Abstract:

Dominant representation regime has been presenting refugees as a “universal subject”, and refugeeness as an experience characterized by poverty, victimization and neediness. However, recent qualitative studies focusing on refugee experience have revealed that forced migration is not experienced homogenously, as mass media and international migration regime try to present it, but the experience varies depending on the social, political, economic and cultural conditions in which migration takes place. Similarly, media does not always present refugees as passive victims, fleeing violence and persecution; but sometimes as political subjects, for example as happened in the aftermath of the Second World War. Drawing on the idea that the Internet offers marginalised groups a space to reframe the narratives around their experiences, this study analyses the refugee images produced and shared on Instagram by people with forced migration experience. Research focuses on whether visual narratives produced based on lived experience offer an opportunity to subvert or erode the dominant cliches. Results suggest that although the alternative refugee images produced by refugees on Instagram are still limited in number, these posts make different aspects of the refugee experience visible and provide an optimistic framework for positive change in the long run.

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