[ecrea] Panellists - roundtable AoIR '16 sought on 'Forced migration & digital connectivity in Europe'

Kevin Smets (postdoc, University of Antwerp, Belgium) and Koen Leurs
(assistant professor Gender & Postcolonial Studies, Utrecht University,
the Netherlands) are sending out this email to see whether there are
people on the list interested in submitting a panel / roundtable
proposal on ‘Forced migration & digital connectivity in Europe' for the
October 16 AoIR conference taking place in Berlin.

Rationale: **

Daily, Europeans witness Syrian asylum seekers arriving on the beaches
of Greek and Southern-Italian islands. TV news footage shows how freshly
arrived migrants use smartphones to take selfies or use Skype to happily
announce their safe arrival on European soil to loved ones elsewhere. In
response, prejudicial discourses about migrants have centered on
smartphones; for example, anti-immigrant politicians and various social
media memes frame refugees who own ‘luxury’ smartphones as less
deserving of asylum. Forced migrants, who are digitally connected,
embody Europe’s Janus-faced character in an age when advanced
technologies are celebrated for increasing communication speed and
economic prosperity.

As a result of different conflicts worldwide, forced migration has
become a major challenge for Europe. The enormous death toll of migrants
at Europe’s borders, the reintroduction of border controls within the
Schengen Area, and the violence and hostility towards refugees and
asylum seekers in several European countries published across various
social media platforms all attest to the way in which the current influx
of forced migrants is overturning European society and political
structures. At the same time mainstream media have devoted significant
attention to the situation of refugees along their migration routes
in(to) Europe. Interestingly, these instances often included digital
technologies as central anchoring points in the lives of refugees.
Detailed reports were made of refugees using smartphones, keeping in
touch with their relatives, or documenting their journey through social
media. Other accounts, albeit less frequently, focused on the ways in
which governments seek to deal with forced migration via digital
technologies, for instance by making use of GPS tracking in smartphones,
or by setting up online deterrence campaigns to discourage refugees to
migrant to specific countries.

Topical urgency:**

While it is clear that forced migration and digital connectivity are
increasingly intertwined, there is still a lack of in-depth, critical
research into this topic especially in the context of Europe. With this
roundtable/panel we seek to bring together cutting-edge research on
forced migration in(to) Europe and the way in which digital technologies
and digital connectivity and in particular social media play a role in
the lives of forced migrants. The roundtable/panel aims not only to
present empirical evidence for discussions about forced migration and
digital connectivity, but also to offer new theoretical perspectives on
the issue. Approaching forced migration as a complex societal, political
and cultural phenomenon, we seek to consider different aspects of
digital connectivity, such as the affective use of social media by
migrants themselves as well as activists and trolls, political economy,
as well questions related to gender, media literacy, policy, legislation
and human rights.

Format:**

In dialogue with possible participants we will decide on submitting a
pre-constituted panel or roundtable.

Topics:**

We envision contributions may for example address the following issues:

*connected migrants in Europe

*social media use in refugee camps and asylum seeker centres

*migration and digital communication rights

*forced migration and selfie citizenship

*transnational communication and affectivity

*encapsulation & cosmopolitanization

*differences and similarities different migrant groups (class, gender,
age, generation)

*digital migrant identities

*alternative migrant cartographies

*migrant recruitment and radicalization online

*governmental surveillance systems

*digital deportability and algorithmic sorting

*migrant networked learning

*migrant acculturation online

*affective digital connectivity practices

*trolling, extremism and anti-migration protest online

*political economy of migrant digital connectivity

*communication rights

Requirements:**

Kindly register your interest in joining a panel / roundtable on the
topic with Koen Leurs and Kevin Smets by emailing a 250-300 word
abstract and short biographical statement to both
k.h.a.leurs@(leurs /at/ uu.nl) and (kevin.smets /at/ uantwerpen.be) by 19 February
2016.This gives us 2 weeks to decide upon the format (either a panel or
roundtable).

Context:
*This proposed panel/roundtable seeks to build momentum for the
colloquium on ‘Connected migrants: cosmopolitanization & encapsulation’
organized by Koen Leurs with Sandra Ponzanesi from 14-16 December 2016
in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. This colloquium is funded by the Royal
Netherlands Organization for Arts and Science, and will bring together
50 scholars working on the topic, see
www.knaw.nl/en/news/calendar/academy-colloquium-connected-migrants.

*The organizers are also co-editing a special issue on the topic for a
forthcoming issue of Social Media + Society (http://sms.sagepub.com). A
CFP for this special issue and the colloquium will be circulated shortly.

Best wishes,

Kevin Smets and Koen Leurs



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