by gabriela zurawowiczRefuge and asylum-seeking is a global issue in dire need of attention and, more importantly, realistic political action. The problem is not with the people who seek safety but with a common controversial response to their potential arrival (Ferwerda et al., 2017; Poushter, 2016). They are often labelled as unworthy of protection (Simeon, 2018), while great efforts are made, for example by European politicians and media, to employ tactics born from dehumanisation (Kirkwood, 2017; Berry et al., 2015; Ames, 2019), such as push-back – forced removal of people over a country’s border (European Center for Consitutional and Human Rights, n.d.). This is done on top of creating a divide between ‘us’ and ‘them’, which allows leaders to escape from the moral and legal responsibility to protect refugees and asylum-seekers (Kirkwood, 2017). Dehumanisation can be defined as the act of denying and depriving someone of their humanity or humanness (Haslam & Loughnan, 2014). It can take both blatant and explicit forms or more subtle and implicit forms. The former refers to directly addressing someone as inhuman and the latter can refer to not seeing someone as having human qualities, such as empathy (Haslam & Loughnan, 2014). This article will draw on the perspectives of social and discursive psychology to further discuss the dehumanisation faced by refugees. Those from marginalised, vulnerable and minority groups tend to be the targets of dehumanisation (Haslam & Loughnan, 2014) and as such, refugees and asylum-seekers often fall prey to such cruel treatment. Facing dehumanisation has become almost inherent in refuge and asylum-seeking and it is most often enacted by those with a conservative orientation and a preference for hierarchy (Hodson & Costello, 2007; Deluca-McLean & Castano, 2009). The ongoing humanitarian crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border exposes the Polish right-wing leaders and some of the common tactics resulting from dehumanisation, such as engaging in push-back (Mikolajewska, 2021; Ptak & Baczynska, 2021), which is illegal under international law. Asylum-seekers are trapped in forests without access to clean water and food, with temperatures falling below 0oC at nights (Boczek, 2021). There have already been some deaths reported, including that of children (Mikulska, 2021). Moreover, the Polish government has declared a state of emergency and a no-entry-zone at a part of the Polish-Belarusian border, restricting access to activists, humanitarian aid organisations and even journalists, leading to very limited media coverage (Tilles, 2021). Only in rare circumstances are the people allowed to follow the procedure of applying for asylum to be transferred to a closed detention camp but yet again, there they face inhumane conditions and treatment (Boczek, 2022). Despite the fact that refugees are under international protection and seeking asylum is a human right, Polish ‘leaders’ are unwilling to provide necessary resources and assistance. The racism and xenophobia ingrained in societal systems around the world (Kim, 2015; Bianchi et al., 2020) construct and maintain a hierarchy of whose life matters and whose does not, fuelling the lack of political will to honour the duty to protect others, including refugees. There is a lack of fundamental understanding that refugees are human beings who need help. Instead, there is a lot of effort made to strip them of their humanity – ignoring the trauma of refuge-seeking (Ibrahim & Howarth, 2015) and silencing the true motives of refugees and asylum-seekers, which include escaping war, prosecution, extreme poverty, climate change (Amnesty International, n.d.). For instance, language and imagery employed in the media is manipulative and has consequences in terms of life chances. Refugees flee their homes and countries in search for safety but they are reduced to an enemy (Steuter & Wills, 2009; Esses et al., 2013) or an aggressor (Papacharissi & De Fatima Oliveira, 2008), and framed as barbaric and disruptive to the ‘civilised’ world (Ibrahim & Howarth, 2015). Another way in which imagery is manipulated is in how asylum-seeking individuals are usually depicted by media in big groups that are unidentifiable and faceless. This relates to the identifiable victim effect which describes the phenomenon of images and information about the suffering of an individual as eliciting more empathy, compared to when a group is presented (Azevedo et al., 2021). This