Refugees comics and the complexity of migration

Introduction

Public debates on refugees and migrants have largely happened since the European migration crisis in 2015. In this process, digital media plays a vital role in maintaining the public discussions and making vulnerable voices be heard. The following two examples, “Khalid’s Story” and “Escaping Wars and Waves”, are comics made by different initiatives, yet with the same purpose of representing the escape from the refugees’ viewpoint.

The first comic, “Khalid’s Story”, is the first part of “A Perilous Journey” which is a trilogy produced by Positive Negatives, an UK-based comics-producing organization (“A Perilous Journey”, 2020). The trilogy was funded by Norwegian People’s Aid and composed of 3 comics about Syrian refugees who seeked asylum in Scandinavia in July 2015. Khalid is a refugee who had been brutally tortured back in Syria, leaving his family members to seek for safety and freedom in Scandinavia. In the end, he finally received asylum in Norway and began his healing process.

The second comic is from a published book “Escaping Wars and Waves” made by Olivier Kugler, an artist who travelled to Greece to conduct interview with refugees and transform these stories into drawings with texts, which he called “visual essays” (“Escaping Wars and Waves”, 2019). The chosen drawing is the narrative of Sherine’s family sharing their experiences, hardships and wishes for future destination. The series of comics were commissioned by an NGO, then published in several reputable newspaper such as The Guardian and exhibited in many festivals in London.

Accessibility

Hardships are often told by the media via photographs and texts; however drawings can visualize scenes that are unavailable to journalistic photographers. In both comics, refugee’s physical and mental states are portrayed in an aesthetic yet truthful way, despite the brutality of the torture. This authenticity, however, could not have reached its purpose of capturing public’s attention if it was inaccessible. In the two examples, accessibility was ensured by free online access to all comics and its comprehensible everyday language, such as direct quote from the refugees. Very often, citizens struggle to be a part of conversation due to lack of technical language and methodology (Cengiz, 2016). Thus, free comics with high comprehension can include more people from different social and educational backgrounds to take part in the discussion.

Insider’s view and the stereotypical representation of refugees

Although refugees and migrants have been systematically discussed by the media, they rarely appeared with their own narratives (Georgiou, 2018). Interestingly, both comics are rare examples of refugees’ stories from their own perspectives. They are visualized from actual interviews with refugees and inspired by their own quotes, which makes the comics become even more authentic. In refugees’ eyes, Europe is a place of freedom, safety and hope. These values are so desirable compared to the wars and oppression that they can resist harrowing journeys to move there. By bringing their stories to life in the form of comics, producers and organizations help to represent the voice of refugees in public discussions. However, this reinforces the stereotypical way of portraying refugees as vulnerable, hopeless and dependent, which can make their representation to the saturated point and lead to compassion fatigue. Indeed, this inferiority and vulnerability make newcomers “lose their distinct and complex histories and biographies as a condition of their acceptance” (Georgiou, 2018).

Complexity of migration

According to Crawley and Skleparis (2018), the dominant differentiation between ‘refugee’ and ‘migrant’ fails to capture the complexity of migration in relations with its political, social and economic drivers. “Khalid’s Story” and “Escaping Wars and Waves” approached refugees as humans with their stories and ignore these categories. In the comics, people who decided to move to Europe have different purposes and conditions; while Khalid was a photographer escaping from Syrian war and his past traumas, Sherrine’s family’s house was destroyed by the fighting and fled together, however with some money in hands.

There are different ways to view such complexity of migration that is raised by these two comics. On the one hand, such detailed narratives can help to highlight the complex nature of migration, thus challenging the dichotomy between migrants and refugees. On the other hand, representing refugees as vulnerable and dependent on Europe values like these comics can also reinforce the distinction between these two categories, because it emphasized the need for human rights and international protection for refugees over migrants.

Rather than using categories to marginalize certain social groups, people should concern about how these categories are constructed (Crawley & Skleparis, 2018). Considering the origins and purposes of these comics, one from an artist who was commissioned by an NGO, and one from The Guardian, they do not directly aim to influence policy-making process about EU borders, but rather to spread the stories of refugees to wider public and seek for humanitarian aid. Their rights seem to be limited to aid and not to the acquisition of political rights. Refugees and migrants thus do not “set the parameters of the conversation”, but rather respond to the symbolic bordering acts (Georgiou, 2018). This manifests the complexity of digital representation of migration and its relations to power structures and bordering power.

Conclusion

Comics are true representation of refugees; they strengthen the distinctions between Europeans with its desirable value and non-European refugees with vulnerability and hopes. However, the extent to which refugee and migrants can have considerable voice in the actual policy-making process of migration still remains limited.

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Reference

A Perilous Journey: PositiveNegatives. (2020). Retrieved November 26, 2020, from https://positivenegatives.org/story/a-perilous-journey/

Cengiz, F. (2016). The EU policymaking paradox: Citizen participation is a must, but the shaping of policies has become too technical. Retrieved November 26, 2020, from https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2016/01/22/the-eu-policymaking-paradox-citizen-participation-is-a-must-but-the-shaping-of-policies-has-become-too-technical/

Crawley, H., & Skleparis, D. (2018). Refugees, migrants, neither, both: Categorical fetishism and the politics of bounding in Europe’s ‘migration crisis’. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44, 48-64.

Escaping Wars and Waves. (2019). Retrieved November 26, 2020, from http://myriadeditions.com/books/escaping-war-and-waves/#

Georgiou, M. (2018). Does the subaltern speak? Migrant voices in digital Europe. Popular Communication, 16, 45-57.