[ecrea] NOI♀SE Summer School - Feminist Media Studies of Migration: European discourses and lived experiences

NOI♀SE 2016 Summer School Feminist Media Studies of Migration:

European discourses and lived experiences

29 August – 2 September 2016, Utrecht University, The Netherlands 
Organized by the Netherlands Research School of Gender Studies

  *   Would you like to explore how gender and postcolonial 
perspectives can be fruitfully combined for an emancipatory 
re-imagination of Europe as inherently culturally diverse?

  *   Do you want to know more about how axes of difference including 
gender, race, religion, class and generation intersect in mediatized 
European discourses and lived experiences?

  *   Are you curious to learn more about the feminization of migration?

  *   Would you like to join us in mobilizing feminist media studies of 
migration to

rethink Europeanness from below?

  *   Are you interested in deconstructing the label of the migrant by 
re-considering

who counts as a migrant and who does not?

  *   Are you struggling to make sense of the so-called “rape-refugees” 
discourse that

became en vogue after mass sexual assaults in Cologne, Germany and 
elsewhere? Worrying about the misuse of feminism by right-wing 
anti-immigrant politicians and journalists? Join us in studying the 
vexed power relations between media and migration.

Join the 2016 Summer School!

This year, the 24rd edition of NOI♀SE will introduce you to cutting-edge 
scholarship on media and migration at the intersections of feminist 
media and cultural studies, postcolonial studies, cultural anthropology, 
religion studies, communication, activism and the arts.

Topical urgency and focus

Norbert Baksa shot refugee-chic fashion photos of scarcely clad women at 
the Hungarian-Croatian border, an important location of frustration and 
contestation in the contemporary humanitarian crisis at the borders of 
Europe. The photos are framed like news images, but they were actually 
part of a fashion shoot series titled ‘Der Migrant’. Seemingly inspired 
by the humanitarian crisis, the photographer drew fierce criticism for 
glamorizing the pain, hardship and dire circumstances of Syrian asylum 
seekers trying to reach countries in North/Western Europe. These images 
raise attention for how discursive constructions of migrants are 
commonly gendered and draw on issues of religiosity. While female 
migrants are either exoticised and sexualized or depicted as oppressed 
by brown men and in need of being saved; male migrants are typically 
Othered as non-rational, backward in time, aggressive or dangerous 
drawing on historical orientalist frames. Besides gender and religion, 
additional axes of differentiation intersect in staking out the 
boundaries of Europeanises.

Europe

The flow of (forced) migrants resulting from various international 
conflicts is perceived as a fundamental challenge to the project of 
Europe. An estimated 950 thousand people arrived by sea in 2015, and 
3605 people have died or are missing (UNHCR, 2015). Although predicated 
on the idea “Unity in Diversity” (Ponzanesi & Colpani, 2016, p. 7), 
Europe’s sense of diversity is strongly politicized. It’s relationship 
with migration is opportunistic and geared towards welcoming newcomers 
fitting a particular narrow configuration of 
race/gender/class/religion/ability/sexuality. For example, highly 
educated expats – especially those from the ‘Global North’ are welcomed 
under “Europe’s Highly Skilled Migrant Scheme”. In sharp contrast, 
refugees are Europe’s new absolute Other as is evident from the enormous 
death toll of undesired migrants at Europe’s borders, reintroduced 
border controls within the Schengen Area, and the symbolic violence and 
hostility towards refugees and asylum seekers in several European 
countries. Taking a comparative and critical perspective, we aim to 
rethink Europe from the outside and from within.

Aims

In order to contest this problematic, multilayered situation there is 
urgent demand for robust feminist and postcolonial cultural critique, 
engaged fieldwork and new, grounded empirical data. The 2016 NOISE 
Summer school invites students interested in taking up this challenge. 
Summer school participants will be:

    • introduced to feminist media studies of migration, with a 
particular focus on  multiculturalism and cultural difference; 
religiosity and post-secularism;         intersectionality; media, ICTs 
& diaspora; sexualities and queering migration.

• trained in theories, methods and ethics of qualitative feminist media 
analysis and fieldwork.

The summer school emerges from a wider engagement with questions of the 
gendered, racialized, sexualized and classed cultural politics of 
belonging, inclusion/exclusion and othering.

Target audience

This advanced training course offers a diverse yet coherent program of 
study from an interdisciplinary perspective. The Summer School is meant 
for PhD and MA students. Separate seminars for these two groups will be 
provided in the afternoons.

Formula

• Two lectures in the morning
• Separate PhD and MA-seminars in the afternoon
• Social program
• Students prepare before NOI♀SE by reading and collecting material for 
assignments

(approximately 40 hours of work). After the school has ended, 
participants who fulfilled all requirements (preparation of assignments 
and reading, active participation, and final essay of 10-15 pages) 
receive a NOI♀SE Certificate (5 ECTS).

• All students are expected to participate in the entire program for the 
duration of five days. Please check the website for more information, 
registration and regular updates:

http://www.graduategenderstudies.nl  Education  NOI♀SE 2016

Venue

The NOI♀SE Summer School 2016 will be hosted by Utrecht University, the 
Netherlands.

Tuition Fees

The tuition fee is €425. This includes digital reading materials but 
excludes accommodation and subsistence costs (i.e., food, meals, drinks, 
etc.).

Teachers in the course

The NOI♀SE Summer School is organized by the Netherlands Research School 
of Gender Studies (NOG, Utrecht University). The 2016 edition is 
coordinated by dr. Koen Leurs and dr. Eva Midden.
Several renowned international scholars from various disciplines 
including gender and postcolonial studies, media and communication 
studies, cultural anthropology and religious studies will be teaching at 
the Summer School.

Confirmed guest-speakers

  *   Prof. dr. Mia Lövheim, professor of the Sociology of Religion at 
Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden, with a research specialization in 
new media.

  *   Prof. dr. Sandra Ponzanesi, Professor of Gender and Postcolonial 
Studies at the Department of Media and Culture Studies/Graduate Gender 
Programme<http://www.genderstudies.nl/research/staff/> (UU).

I am also Head of Department Humanities at University College Utrecht 
(UCU)<http://www.uu.nl/university/college/en/organization/facultystaff/Pages/HeadsofDepartment.aspx>.

  *   Dr. Paul Mepschen, Lecturer at Leiden University, the Netherlands 
with expertise in Europe, Politics, Race, Sexuality, Subjectivity.

  *   Dr. Donya Alinejad, Postdoctoral Researcher Digital Crossings in 
Europe, Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON), Department of Media and 
Culture Studies/Graduate Gender 
Programme<http://www.genderstudies.nl/research/staff/> (UU).
  *   Dr. Lukasz Szulc, Postdoctoral Fellow of the Research Foundation 
Flanders University of Antwerp Belgium / Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow 
London School of Economics and Political Science who researches media, 
sexualities and transnationalism.

Additional names will be announced on the website in spring.

Registration and Deadline:

Deadline: April 22, 2016. You can find the application form on the 
website: http://www.graduategenderstudies.nl  Education  NOI♀SE 2016

For more information

NOI♀SE Central Coordination Utrecht University Muntstraat 2a
3512 EV Utrecht

The Netherlands E-mail: (noise /at/ uu.nl)

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