Glossary

Successful collaboration begins with a shared language, hence the need for a glossary. This joint effort of contributors from several teams ensures, on the one hand, terminological and conceptual coherence across not only our theoretical approaches, but also the qualitative case studies and quantitative research conducted in OPPORTUNITIES. On the other hand, our glossary facilitates communication between the academic side of the project and the fieldwork conducted by NGOs, uniting our teams working from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ghana, Italy, Mauritania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania and Senegal.

For more information about the Structure and Objectives of the Glossary, click here...)

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Metaphorology

Inspired by conceptual metaphor theory and cultural narrative theory, metaphorology – i.e. the systematic study of metaphor – proceeds from the assumption that metaphors play a central role in processes of sense-making and shaping culture (see Lakoff and Johnson 2003). According to Ansgar Nünning, “[m]etaphors not only serve to structure how we understand cultural transformations, they also project ‘mini-narrations’ onto them, thereby providing ideologically charged plots and explanations of cultural and historical changes rather than neutral descriptions thereof” (Nünning 2009, 233; Nünning 2012, 62–63). The metaphor of crisis (see “Crisis”) serves as a perfect example of such a mininarration, as crises do not naturally occur in the world, but are always the result of discursive strategies by means of which we try to make sense of past events as leading to a current situation and now require “a decision about the further progress of the incident that has to be made amongst a number of possibilities” (Nünning and Sicks 2012, 15).

⇢ see also crisis, narrative References and further reading:

  • Lakoff, George, and Johnson, Mark. 2003. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press. Nünning, Ansgar. 2009. “Steps Towards a Metaphorology (and Narratology) of Crises: On the Functions of Metaphors as Figurative Knowledge and Mini-narrations.” In Metaphors Shaping Culture and Theory [= REAL: Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature 25], edited by Herbert Grabes, Ansgar Nünning, and Sibylle Baumbach, 229–262. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.
  • Nünning, Ansgar. 2012. “Making Crises and Catastrophes – How Metaphors and Narratives Shape Their Cultural Life.” In The Cultural Life of Catastrophes and Crises, edited by Carsten Meiner and Kristin Veel, 59–88. Berlin and Boston, MA: De Gruyter. Nünning, Ansgar, and Kai Marcel Sicks. 2012. “Turning Points as Metaphors and Mininarrations: Analysing Concepts of Change in Literature and Other Media.” In Turning Points Concepts and Narratives of Change in Literature and Other Media, edited by Ansgar Nünning and Kai Marcel Sicks, 1–28. Berlin and Boston, MA: De Gruyter.

Category: A

Work Package: 2, 5, 8

[CG]

Migrant

For legal definitions of the term migrant, see the respective entry in the European Migration Network (EMN) Glossary provided by the European Commission. Legal definitions leave no room for personal experience or individual attitudes, beliefs, and values of individuals. For this reason, they often stand in stark contrast to humanitarian explications provided by NGOs. Amnesty International, for instance, explicitly refrains from giving a clear-cut definition of the term migrant, to account for the fact that it covers a very heterogeneous group of people, all of whom may have left their home country for different reasons. This is reflected in the humanities, where the term qualifies as a broad category subsuming mobile individuals, including the homeless and stateless, as well as nomads, vagrants, immigrants, emigrants, refugees, and undocumented people (cf. Nail 2015, 11).

⇢ see also asylum seeker, expatriate, migration, migration and identity, mobility, refugee, rural-urban migrant

Category: B, D, E

Work Package: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

[CG]

Migrant narrative

Migrant narratives, or migrant stories, are life stories told by migrants or refugees which depict experiences of migration and transit. Dominant themes of migrant narratives include displacement, diaspora, victimhood, resilience, integration, liberation, and opportunity.