may, in part, explain the lack of empathy towards refugees. Researchers have also found that the framing of refugees and asylum-seekers is rated as more implicitly and explicitly dehumanising (Azevedo et al., 2021). What and how something is presented in the media plays a powerful role in shaping perceptions. Drawing on the approach of discursive psychology, language can be recognised as a tool for actively reconstructing reality (Kirkwood, 2017). In relation to refugees, politicians and media make use of dehumanising rhetoric that feeds off fear and bias to create a specific image of who refugees are and their intentions. While there are some people in power who are devoted to humanising refugees and portraying them as deserving support (Kirkwood, 2017), many leaders actively encourage resentment towards refugees, serving a political purpose to deny any moral responsibility to protect refugees (Kirkwood, 2017). Some of the most common depictions of refugees and asylum-seekers include referring to them as a ‘disease’ and their arrival as a ‘wave’, ‘tide’, ‘flood’, ‘swarm’, as well as other terms that serve to portray them as inhuman (Leudar et al., 2008; Pickering, 2001; Azevedo et al., 2021). Animalistic metaphors are used, especially insect-related language (Ibrahim & Howarth, 2015) and the association between Black people and apes, as a dehumanising tactic (Goff et al., 2008). Refugees are treated as something to be contained and eliminated, as something that is coming to invade the land (Essess et al., 2013). All these strategies applied towards refugees are a “distance-framing device that depersonalizes, dehumanizes and delegitimizes their suffering” (Ibrahim & Howarth, 2015, p. 5). I believe that the dehumanising tactics and intentional misrepresentation of refugees and asylum-seekers act to justify the status quo and legitimise (dys)functioning political systems. Some leaders aim to preserve hegemony and power by dehumanising refugees and framing them as less than human, threatening deviants or problems (Pickering, 2001) – feeding off biases and the fear of the unknown to reduce sympathy and create resentment and hatred towards newcomers instead (Reicher et al., 2008). It not only legitimises the lack of systemic support (Haslam & Loughnan, 2014) but also encourages the enactment of discrimination and violence. The social sciences, especially discursive psychology, have extensively studied and explained these strategies, especially through its discursive (e.g., dehumanising language) and symbolic (e.g., dehumanising imagery) forms, that are used to achieve certain political goals. Refugees are suffering greatly as a result of the exploitative systems of the Global North and the numbers of those seeking refuge are likely going to increase, especially due to climate change (Black et al., 2011). There is a need for global, humanitarian and systemic solutions to be implemented to handle the rising migration trends and start treating refugees and asylum-seekers with respect and dignity as opposed to dehumanising them. References
Ames, B. C. (2019, September 11). The dehumanization of immigrants and the rise of the extreme right. American Institute for Contemporary German Studies. https://www.aicgs.org/publication/the-dehumanization-of-immigrants-and-the-rise-of-the-extreme-right/ Amnesty International. (n.d.). Refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants. https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/refugees-asylum-seekers-and-migrants/ Azevedo, R. T., De Beukelaer, S., Jones, I. L., Safra, L., & Tsakiris, M. (2021). When the lens is too wide: The political consequences of the visual dehumanization of refugees. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(115), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00786-x Berry, M., Garcia-Blanco, I., & Moore, K. (2015, December). Press coverage of the refugee and migrant crisis in the EU: A content analysis of five European countries. United Nations High Commission for Refugees. https://www.unhcr.org/56bb369c9.pdf Bianchi, R. V., Stephenson, M. L., & Hannam, K. (2020). The contradictory politics of the right to travel: mobilities, borders & tourism. Mobilities, 15(2), 290-306. