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REIMAGINING THE REFUGEE IMAGE: ALTERNATIVE REFUGEE APPEARANCES ON INSTAGRAM

Year 2022, , 585 - 612, 31.12.2022
https://doi.org/10.17572/mj2022.2.585-612

Abstract

Dominant representation regime has been presenting refugees as a “universal subject”, and refugeeness as an experience characterized by poverty, victimization and neediness. However, recent qualitative studies focusing on refugee experience have revealed that forced migration is not experienced homogenously, as mass media and international migration regime try to present it, but the experience varies depending on the social, political, economic and cultural conditions in which migration takes place. Similarly, media does not always present refugees as passive victims, fleeing violence and persecution; but sometimes as political subjects, for example as happened in the aftermath of the Second World War. Drawing on the idea that the Internet offers marginalised groups a space to reframe the narratives around their experiences, this study analyses the refugee images produced and shared on Instagram by people with forced migration experience. Research focuses on whether visual narratives produced based on lived experience offer an opportunity to subvert or erode the dominant cliches. Results suggest that although the alternative refugee images produced by refugees on Instagram are still limited in number, these posts make different aspects of the refugee experience visible and provide an optimistic framework for positive change in the long run.

References

  • Alhayek, K. (2014). Double marginalization: The invisibility of Syrian refugee women's perspectives in mainstream online activism and global media. Feminist Media Studies, 14(4): 696-700.
  • Andén-Papadopoulos, K., & Pantti, M. (2013). The media work of Syrian diaspora activists: Brokering between the protest and mainstream media. International Journal of Communication, 7, 22.
  • Bal, M. (2003). Visual essentialism and the object of visual culture. Journal of visual culture, 2(1):5-32.
  • Bauman, Z. (2002). Reconnaissance wars of the planetary frontierland. Theory, Culture & Society, 19(4):81-90.
  • Bernal, V. (2005). Eritrea on‐line: Diaspora, cyberspace, and the public sphere. American Ethnologist, 32(4):660-675.
  • Bianco, R. And M. Ortiz-Cobo (2020). “The Identıty Representatıons In The Facebook Profıles Of Refugees In The Italıan Context.” Index Comunicacion 10(1):13-42.
  • Birleşmiş Milletler (1951). BM Mültecilerin Durumuna dair Sözleşme. (Online Kaynak) https://www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10. Erişim tarihi: Ocak 2022.
  • Bleiker, R., Campbell, D., Hutchison, E., & Nicholson, X. (2013). The visual dehumanisation of refugees. Australian Journal of Political Science, 48(4):398-416.
  • Boellstorff, T. (2015). Coming of age in Second Life. Princeton University Press.
  • Budge, K., & Burness, A. (2018). Museum objects and Instagram: agency and communication in digital engagement. Continuum, 32(2):137-150.
  • Butler, J., “Bodies and Power Revisited”, Taylor, D. and Vintges, K. (eds.), Feminism and the Final Foucault, içinde s 183-194, University of Illinois Press: 2007.
  • Carson, F., & Pajaczkowska, C. (2000). Feminist visual culture. Edinburgh University Press.
  • Coddington, K. (2021). The everyday erosion of refugee claims: Representations of the Rohingya in Thailand. Social & Cultural Geography, 1-18.
  • Coleman EG. 2010. Ethnographic approaches to digital media. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 39:487–505
  • De Certeau, M. (2004). Making do”: uses and tactics. Practicing history: New directions in historical writing after the linguistic turn, 213-223.
  • Doná, G. (2015). Making homes in limbo: Embodied virtual “homes” in prolonged conditions of displacement. Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees, 31(1):67-73.
  • Foucault, M. (1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language. Translated from the French by A. M. Sheridan Smith. Pantheon Books, New York.
  • Foucault, Michel (1975) The Birth of the Clinic, trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Vintage Books.
  • Foucault, M. (1976). “Two Lectures” and “Truth and Power”, In: Colin Gordon (ed.), Power/Knowledge – Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, Pantheon Books, New York.
  • Ginsburg F. 2012. Disability in the Digital Age. In Digital Anthropology, ed. D Miller, H Horst, pp. 101–26. London: Berg. Godin, M., & Doná, G. (2016). “Refugee voices,” new social media and politics of representation: young Congolese in the diaspora and beyond. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 32(1), 60-71.
  • Goktuna-Yaylaci, F. And M. C. Carpar (2019). “The Invisible Actors of Forced Migration: Male Refugees in The Context of Representation and Gender.” Journal of Economy Culture and Society (60):61-85.
  • Hall, S. (2017). “Temsil: Kültürel Temsiller ve Anlamlandırma Uygulamaları” İstanbul: Pinhan Yayınclılık.
  • Haraway, D. (1991) “Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature.” London: Free Association Books.
  • Høeg, E., & Tulloch, C. D. (2019). Sinking strangers: Media representations of climate refugees on the BBC and Al Jazeera. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 43(3):225-248.