⇢ see also experience, life story, narrative

Category: C

Work Package: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

[CG]

Migration

For a legal definition of the term “migration,” see the respective entry in the European Migration Network (EMN) Glossary provided by the European Commission. The OPPORTUNITIES project approaches migration from a cross-cultural perspective that seeks to establish a dialogue between African and European takes on migration, acknowledging the wide variety of reasons and motivations behind it, and highlighting the fact that both African and European cultures view mobility, on principle, in a positive light, encouraging labour migration and mobility in the labour market, education, science, and other sectors. The rhetoric of crisis dominating current policy narratives in the EU, however, focuses on the perceived negative effects of “irregular” migration (see “Irregular migration”). OPPORTUNITIES holds that a different approach to migration is both possible and desirable; Uganda is one example of a country which has adopted positive migration policies (see Dryden-Petersen and Hovel 2004, United Nations Development Programme 2018).

⇢ see also asylum seeker, crisis, demographics of migration, expatriate, integration, labour migrant, migrant, migration and identity, mobility, refugee

References and further reading:

Category: B, D

Work Package: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

[CG / RS]

Migration and identity

Migration research distinguishes between labour migrants, economic migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and expatriates – to name but a few categories. While the distinction between refugees and asylum seekers is established in European or national law, the differentiation between refugees and migrants is less clear-cut, as migrant serves as an umbrella term for persons leaving their home country to reside or take refuge in another country. “To gain official status as a refugee,” Meike Watzlawik and Ignacio Brescó de Luna (2017, 247) argue, “one must […] bridge the gap between one’s specific individual life experiences resulting from an oppressing regime, conflict, or war zone, and the legal and abstract category of ‘a refugee,’ as well as the set of expectations, predefined ideas, and conventions associated with such a category.” Recognition as a refugee consequently requires a specific performative act: “The way refugees have to present themselves so as to meet the cultural expectations of the hosting society […] heavily depends on the representations whereby the very notion of refugee is socially constructed and imagined. Such representations in turn mediate the way in which societies come to perceive, understand, and behave vis-à-vis a phenomenon only experienced directly by very few people.” (Watzlawik and de Luna 2017, 248) Media and the digital public sphere play a central role in producing, multiplying, and perpetuating diverging notions of and attitudes towards refugees, expatriates, and other migrants.

⇢ see also asylum/asylum seeker, narrative, identity, migrant, migration, refugee, representation of migration

  • Reference Watzlawik, Meike, and Ignacio Brescó de Luna. 2017. “The Self in Movement: Being Identified and Identifying Oneself in the Process of Migration and Asylum Seeking.” Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science 51.2: 244–260. URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12124-017-9386-6. Date of access: August 24, 2021.

Category: A

Work Package: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

[CG]

Migration culture

The term migration culture is used to refer to proverbs, songs and sayings that shape social representations and collective consciousness of local populations while contributing, in part, to the desire to travel, the desire to be elsewhere. In Senegal, research carried out by the Gender, Environment, Religion and Migration Studies and Research Laboratory (GERM) has enabled us to understand that through proverbs, songs and sayings, people praise migration or travel. To this end, it can be said that the language system values migration, which symbolizes an act of bravery or courage. This explains why in certain areas, former migration basins, those who have not attempted the journey are seen as cowards.

⇢ see also circular migration, mobility

References and further reading:

  • Tandian, Aly, and Serigne Mansour Tall. 2010. “Regards sur la migration irrégulière des Sénégalais: vouloir faire fortune en Europe avec des pirogues de fortune [Technical Report, Migration Policy Centre].” CARIM Analytic and Synthetic Notes 2010/50. URL: https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/14405/CARIM_ASN_2010_50.pdf?sequence= 1&isAllowed=y. Date of access: August 24, 2021.
  • Tandian, Aly, and Serigne Mansour Tall. 2011. “Cadre général de la migration internationale sénégalaise: historicité, actualité et prospective [Technical Report, Migration Policy Centre].” CARIM Analytic and Synthetic Notes 2011/54. URL: https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/18480. Date of access: August 24, 2021.

