Aware Migrants: The role of information campaigns in the management of migration

an article Pierluigi Musarò (University of Bologna, Italy) published in European Journal of Communication Volume 34 Issue 6 (December 2019)

Abstract

Taking as a starting point studies on the biopolitics of bordering, as well as media studies, this article explores how information campaigns deter potential migrants and refugees from leaving their countries depict them in very specific ways, operating as ‘new bordering practices’ that are in conjunction with extraterritorial border policies.

This article probes this question through the example of a specific information campaign – Aware Migrants (2016) – funded by the Italian Government and managed by International Organization for Migration (IOM) to dissuade potential newcomers from attempting the journey across the Mediterranean Sea.

As the analysis of Aware Migrants makes clear, it contributes to normalising a transnational imaginary into a militarised borderscape comprising places of violence and death, exploitation and detention, which is part of the complex dichotomies of care and control, proper of contemporary border regimes.

Finally, the article sheds light on how these symbolic bordering practices contribute to nurturing a ‘compassionate repression’ that increasingly and silently legitimises the difference between the ‘us’ (the figure of the citizen) and the ‘them’ (the figure of the foreigner).

Full text (PDF 12pp)

Labels:
Aware_Migrants, border_regime, bordering_practices, information_campaigns, migration,

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