  • Horst, C. (2006). In “virtual dialogue” with the Somali community: The value of electronic media for research amongst refugee diasporas. Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees, 23(1):51-57.
  • Isin, E., & Ruppert, E. (2020). Being digital citizens. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
  • Jay, M. (1988). The rise of hermeneutics and the crisis of ocularcentrism. Poetics Today, 9(2):307-326.
  • Jenks, C. (Ed.). (2002). Visual culture. Routledge.
  • Kimmelman, M., 2001. Photography Review; Can Suffering Be Too Beautiful?. New York Times, [online] pp.1-4. Erişim linki: https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/13/arts/photography-review-can-suffering-be-too-beautiful.html (Erişim tarihi: Ocak 2022).
  • Kotilainen, N. And S. Pellander (2021) “(Not) Looking Like A Refugee Symbolic Borders of Habitus in Media Representations of Refugees.” Media History.
  • Krasmann, S. (2017). Imagining Foucault. On the digital subject and “visual citizenship”. Foucault Studies, 10-26.
  • Limbu, B. (2009). “Illegible Humanity: The Refugee, Human Rights, and the Question of Representation.” Journal of Refugee Studies 22(3):257-282.
  • Malkki, L. H. (1996). Speechless emissaries: Refugees, humanitarianism, and dehistoricization. Cultural anthropology, 11(3):377-404.
  • Mannik, L. (2012). Public and private photographs of refugees: The problem of representation. Visual Studies, 27(3):262-276.
  • Mahtani, M., & Mountz, A. (2002). Research on Immigration and Integration in the Metropolis. (Online Kaynak):https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alison-Mountz/publication/237325034_Immigration_to_British_Columbia_Media_Representation_and_Public_Opinion1/links/00463531ddcc230516000000/Immigration-to-British-Columbia-Media-Representation-and-Public-Opinion1.pdf (Erişim tarihi: Aralık 2021)
  • Mitchell, W. T. (1995). Picture theory: Essays on verbal and visual representation. University of Chicago Press.
  • Mulvey, L. (1975). “Narrative Cinema”. Screen, 16(3):6-18.
  • Ploem, R. (2016). “Gender bias in humanitarian aid – what about the men?” MT Bulletin of NVTG, 3, 22–23.
  • Pruitt, L. J. (2019). “Closed due to ‘flooding’? UK media representations of refugees and migrants in 2015-2016-creating a crisis of borders.” British Journal of Politics & International Relations 21(2):383-402.
  • Pugh, M. (2004). Drowning not waving: Boat people and humanitarianism at sea. Journal of Refugee Studies, 17(1):50-69.
  • Pupavac, V. (2008). Refugee advocacy, traumatic representations and political disenchantment. Government and opposition, 43(2):270-292.
  • Rajaram, P. K. (2002). Humanitarianism and Representations of the Refugee. Journal of refugee studies, 15(3):247-264.
  • Rettberg, J. (2014). Seeing ourselves through technology: How we use selfies, blogs and wearable devices to see and shape ourselves. Springer Nature.
  • Rettberg, J. W., & Gajjala, R. (2016). Terrorists or cowards: negative portrayals of male Syrian refugees in social media. Feminist Media Studies, 16(1):178-181.
  • Riessman, C. K. (2008). Narrative methods for the human sciences. Sage.
  • Risam, R. (2018). Now you see them: Self-representation and the refugee selfie. Popular Communication, 16(1):58-71.
  • Rose, G. (2002). Visual methodologies: An introduction to researching with visual materials. sage.
  • Russell, M. M. (1991). Race and the dominant gaze: Narratives of law and inequality in popular film. Legal Stud. F., 15, 243.
  • Säävälä, M. (2010). Forced migrants, active mothers or desired wives: migratory motivation and self-representation in Kosovo Albanian and Russian Women's biographies. Journal of ethnic and migration studies, 36(7):1139-1155.
  • Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. Vintage.
  • Scherschel, K. (2011). Who is a refugee? Reflections on social classifications and individual consequences. Migration Letters, 8(1):67-76.
  • Sewell Jr, W. H. (1992). A theory of structure: Duality, agency, and transformation. American journal of sociology, 98(1):1-29.
  • Sontag, S. (2004). Başkalarının Acısına Bakmak, Çev. Akınhay. İstanbul: Agora Kitaplığı.
  • Sontag, S. (2008). Fotoğraf üzerine. Agora Kitaplığı.
  • Szczepanik, M. (2016). The 'Good' and 'Bad' Refugees? Imagined Refugeehood (s) in the Media Coverage of the Migration Crisis. Journal of Identity & Migration Studies, 10(2).
  • Szörényi, A. (2006). The images speak for themselves? Reading refugee coffee‐table books. Visual studies, 21(01):24-41.
  • Willson, M. A. (2012). Being-together: Thinking through technologically mediated sociality and community. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 9(3):279-297.
  • Witteborn, S. (2015). Becoming (im) perceptible: Forced migrants and virtual practice. Journal of Refugee Studies, 28(3):350-367.
  • Wright, T. (2002). Moving images: The media representation of refugees. Visual studies, 17(1):53-66.
  • Yalouri, E. (2019). ‘Difficult’representations. Visual art engaging with the refugee crisis. Visual Studies, 34(3):223-238.
  • Yeung, J. and C. Lenette (2018). "Stranded at Sea: Photographic Representations of the Rohingya in the 2015 Bay of Bengal Crisis." Qualitative Report 23(6):1301-1312.
  • Zucker, N. L., & Zucker, N. F. (1996). Desperate crossings: Seeking refuge in America. ME Sharpe.