Category: A

Work Package: 2, 4, 5

[AT]

Mixed movement

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Mixed Migration Centre apply the term mixed migration or mixed movement to refer to cross-border movement – usually in irregular manner – of individuals and groups with different motives for migration who travel alongside each other, using similar routes and means of transport or facilitators. Such ‘mixed movements’ may include asylum seekers, refugees, victims of trafficking, unaccompanied or separated children, stateless persons, and other migrants. The UN and other support agencies and countries hosting migrants have to pay attention to the different needs and profiles of migrants in any form of ‘mixed movement.’

⇢ see also asylum/asylum seeker, human trafficking, labour migrant, migrant, migration, refugee

References and further reading:

  • Mixed Migration Centre and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, eds. 2021. A Roadmap for Advocacy, Policy Development, and Programming: Protection in Mixed Movements along the Central and Western Mediterranean Routes 2021. URL: http://www.mixedmigration.org/resource/road-map2021/. Date of access: August 24, 2021.
  • The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). 2021. “Asylum and Migration.” UNHCR: The UN Refugee Agency. URL: https://www.unhcr.org/asylum-and-migration.html. Date of access: August 24, 2021.

Category: A

Work Package: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

[MM]

Mobility

Mobility is an umbrella term for a wide range of phenomena (e.g., migration, globalization, tourism, and transport), as well as other processes more remotely related to movement and fluctuation such as social mobility or social resistance. Mobility requires motility, “the capacity of a person to be mobile” (Kaufmann 2016, 37). Yet the potential to be mobile depends on an individual’s personal circumstances (see the distinction between migrants and expats) and “the way in which [one] appropriates what is possible in the domain of mobility and puts this potential to use for his or her activities” (Kaufmann 2016, 37). Public discourses tend to use the terms mobility and migration as synonyms, to refer to the movement of groups of people from one country to another. However, the concept of mobility usually has positive connotations such as chance, opportunity, aspiration, and ambition, whereas that of migration correlates with notions of insecurity, danger, risk, or crisis.

⇢ see also expat, migration, opportunity

References and further reading:

  • Adey, Peter. 2017. Mobility. 2nd ed. London and New York, NY: Routledge.
  • Kaufmann, Vincent. 2016. Re-Thinking Mobility: Contemporary Sociology. London and New York, NY: Routledge.
  • Urry, John. 2007. Mobilities. Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity.

Category: C

Work Package: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

[CG]

Moral imagination

Moral imagination is the ability to conceive of alternatives to the status quo with regard to the moral standards of the persons involved. According to John Paul Lederach (2005, 5), “the moral imagination requires the capacity to imagine ourselves in a web of relationships that includes our enemies; the ability to sustain a paradoxical curiosity that embraces complexity without reliance on dualistic polarity; the fundamental belief in and pursuit of the creative act.”

⇢ see also Cross Talk, perspective taking 

References and further reading:

  • Lederach, John Paul. The Moral Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Category: A

Work Package: 2, 3, 6, 7

[BBK / CS / FK]

Multiperspectivity

Generally, multiperspectivity means looking at an issue such as migration and integration from various angles, for example by approaching it with different methods or by encouraging an open and fair dialogue between migrants, citizens, politicians, and other stakeholders in Cross Talk events. In stories, multiperspectivity means that several viewpoints are presented to offer the audience a more diverse or nuanced picture. Level Telling Fields promote multiperspectivity in public conversations, such as migration discourses. Two forms can be distinguished: Horizontal multiperspectivity occurs when an issue is represented from different angles, allowing for debate – e.g. in policy narratives, scientific research, or media reports – or when a wide range of migrant experiences (countries of origin, age, gender, status) are represented in migration discourses. Vertical multiperspectivity occurs when different kinds of perspective (e.g. life stories and official narratives) are represented together. While horizontal multiperspectivity is the norm in democratic, open societies, vertical multiperspectivity is often difficult to achieve. The Level Telling Field promotes both types of multiperspectivity to create conditions for a fair dialogue on migration and integration.

⇢ see Cross Talk, Level Telling Field, polyphony

References and further reading:

Category: B

Work Package: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

[RS]