International Online Conference World Refugee Day 2021 / ROR-n
The Refugee Outreach and Research Network (ROR_n) is organizing a conference on World Refugee Day at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) to address the visibility and, more importantly, the invisibility of flight and being a refugee. In 2020, the United Nations declared that more than 80 million people worldwide are displaced. In the last decade, the number of those forced to flee has doubled and one percent of the world's population has sought refuge. The media report on the situation of those who are fleeing is depicted through images of overcrowded ships, numerous deaths, disasters at national borders, inhumane conditions in refugee camps, and the deportation of asylum seekers to countries of origin marked by war and violence. Social imaginaries are created in which media representations overlap in multiple ways, such as humanitarian catastrophes and rescue impulses, border regimes, measurements against so-called smugglers, and threats to welfare states. The global mediatization of refuge has produced discourses that are highly antagonistic and whose accounts of safety, humanitarianism, and activism always imply a level that leaves room for political intentions. Governments assume that "undocumented mobility" would lead to "states of exception" in their welfare states and this would need drastic measures. However, the refugee camp has become the "nomos of modernity" (Agamben 2003). Refugee researcher Heidrun Friese explains that "making visible" or "visibility" is part of a political strategy because images hold a high degree of mobilization. Images can evoke threats that legitimize practices of border regimes. On the other hand, Friese argues, visibility is also an essential feature of humanitarian and critical discourse to make suffering visible, to legitimize humanitarian actions, and to evoke critical discourses (Friese 2019). Seven decades after the declarations of human rights (the UN General Assembly's 1948 Universal Declaration) and the European Convention on Human Rights (1950), do these still matter at all in these media-charged discourses? These intermingling and ambivalent forms of (re)presentation leave little room for the voices of those affected and their agency. Increasingly, the communication of profound research and the challenges of all those involved in refugee work also seem to meet little interest. In this conference, presentations will discuss multidisciplinary perspectives and factors that contribute to the visibility of issues and problem areas that are beyond a policy-centered discourse. Therefore, the examples do not come from Austria alone, but deal with the situation of refugees in different geographical settings. This conference will offer the opportunity for an exchange of experiences between refugees, academics, and experts working in care work. Conference languages are English and German. A conference volume is planned.
Organized by Refugee Outreach and Research Network ROR_n at the Austrian Academy of Sciences
Please log in with a web browser Topic: World Refugee Day 2021 Time: 25 June 2021, 9:00 AM, Vienna Join
Zoom Meeting us02web.zoom.us/j/86954824810
Meeting ID: 869 5482 4810
Passcode: qMW4Az