MÜLTECİ İMGESİNİ YENİDEN TAHAYYÜL ETMEK: INSTAGRAM’DA ALTERNATİF MÜLTECİ GÖRÜNÜMLERİ

Year 2022, , 585 - 612, 31.12.2022
https://doi.org/10.17572/mj2022.2.585-612

Abstract

Egemen temsil rejimi, mülteciyi “evrensel bir özne”; mülteciliği ise yoksulluk, mağduriyet ve muhtaçlığın karakterize ettiği bir deneyim olarak sunagelmiştir. Ancak çalışmalar, zorunlu göçün kitlesel medya ve uluslararası göç rejiminin sunmaya çalıştığı gibi homojen bir deneyim olmadığını; aksine sosyal, politik, ekonomik ve kültürel koşullara göre değişiklik gösterdiğini ortaya koymuştur. Benzer biçimde medya, mültecileri her zaman şiddet ve zulümden kaçan pasif kurbanlar olarak değil; örneğin İkinci Dünya Savaşı sonrasında olduğu gibi politik özneler olarak temsil etmiştir. Bu araştırma, internet ortamının marjinalleştirilen gruplar için kendi deneyimlerine dair anlatıları yeniden çerçeveleme imkânı sunduğu argümanına dayanarak Instagram’da zorunlu göç deneyimi olan kişilerce üretilen ve paylaşılan mülteci imgelerini analiz etmektedir. Aynı zamanda bu araştırma, yaşanmış deneyime dayalı bu görsel anlatıların klişe imgeleri tersine çevirmekte sunduğu olanaklara odaklanmaktadır. Analiz, Instagram’da mülteciler tarafından üretilen alternatif mülteci imgelerinin, hâlen sayıca sınırlı olsa da, paylaşımların mültecilik deneyiminin farklı yönlerini görünür kılarak uzun vadede pozitif bir değişim için iyimser bir çerçeve sunduğunu göstermektedir.

