noted that countries can only capture these economic benefits when there is “structural and social integration.” (Canoy et al., 2006, 17) That is, migrants in a receiving society must not only be included in the labor market, they must be given legal status and social rights.
Beyond economic concerns, migration raises concerns of national security: concerns that accepting migrants weakens security by exposing the receiving society to risks of terrorism or serious crime. (Sasse, 2005). This misconception fosters exclusionary attitudes, leads to problems of migrant integration, and has the perverse effect of incurring economic costs that the exclusionary attitude was intended to prevent. (Canoy et al., 2006). Despite common perceptions, national security risks have not typically been directly correlated with migration. (Sasse, 2005).
‘Media framing’ too often reinforces migration’s perception as a crisis and a security threat. (Canoy et al., 2006, 16). Migration is more complicated and longer lived than news headlines or reporting constraints. Media narratives of migration issues tend to focus too heavily on security, and fail “to explain how to manage migration in a balanced but constructive way.” (Canoy et al., 2006, 16). What is needed, Canoy et al., 2006, argue, is greater public access to impartial and complete information as well as a de-dramatization of migration coverage in the media. Such steps would help combat exclusionary attitudes formed by misconceptions of costs and risks. (p.16).
Media have the ability to both humanize migration and cover the issue in a nuanced way. They can help shift the migration/refugee narrative away from a fear response triggered by frames of “security threat” or “economic crisis.” For example, our project team discovered many “complex” and “humanizing” media stories of migration through an academic and journalistic literature review.
During that literature review, we discovered a brief article much like our (MY)GRATION story: in March 2015, BBC News posted a multimedia article on the mass migration of refugees from Syria. The BBC illustrated the migrants’ stories with photos of the objects the migrants chose to take with them when they fled. They paired those objects with brief quotes by the owners. The BBC’s article worked to bring the “migration” conversation to a wider and arguably younger audience through an animated video and a call for a public response through social media: “Using the hashtags: #whatwouldyoutake and #SyrianJourney we want you to share your answers with text, images and/or video as part of the BBC Arabic project exploring migration from Syria.” In this multiplicity of ways, the BBC’s article framed migration as a “human” story, rather than solely as a “crisis” story.
We hope our (MY)GRATION project also frames migration in human terms and serves to tell a fuller story of what we all face.
- Alexseev, M. (2003). “Economic Valuations and Interethnic Fears: Perceptions of Chinese Migration in the Russian Far East.” Journal of Peace Research, 40(1), 85–102. Retrieved here.
- Canoy, M., Beutin, R., Horvath, A., Hubert, A., Lerais, F., Smith, P., & Sochacki, M. (2006). Migration and public perception. Bureau of European Policy Advisers (BEPA). European Commission.
- McLaren, M. (2003). “Anti-Immigrant Prejudice in Europe: Contact, Threat Perception, and Preferences for the Exclusion of Migrants.” Social Forces, 81(3), 909–936. Available here.
- Potocky, M. (1996). “Refugee Children: How Are They Faring Economically as Adults?” Social Work, 41(4), 364–373. Retrieved here.
- Sasse, G. (2005). “Securitization or Securing Rights? Exploring the Conceptual Foundations of Policies towards Minorities and Migrants in Europe.” JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 43(4), 673–693. Available here.
- Song, Y. (2013). “International Humanitarianism and Refugee Protection: Consequences of Labeling and Politicization.” Journal of International and Area Studies, 20(2), 1–19. Retrieved here.
- “Syrian Journey: What would you take with you?” (2015, March 31), BBC News. Available here.
See the authors of this production behind the scenes.
This story was created by a team of students at the 2016 Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change. It exists as part of a digital publication which explores how personal stories and human connections can enable us and others to be more inclusive, responsive, and understanding of migrants and the socio-political-cultural impacts of migration.
