Reimaginig Narratives on Migration. The Role of Media, Arts and Culture in Promoting Transcultural Dialogue

Migration is a historical and natural phenomenon, but its definition is political, linked to the time frame and socio-economic context, and influenced by the media, as the infrastructure that constitutes the world, in material and symbolic ways. Today, both social interaction and cultural reproduction pass through the media. Whether analog or digital, media contribute to the process of construction of reality by people, as well as to the formation of shared imaginaries and social representations. In the last decade, the representation strategies and discursive practices enacted by a wide range of state and non-state actors have been presenting irregular migrants crossing borders as an ‘emergency’ to be managed in terms of a wider social, cultural and political ‘crisis’. These media representations of migration and asylum seeking as a ‘crisis’ have outstripped the reality of the situation. In the dominant Eurocentric discourses on migration numerous myths and misconceptions prevail. Although the “migrant crisis” is constructed in its historical and symbolic frame, its consequences are real: de-humanising migrants and asylum seekers, these narratives legitimise inequal power relations connected to the right to move and mask unjust and hegemonic treatments. Media, arts and culture have many important roles to play: they can foster innovative practical actions, and also alternative imaginaries on social phenomenon and spaces of collective participation.