References

  • Alhayek, K. (2014). Double marginalization: The invisibility of Syrian refugee women's perspectives in mainstream online activism and global media. Feminist Media Studies, 14(4): 696-700.
  • Andén-Papadopoulos, K., & Pantti, M. (2013). The media work of Syrian diaspora activists: Brokering between the protest and mainstream media. International Journal of Communication, 7, 22.
  • Bal, M. (2003). Visual essentialism and the object of visual culture. Journal of visual culture, 2(1):5-32.
  • Bauman, Z. (2002). Reconnaissance wars of the planetary frontierland. Theory, Culture & Society, 19(4):81-90.
  • Bernal, V. (2005). Eritrea on‐line: Diaspora, cyberspace, and the public sphere. American Ethnologist, 32(4):660-675.
  • Bianco, R. And M. Ortiz-Cobo (2020). “The Identıty Representatıons In The Facebook Profıles Of Refugees In The Italıan Context.” Index Comunicacion 10(1):13-42.
  • Birleşmiş Milletler (1951). BM Mültecilerin Durumuna dair Sözleşme. (Online Kaynak) https://www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10. Erişim tarihi: Ocak 2022.
  • Bleiker, R., Campbell, D., Hutchison, E., & Nicholson, X. (2013). The visual dehumanisation of refugees. Australian Journal of Political Science, 48(4):398-416.
  • Boellstorff, T. (2015). Coming of age in Second Life. Princeton University Press.
  • Budge, K., & Burness, A. (2018). Museum objects and Instagram: agency and communication in digital engagement. Continuum, 32(2):137-150.
  • Butler, J., “Bodies and Power Revisited”, Taylor, D. and Vintges, K. (eds.), Feminism and the Final Foucault, içinde s 183-194, University of Illinois Press: 2007.
  • Carson, F., & Pajaczkowska, C. (2000). Feminist visual culture. Edinburgh University Press.
  • Coddington, K. (2021). The everyday erosion of refugee claims: Representations of the Rohingya in Thailand. Social & Cultural Geography, 1-18.
  • Coleman EG. 2010. Ethnographic approaches to digital media. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 39:487–505
  • De Certeau, M. (2004). Making do”: uses and tactics. Practicing history: New directions in historical writing after the linguistic turn, 213-223.
  • Doná, G. (2015). Making homes in limbo: Embodied virtual “homes” in prolonged conditions of displacement. Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees, 31(1):67-73.
  • Foucault, M. (1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language. Translated from the French by A. M. Sheridan Smith. Pantheon Books, New York.
  • Foucault, Michel (1975) The Birth of the Clinic, trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Vintage Books.
  • Foucault, M. (1976). “Two Lectures” and “Truth and Power”, In: Colin Gordon (ed.), Power/Knowledge – Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, Pantheon Books, New York.
  • Ginsburg F. 2012. Disability in the Digital Age. In Digital Anthropology, ed. D Miller, H Horst, pp. 101–26. London: Berg. Godin, M., & Doná, G. (2016). “Refugee voices,” new social media and politics of representation: young Congolese in the diaspora and beyond. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 32(1), 60-71.
  • Goktuna-Yaylaci, F. And M. C. Carpar (2019). “The Invisible Actors of Forced Migration: Male Refugees in The Context of Representation and Gender.” Journal of Economy Culture and Society (60):61-85.
  • Hall, S. (2017). “Temsil: Kültürel Temsiller ve Anlamlandırma Uygulamaları” İstanbul: Pinhan Yayınclılık.
  • Haraway, D. (1991) “Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature.” London: Free Association Books.
  • Høeg, E., & Tulloch, C. D. (2019). Sinking strangers: Media representations of climate refugees on the BBC and Al Jazeera. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 43(3):225-248.
  • Horst, C. (2006). In “virtual dialogue” with the Somali community: The value of electronic media for research amongst refugee diasporas. Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees, 23(1):51-57.
  • Isin, E., & Ruppert, E. (2020). Being digital citizens. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
  • Jay, M. (1988). The rise of hermeneutics and the crisis of ocularcentrism. Poetics Today, 9(2):307-326.
  • Jenks, C. (Ed.). (2002). Visual culture. Routledge.
  • Kimmelman, M., 2001. Photography Review; Can Suffering Be Too Beautiful?. New York Times, [online] pp.1-4. Erişim linki: https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/13/arts/photography-review-can-suffering-be-too-beautiful.html (Erişim tarihi: Ocak 2022).
  • Kotilainen, N. And S. Pellander (2021) “(Not) Looking Like A Refugee Symbolic Borders of Habitus in Media Representations of Refugees.” Media History.
  • Krasmann, S. (2017). Imagining Foucault. On the digital subject and “visual citizenship”. Foucault Studies, 10-26.