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2020.1723251 Black, R., Adger, W. N., Arnell, N. W., Dercon, S., Geddes, A., & Thomas, D. (2011). The effect of environmental change on human migration. Global environmental change, 21(1), S3-S11. Boczek, K. (2021, December 5). „Czyli musicie czekać, aż umrzemy. Dzieci pewnie umrą pierwsze.” Sms-y ze strefy śmierci. OKO.press. https://oko.press/sms-y-ze-strefy-smierci/ Boczek, K. (2022, January 6). Dramat w ośrodku na poligonie w Wędrzynie. Strajk głodowy migrantów. OKO.press. https://oko.press/dramat-w-osrodku-na-poligonie-w-wedrzynie-strajk-glodowy-migrantow/ DeLuca-McLean, D., & Castano, E. (2009). Infra-humanization of ethnic minorities: The moderating role of ideology. Basic and applied social psychology, 31(2), 102-108. Esses, V. M., Medianu, S., & Lawson, A. S. (2013). Uncertainty, threat, and the role of the media in promoting the dehumanization of immigrants and refugees. Journal of social issues, 69(3), 518-536. European Center for Consitutional and Human Rights. (n.d.). Push-back. https://www.ecchr.eu/en/glossary/push-back/ Ferwerda, J. Flynn, D. J., & Horiuchi, Y. (2017). Explaining opposition to refugee resettlement: The role of NIMBYism and perceived threats. Science Advances, 3(9), e1700812–e1700812. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1700812 Goff, P. A., Eberhardt, J. L., Williams, M. J., Jackson, M. C., & Dovidio, J. F. (2008). Not yet human: Implicit knowledge, historical dehumanization, and contemporary consequences. Journal of personality and social psychology, 94(2), 292-306. Haslam, N., & Loughnan, S. (2014). Dehumanization and infrahumanization. Annual review of psychology, 65(1), 399-423. Hodson, G., & Costello, K. (2007). Interpersonal disgust, Ideological orientations, and dehumanization as predictors of intergroup attitudes. Psychological science, 18(8), 691-698. Ibrahim, Y., & Howarth, A. (2015). Sounds of the jungle: Rehumanizing the migrant. Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, 7, 1–19. Kim, P. T. (2015). Addressing systemic discrimination: Public enforcement and the role of the EEOC. Boston University Law Review, 95(3), 1133–1154. Kirkwood, S. (2017). The humanisation of refugees: A discourse analysis of UK parliamentary debates on the European refugee ‘crisis’. Journal of community & applied social psychology, 27(2), 115-125. Leudar, I., Hayes, J. Nekvapil, J., & Turner Baker, J. (2008). Hostility themes in media, community and refugee narratives. Discourse & society, 19(2), 187-221. Mikolajewska, B. (2021, October 2). Przerażeni, popędzani ludzie, szczeka na nich pies. Straż Graniczna nagrana podczas push-backu. OKO.press. https://oko.press/straz-graniczna-nagrana-podczas-push-backu/ Mikulska, A. (2021, December 26). Jezus, Radża, Ahmad i inni stracili życie na granicy. Jak europejskie granice stały się cmentarzami. OKO.press. https://oko.press/jezus-radza-ahmad-i-inni-zmarli-miedzy-polska-a-bialorusia-jak-europejskie-granice-staly-sie-cmentarzami/ Papacharissi, Z., & de Fatima Oliveira, M. (2008). News frames terrorism: A comparative analysis of frames employed in terrorism coverage in US and UK newspapers. International Journal of Press/Politics, 13(1), 52–74. Pickering, S. (2001). Common sense and original deviancy: News discourses and asylum seekers in Australia. Journal of Refugee Studies, 14(2), 169-186. Poushter, J. (2016, September 16). European opinions of the refugee crisis in 5 charts. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/16/european-opinions-of-the-refugee-crisis-in-5-charts/ Ptak, A., & Baczynska, G. (2021, September 30). Poland illegally pushed migrants back into Belarus, Amnesty Int'l says. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-illegally-pushed-migrants-back-into-belarus-amnesty-intl-says-2021-09-29/ Reicher, S., Haslam, S. A., & Rath, R. (2008). Making a virtue of evil: A five-step social identity model of the development of collective hate. Social and personality psychology compass, 2(3), 1313-1344. Simeon, J. C. (2018, March 15). Complicity and exclusion in international refugee law. Refugee Law Initiative. https://rli.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2018/03/15/complicity-and-exclusion-in-international-refugee-law/ Steuter, E., & Wills, D. (2009). Discourses of dehumanization: Enemy construction and Canadian media complicity in the framing of the war on terror. Global Media Journal, 2(2), 7–24. Tilles, D. (2021, October 1). Poland extends state of emergency on Belarus border following stormy debate in parliament. Notes from Poland. https://notesfrompoland.com/2021/10/01/poland-extends-state-of-emergency-on-belarus-border-following-stormy-debate-in-parliament/
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |