Mirjam Twigt
I am a migration researcher interested in the interactions between unequal mobility and digital connectivity. My work specifically focuses on conflict-affected migration in and from he Middle Eastern region and the politics of care.
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Papers by Mirjam Twigt
The research findings show that most stories used human interest frames and foregrounded migrant experiences. The migrants’ main contributions to the stories were to provide a human face to hardships and suffering. Meanwhile, NGOs were included to provide facts, statements of general causes of migrations, statistics, and a sense of scale. Government statements were used to provide a comment on policies and solutions. Most articles were supportive in their sentiments to the plight of
migrants.
Participants in the focus groups (especially migrants themselves) recognised that migrant voices were missing from mainstream media reporting on migration, that reporting on migration tends to be negative, and that there are pressing issues relating to migration that need to be discussed in the public sphere.
Focus group participants generally responded with empathy and understanding in response to stories about the hardships migrants face. Some stories provoked a distancing or disruption to understanding, especially when an aspect of the story did not match their prior tacit or cultural knowledge about migration. A small number of stories deeply moved focus group participants.
The report unpacks how an emphasis on ‘voice’ in this context can inadvertently lead to an under-interrogation of systemic and structural issues by individualising, and in some cases, perpetuating a representation of migrants as helpless victims.
The best practices identified from the programme include:
• Use existing resources to help identify sensitive terminology for reporting about migration
• Respect audiences as knowledgeable and discerning.
• Avoid thinking in dichotomies (especially ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ stories). Instead, work towards nuances when exploring stories.
• Be aware of the consequences of individualising migrant voices and ignoring systemic and structural factors.
• Unpack the local context as much and as accurately as possible.
• Use accessible, sharable and in-depth media forms that people trust.
• Continue supporting local journalists to write informed stories about migration.
sense of “home” and “place” in the world are perpetually unsettled. This
article explores how digital technologies interact with embodied, material
experiences within the geographical location refugees are residing
in. Empirical examples from ethnographic research conducted among
Iraqi urban refugees, living in prolonged uncertainty in Jordan, shows
how situated experiences of legal, material, and social uncertainty reinforce
particular mediated socialities. Pivotal studies have shown how
digital connections engender virtual home-making practices and a wide
variety of connected presences. This study points to the other side of the
same coin: the cultivation of “absent presence.” “Absent presence” refers
to feelings—the ambivalence that experiences of prolonged displacement
bring about—but also to active disengagement and affective
tactics in response. These engender a further separation from the
physical world where forced migrants are not deemed welcome.
fieldwork conducted among Iraqi refugees in Jordan’s capital Amman to further understand the use of digital technologies in everyday experiences of prolonged displacement. Waiting is an intrinsic affective phenomenon, colored by hope and anxiety. I argue that affective affordances—the potential of different media forms to bring about affects like hope and anxiety—enable Iraqi refugees to reorient themselves to particular places and people. As “no futures” are deemed possible in Jordan or Iraq,
digital technologies serve as orientation devices enabling them to imagine futures elsewhere. Through the interplay of media forms, the Iraqi refugees refract their own lives via the experiences of friends and family members who have already traveled onward and who in their perception are able to rebuild a dignified life. Transnational digital connections not only provide a
space for hope and optimistic ideas of futures elsewhere but also help to sustain one’s experience of immobility. I argue that using the imagination can be understood as an act of not giving in to structural constraints and might be crucial to making Iraqi refugee life in Jordan bearable.
The research findings show that most stories used human interest frames and foregrounded migrant experiences. The migrants’ main contributions to the stories were to provide a human face to hardships and suffering. Meanwhile, NGOs were included to provide facts, statements of general causes of migrations, statistics, and a sense of scale. Government statements were used to provide a comment on policies and solutions. Most articles were supportive in their sentiments to the plight of
migrants.
Participants in the focus groups (especially migrants themselves) recognised that migrant voices were missing from mainstream media reporting on migration, that reporting on migration tends to be negative, and that there are pressing issues relating to migration that need to be discussed in the public sphere.
Focus group participants generally responded with empathy and understanding in response to stories about the hardships migrants face. Some stories provoked a distancing or disruption to understanding, especially when an aspect of the story did not match their prior tacit or cultural knowledge about migration. A small number of stories deeply moved focus group participants.
The report unpacks how an emphasis on ‘voice’ in this context can inadvertently lead to an under-interrogation of systemic and structural issues by individualising, and in some cases, perpetuating a representation of migrants as helpless victims.
The best practices identified from the programme include:
• Use existing resources to help identify sensitive terminology for reporting about migration
• Respect audiences as knowledgeable and discerning.
• Avoid thinking in dichotomies (especially ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ stories). Instead, work towards nuances when exploring stories.
• Be aware of the consequences of individualising migrant voices and ignoring systemic and structural factors.
• Unpack the local context as much and as accurately as possible.
• Use accessible, sharable and in-depth media forms that people trust.
• Continue supporting local journalists to write informed stories about migration.
sense of “home” and “place” in the world are perpetually unsettled. This
article explores how digital technologies interact with embodied, material
experiences within the geographical location refugees are residing
in. Empirical examples from ethnographic research conducted among
Iraqi urban refugees, living in prolonged uncertainty in Jordan, shows
how situated experiences of legal, material, and social uncertainty reinforce
particular mediated socialities. Pivotal studies have shown how
digital connections engender virtual home-making practices and a wide
variety of connected presences. This study points to the other side of the
same coin: the cultivation of “absent presence.” “Absent presence” refers
to feelings—the ambivalence that experiences of prolonged displacement
bring about—but also to active disengagement and affective
tactics in response. These engender a further separation from the
physical world where forced migrants are not deemed welcome.
fieldwork conducted among Iraqi refugees in Jordan’s capital Amman to further understand the use of digital technologies in everyday experiences of prolonged displacement. Waiting is an intrinsic affective phenomenon, colored by hope and anxiety. I argue that affective affordances—the potential of different media forms to bring about affects like hope and anxiety—enable Iraqi refugees to reorient themselves to particular places and people. As “no futures” are deemed possible in Jordan or Iraq,
digital technologies serve as orientation devices enabling them to imagine futures elsewhere. Through the interplay of media forms, the Iraqi refugees refract their own lives via the experiences of friends and family members who have already traveled onward and who in their perception are able to rebuild a dignified life. Transnational digital connections not only provide a
space for hope and optimistic ideas of futures elsewhere but also help to sustain one’s experience of immobility. I argue that using the imagination can be understood as an act of not giving in to structural constraints and might be crucial to making Iraqi refugee life in Jordan bearable.