  • Limbu, B. (2009). “Illegible Humanity: The Refugee, Human Rights, and the Question of Representation.” Journal of Refugee Studies 22(3):257-282.
  • Malkki, L. H. (1996). Speechless emissaries: Refugees, humanitarianism, and dehistoricization. Cultural anthropology, 11(3):377-404.
  • Mannik, L. (2012). Public and private photographs of refugees: The problem of representation. Visual Studies, 27(3):262-276.
  • Mahtani, M., & Mountz, A. (2002). Research on Immigration and Integration in the Metropolis. (Online Kaynak):https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alison-Mountz/publication/237325034_Immigration_to_British_Columbia_Media_Representation_and_Public_Opinion1/links/00463531ddcc230516000000/Immigration-to-British-Columbia-Media-Representation-and-Public-Opinion1.pdf (Erişim tarihi: Aralık 2021)
  • Mitchell, W. T. (1995). Picture theory: Essays on verbal and visual representation. University of Chicago Press.
  • Mulvey, L. (1975). “Narrative Cinema”. Screen, 16(3):6-18.
  • Ploem, R. (2016). “Gender bias in humanitarian aid – what about the men?” MT Bulletin of NVTG, 3, 22–23.
  • Pruitt, L. J. (2019). “Closed due to ‘flooding’? UK media representations of refugees and migrants in 2015-2016-creating a crisis of borders.” British Journal of Politics & International Relations 21(2):383-402.
  • Pugh, M. (2004). Drowning not waving: Boat people and humanitarianism at sea. Journal of Refugee Studies, 17(1):50-69.
  • Pupavac, V. (2008). Refugee advocacy, traumatic representations and political disenchantment. Government and opposition, 43(2):270-292.
  • Rajaram, P. K. (2002). Humanitarianism and Representations of the Refugee. Journal of refugee studies, 15(3):247-264.
  • Rettberg, J. (2014). Seeing ourselves through technology: How we use selfies, blogs and wearable devices to see and shape ourselves. Springer Nature.
  • Rettberg, J. W., & Gajjala, R. (2016). Terrorists or cowards: negative portrayals of male Syrian refugees in social media. Feminist Media Studies, 16(1):178-181.
  • Riessman, C. K. (2008). Narrative methods for the human sciences. Sage.
  • Risam, R. (2018). Now you see them: Self-representation and the refugee selfie. Popular Communication, 16(1):58-71.
  • Rose, G. (2002). Visual methodologies: An introduction to researching with visual materials. sage.
  • Russell, M. M. (1991). Race and the dominant gaze: Narratives of law and inequality in popular film. Legal Stud. F., 15, 243.
  • Säävälä, M. (2010). Forced migrants, active mothers or desired wives: migratory motivation and self-representation in Kosovo Albanian and Russian Women's biographies. Journal of ethnic and migration studies, 36(7):1139-1155.
  • Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. Vintage.
  • Scherschel, K. (2011). Who is a refugee? Reflections on social classifications and individual consequences. Migration Letters, 8(1):67-76.
  • Sewell Jr, W. H. (1992). A theory of structure: Duality, agency, and transformation. American journal of sociology, 98(1):1-29.
  • Sontag, S. (2004). Başkalarının Acısına Bakmak, Çev. Akınhay. İstanbul: Agora Kitaplığı.
  • Sontag, S. (2008). Fotoğraf üzerine. Agora Kitaplığı.
  • Szczepanik, M. (2016). The 'Good' and 'Bad' Refugees? Imagined Refugeehood (s) in the Media Coverage of the Migration Crisis. Journal of Identity & Migration Studies, 10(2).
  • Szörényi, A. (2006). The images speak for themselves? Reading refugee coffee‐table books. Visual studies, 21(01):24-41.
  • Willson, M. A. (2012). Being-together: Thinking through technologically mediated sociality and community. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 9(3):279-297.
  • Witteborn, S. (2015). Becoming (im) perceptible: Forced migrants and virtual practice. Journal of Refugee Studies, 28(3):350-367.
  • Wright, T. (2002). Moving images: The media representation of refugees. Visual studies, 17(1):53-66.
  • Yalouri, E. (2019). ‘Difficult’representations. Visual art engaging with the refugee crisis. Visual Studies, 34(3):223-238.
  • Yeung, J. and C. Lenette (2018). "Stranded at Sea: Photographic Representations of the Rohingya in the 2015 Bay of Bengal Crisis." Qualitative Report 23(6):1301-1312.
  • Zucker, N. L., & Zucker, N. F. (1996). Desperate crossings: Seeking refuge in America. ME Sharpe.
There are 62 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language Turkish
Subjects Communication and Media Studies
Journal Section Articles
Authors

Merve Alçayır 0000-0002-2833-127X

Publication Date December 31, 2022
Submission Date March 10, 2022
Acceptance Date September 7, 2022
Published in Issue Year 2022

Cite

APA Alçayır, M. (2022). MÜLTECİ İMGESİNİ YENİDEN TAHAYYÜL ETMEK: INSTAGRAM’DA ALTERNATİF MÜLTECİ GÖRÜNÜMLERİ. Moment Dergi, 9(2), 585-612. https://doi.org/10.17572/mj2022.2.585-612