Overview
- Highlights the increasingly crucial role of technologies as agents of empowerment and social change
- Proposes a balanced account of what digital humanitarianism means in a context of crisis
- Reflects on both opportunities and challenges brought by technologies
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About this book
This book looks at how Europe’s refugee crisis has provoked different political and humanitarian responses, all similarly driven by technology. The author first explores the transformation of Europe into an increasingly militarised space, where technologies are mainly used to exercise surveillance and to distinguish between citizens and unwanted migrants. She then shifts the attention to refugees’ practices of connectivity by looking at how technologies are used by refugees to communicate, perform and resist their exile. Finally, the book examines the opportunities and challenges that characterise the impact of digital social innovation in humanitarian settings. By focusing on how technologies are used to promote solidarity in crisis contexts, the volume provides an original contribution to studying the role of tech for good activism within the space of Fortress Europe. Based on interviews with refugees, digital humanitarians and social entrepreneurs, the book timely questions what Europe means today, and why dialogue is now more important than ever.
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Keywords
Table of contents (6 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
“Sara Marino’s book is a must-read in the post-pandemic era, which has abruptly and radically changed border regimes, asylum and migration management. The book offers a fascinating and novel reading of the praxis of solidarity in the form of digital humanitarianism, pertinent in the age of dissensus and polarization following the so-called ‘refugee and migration crisis’ in Europe. Avoiding techno-optimism, the book offers a theoretically robust and empirically comprehensive account of the relationship between technologies, mobilities and borders. Whilst technologies cannot resolve ‘refugee crises’ or erase authoritarian borders, the agency and conscious praxis utilizing digitalities of these technologies produces spaces of resistance and counter-narrations to sovereign, disciplinary and bio-political powers. Moreover, the book paves the way for the vital debates about the world to come, free from racialized boundaries and oppressive border regimes in Europe and beyond.”
-Nicos Trimikliniotis, Professor of Sociology and Director of Centre for Fundamental Rights, University of Nicosia, Cyprus)
-Nicos Trimikliniotis, Professor of Sociology and Director of Centre for Fundamental Rights, University of Nicosia, Cyprus)
“Mediating the ‘refuge crisis’ is a well-researched book that reveals how the border is constituted as a performative and intensely mediated space that regulates transnational mobility but also Europe as a hierarchical political, ethical and communicative project. Marino’s sophisticated account shows how communication technologies become core to migration governance in Europe, but also how vital they are for migrants to contest and resist its repressive power”
-Myria Georgiou, Professor, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science
"Dr. Marino’s pioneering book breaks a new ground in understanding more collective processes and the power dynamics involved in the appropriation of digital technologies in the context of the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe. It provides important theoretical and empirical insights for interdisciplinary research in refugee studies, social sciences and technology, as well as for policymakers, practitioners, NGOs, refugee advocates, and refugee groups themselves. This book is an entry point to deeper reflections on technological mediations shaping contemporary governance of migration, as well as refugees’ experiences and solidarity networks. A major accomplishment!"
- Amanda Alencar, Assistant Professor, Department of Media & Communication, Erasmus University Rotterdam
“In this timely book, Sara Marino offers new crucial insights on the politics of technological mediation in the context of Fortress Europe. The argument draws on original and rich empirical material alongside a wide array of critical theories from across relevant fields. Readers are presented with a lucid, and at times confronting account of how mobile subjects variously facea ‘nervous system of techno-power’ co-shaped by border regimes, humanitarian agencies, the military-industrial complex, as well as migrant activist and solidarity groups. Astutely, Marino offers a corrective to academic discourse by amplifying refugee voices and experiences, alongside tech for good activist perspectives. This is an urgent move because the point of view of institutions remains dominant. The social justice oriented, critical vocabulary proposed by Marino is highly generative. The framework renders intelligible the assemblage of actors and the myriad of invisibilized mechanisms of border-making and contestation. The evocative concepts of ‘technologies-of-exile’, ‘technologies-in-exile’, ‘mindful filtering’, among others, will become important reference points for students and researchers interested in the interdisciplinary research area of digital migration studies. Opening up new research directions, this monograph is highly recommended to media and migration researchers, cultural geographers and anthropologists, sociologists, and political scientists committed to understanding the intricacies of the techno-mediation of bordering, surveillance, humanitarianism and contestation”
- Koen Leurs, Assistant Professor, Department of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Sara Marino is Senior Lecturer in Communications and Media at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, UK. She is the author of L’ebbrezza del potere: Vittime e persecutori (2009), editor of Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Trajectories on Pluralism, Inclusion and Citizenship (2014) and co-editor of Fortress Europe: Media, Migration and Borders (with Simon Dawes, 2016). She serves as Editorial Board Member for the Media Theory journal.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Mediating the Refugee Crisis
Book Subtitle: Digital Solidarity, Humanitarian Technologies and Border Regimes
Authors: Sara Marino
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53563-6
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Political Science and International Studies, Political Science and International Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-53562-9Published: 31 August 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-53565-0Published: 31 August 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-53563-6Published: 30 August 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 183
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: International Relations, Digital Humanities, Political Communication