On 14 June, hundreds of migrants died after the fishing vessel they were travelling in sank near the Greek town of Pylos. Lilie Chouliaraki and Myria Georgiou argue the tragedy underlines how terms like “migration crisis” obscure the real victims of Europe’s migration policies

Chouliaraki, Lilie

Georgiou, Myria

English

LSE Research Online

Migration – the crisis imaginaryOn 14 June, hundreds of migrants died after the fishing vessel they were travelling insank near the Greek town of Pylos. Lilie Chouliaraki and Myria Georgiou argue thetragedy underlines how terms like “migration crisis” obscure the real victims of Europe’smigration policies. The recent shipwreck in open waters near the Greek town of Pylos, with up to 650migrants feared dead, has reminded us in the most tragic way that Europe’s so-calledmigration crisis is far from over.The budget allocated to Greece in the context of the European Border ManagementFund saw a 203% increase in 2021-2027 compared to the 2014-2020 period. However,in the words of Apostolos Fotiadis, the programme “implicitly rewards its deterrencepolicy”. Indeed, only 0.07% of the 819 million euros in the EU border budget to Greecefor 2021-2027 was earmarked for search and rescue. This gives some indication ofwhere priorities lie.Prior to the recent shipwreck, the faltering fishing trawler, packed with as many as 750women, children and men, was allowed to continue traveling under the claim (by Greekcoast guard officials) that its crew members “turned down offers of assistance”.Evidently, as Catherine Woollard suggests, the priority in border management seems tobe to continue “keeping people out rather than saving lives” in order to avoid yet another“migration crisis” in the Mediterranean.In light of this logic, the common use of the term “migration crisis” should bereconsidered as it is more than a mere act of naming. The word “crisis” here doesimportant ideological work in that it does not simply describe the facts about migrationbut cumulatively advances a whole semantic framework for thinking and talking about it.The crisis imaginaryIn a new book, we call this framework a “crisis imaginary” and argue that it presentsPage 1 of 4Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 07/08/2023migration as a sudden, shocking and unmanageable event that puts “us” in Europeunder pressure. We also note that it nurtures a view of migration as an exclusivelywestern concern, centred around the threatening mobility of non-western people towardsthe global North.In so doing, the crisis imaginary shapes migration as a security emergency, migrants asuncontrollable “waves” that need to be “kept at bay” and western publics as potential“victims” that need to be protected – whether from migrant violence (terrorism or sexualviolence) or from their cultural “otherness”. As we demonstrate through quantitative andqualitative analysis of press and television news content from eight countries, Europeanmedia sustained this imaginary by using strategies of generalisation to narrate migrantsas massive flows of people rather than as individuals with histories of war violence,persecution or poverty.This is what David Shariatmadari calls the “toxic metaphors of the migration debate”,which include, among others, David Cameron’s “swarm of people coming across theMediterranean”, the Daily Mail’s “tidal wave of migrants”, the Daily Express referring to amigration “flood” and, more recently, Suella Braverman’s remarks about an “invasion” of“small boats”.European media have also used strategies of vilification, with migrants and refugeeslargely cast as terrorists and the spread of terrorism viewed as a direct geopoliticalconsequence of the migration “crisis”. This was especially the case following the 2015Paris terrorist attacks when there were allegations that one of the attackers had posedas a Syrian refugee to enter Europe.Even in cases where the media storytelling has thrown a spotlight on the dire realitiesfacing migrants at Europe’s sea borders, such as the “heartbreaking” drowning of Syriantoddler Aylan Kurdi back in 2015 (and plenty of tragic events since), events have oftenbeen narrated through a sentimental lens of pity, portraying the “crisis” as ahumanitarian tragedy that Europe is moved by but can do nothing about.InvisibilitiesThe crisis imaginary is, in this sense, a convenient narrative for western governments,which have used the language of “massive flows” and “terrorism” to distract attentionPage 2 of 4Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 07/08/2023from the real and complex challenges of global migration.First, it helps to obscure the systemic politico-economic conditions that lead to migrationfrom the global South in the first place – conditions that western governments are notonly aware of but actively involved in, such as the long-term conflicts in Syria, Iraq, andAfghanistan and the environmental catastrophe caused by and profiting the global North.Second, it leaves unquestioned long-lasting political disagreements on managingmigrant quotas among EU countries. These disagreements have resulted in growingnumbers of migrants being stacked in countries of arrival, such as Greece and Italy,especially at a time when they were facing strong pressure by the European Commissionand the IMF to make severe budget cuts.Third, the crisis imaginary perpetuates the “young male Muslim-as-terrorist” stereotypeand obstructs a more complex exploration of the causes of terrorism in Europe. Mostperpetrators have been homegrown EU nationals already known to the authorities, asreaffirmed by the profiles of those reported to have carried out the Paris terrorist attacks.Yet, the fear of the “alien” or “invading” “other” serves better the West’s securityagendas, borrowing from and feeding into racist and exclusionary discourses of far-rightpopulism.Legitimising the illegitimateThe racialised imaginary of the migration “crisis” not only renders the failures of EUmigration policies invisible but also serves to legitimatise the grim realities that theyproduce for migrants and refugees. Back in 2015-2020, for instance, Greece becameEurope’s notorious face of the “crisis”.Operating under the pressures of severe austerity and budget cuts while lacking thenecessary support, infrastructure and resources to effectively manage the migrantregistration process, Greece largely operated as “a dumping ground for the men,women, and children that the European Union has failed to protect”. These people werehosted in so-called European “hotspots” and “shelters”, such as the Moria refugee campon the Greek island of Lesbos.Before being set on fire by desperate migrants in September 2020, the Moria camp wasPage 3 of 4Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 07/08/2023effectively a detention centre with overcrowded tents, insufficient toilets, showers,medical care, and food. It was, as Deutsche Welle branded it, a “hell on earth” wheremigrants did not live but barely survived.Under the grip of the crisis imaginary, such detention centres appear completelylegitimate. They have largely remained hidden from public view, beyond the reach ofpolitical discourse and news coverage. They are invisible “death-worlds” existingalongside “our’ everyday realities as a price worth paying for “our” security. This is alsotrue of the ongoing pushbacks of migrant vessels at Europe’s sea borders, which costhundreds of lives each year – only the worst of which are reported in the news, if at all.According to the International Organisation for Migration, since 2014, 27,629 peoplehave died in the Mediterranean while travelling to Europe. Alongside these deaths in theMediterranean, brave investigative reporting about the horrendous conditions underwhich migrants today live in the UK, France and elsewhere reminds us that the crisisimaginary is just as much about revealing and legitimising migration as a threat as it isabout hiding the human rights violations of migrants and refugees that Europeancountries perform.The imaginary of migration as a crisis presents a Eurocentric and xenophobic perceptionof transnational mobility as a problem for the West while obfuscating the real victims:those migrants and refugees who flee war, persecution, poverty and climate change,risking their lives to reach supposedly safe but ultimately cruel and harmful destinations.The crisis imaginary effectively reserves mobility, a constitutive condition of the modernworld, as a right only of the global North, recognising western citizens alone aslegitimate cross-border travellers while treating all others as alien threats that need to bedeterred, detained or left to die.For more information, see the authors’ latest book, The Digital Border: Migration,Technology, Power (New York University Press, 2022)Note: This article gives the views of the authors, not the position of EUROPP – EuropeanPolitics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: NetfallsRemy Musser/Shutterstock.comPage 4 of 4Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 07/08/2023

Migration - the crisis imaginary

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Migration - the crisis imaginary

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