"Westafrika wird in Europa oft undifferenziert als Krisenregion wahrgenommen. Während fundierte Kenntnisse über die Geschichte und Gegenwart der dortigen Staaten vielfach fehlen, halten sich Stereotype über die Ursachen von Flucht und Migration in und aus Westafrika zäh. Der Soziologe Olaf Berna
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u beleuchtet die historischen und sozioökonomischen Wurzeln der Migration, die in den westafrikanischen Gesellschaften eine lange und positive Tradition aufweise. Diese habe sich durch die Erfahrungen der Sklaverei und der Kolonialzeit, durch Bürgerkrieg und Terrorismus, ökonomische Fehlentwicklungen der Globalisierung, unpassende Entwicklungsprogramme sowie durch den Klimawandel die migrantischen Traditionen Westafrikas und ihre Dynamiken verändert, was diesseits des Mittelmeers weithin nicht verstanden werde. Solange sich Europa gegenüber Westafrika einem fundierten Verständnis der komplexen Fluchtursachen verweigere, sei eine Beruhigung der Lage dort nicht zu erwarten." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"This OA book investigates the methodological and ethical dilemmas involved when working with digital technologies and large-scale datasets in relation to ethnographic studies of digital migration practices and trajectories. Digital technologies reshape not only every phase of the migration process
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itself (by providing new ways to access, to share and preserve relevant information) but also the activities of other actors, from solidarity networks to border control agencies. In doing so, digital technologies create a whole new set of ethical and methodological challenges for migration studies: from data access to data interpretation, privacy protection, and research ethics more generally. Of specific concern are the aspects of digital migration researchers accessing digital platforms used by migrants, who are subject to precarious and insecure life circumstances, lack recognised papers and are in danger of being rejected and deported. Thus, the authors call for new modes of caring for (big) data when researching migrants' digital practices in the configuration of migration and borders. Besides taking proper care of research participants' privacy, autonomy, and security, this also spans carefully establishing analytically sustainable environments for the respective data sets. In doing so, the book argues that it is essential to carefully reflect on researchers' own positioning as being part of the challenge they seek to address." (Publisher description)
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"Der Vielfalt der Gesellschaft gerecht zu werden, stellt öffentliche Bibliotheken vor Herausforderungen. Der Band gibt einen Überblick zur strategischen und diskriminierungskritischen Organisationsentwicklung sowie zur Veranstaltungs- und Bestandsarbeit für diversitätssensible Öffnung. Eine Vie
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lzahl von Praxisbeispielen aus dem Programm „360° – Fonds für Kulturen der neuen Stadtgesellschaft" werden vorgestellt." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"This report shares findings on the access and use of mobile technology among South Sudanese refugees and the communities that host them in three areas of White Nile, Sudan. White Nile is a state in southern Sudan sharing a border and refugee crossing points with South Sudan. It is home to nearly 70
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0,000 people in need of humanitarian assistance. More than 280,000 refugees from South Sudan are currently hosted in White Nile and represent more than a third of all refugees living in Sudan, as well as roughly 100,000 returnees who arrived from South Sudan when it seceded in 2011. Most refugees live in one of nine official refugee camps. Additionally, there are nearly 400,000 people experiencing acute food insecurity [...] Our research indicates that access to mobile phones is high in both communities, with 91 per cent of respondents reporting that their household owns at least one handset. Personal ownership is also high, with 81 per cent of refugees and 62 per cent of host community members reporting that they own their own mobile phone. This figure obscures some important discrepancies, however. For example, refugees are more likely to own an internet-enabled handset than host community members, and women, persons with disabilities and older people are less likely to have access to mobile phones." (Executive summary, page 2)
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"Das vorliegende Buch liefert einen Einblick in das hoch aktuelle Thema (kulturelle) Vielfalt (Diversity) in Organisationen und Unternehmen. Dabei verbindet es den aktuellen theoretischen Forschungsstand zum Thema Diversity mit Handlungsmöglichkeiten zum erfolgreichen Umgang mit dieser Vielfalt (Di
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versity Management). Des Weiteren behandelt dieses Buch das Thema Migration und kulturele Diversifizierung und deckt damit verbundene Stressoren und Potenziale bei Individuen und Organisationen auf. Der Fokus der hier vorgestellten empirischen Studien liegt dabei vor allem auf dem Diversity Management in der MINT-Branche und kombiniert Erkenntnisse von unterschiedlichen praxisrelevanten Ebenen (Studium, Mitarbeitende und Führung). Dabei werden Chancen und Risiken sowie darauf basierende Handlungsoptionen hinsichtlich Diversity Management elaboriert. Das Buch verfolgt einen Wissenschaftsansatz mit hohem Anwendungsbezug und vereint theoretische sowie empirische Beiträge, die für verschiedene Akteure (zum Beispiel Hochschulen und Unternehmen) relevante Handlungsansätze aufzeigen. Insgesamt fünf Themenblöcke, untergliedert in 15 Kapitel, greifen aktuelle Fragestellungen zu kultureller Diversity und Diversity Management aus Theorie und Praxis auf." (Vorwort)
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"Dieses Open-Access-Buch besteht aus einer korpusbasierten diskurssemantischen Analyse der differenzkonstruierenden und zum Teil Lebensrollen verkörpernden Ausdrücke Flüchtling, Geflüchtete_r und Migrant_in. Es setzt sich (teils kritisch) mit der Rolle, die Sprache in der medialen und öffentlic
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hen Aushandlung eines soziopolitisch brisanten Themas spielt, auseinander und zeigt, dass das linguistische Frame-Konzept ein theoretisch wie methodologisch fundiertes Instrumentarium zur Untersuchung von gesellschaftlichen Diskursen bereitstellt. Maßgeblich hierfür ist nicht zuletzt, dass in der linguistischen Frame-Semantik Kognition explizit als ‚soziale‘ Kognition verstanden wird. Frames können betrachtet werden als gebrauchs- und erfahrungsbasierte kognitive Netzwerke, deren epistemischer Gehalt aus der Interaktion mit der Welt und Wahrnehmung der Welt durch die Sprachteilhaber*innen emergiert. Diese Interaktion mit und Wahrnehmung der Welt bezieht sich nicht nur, aber vor allem hinsichtlichpolitischer Themenkomplexe auf sprachlich-diskursive Aushandlungsprozesse. Verfestigtes, prototypisches Wissen ist in einem Frame in Form der Standardwerte gespeichert, die die Erwartbarkeit bestimmter Aspekte hinsichtlich eines Sachverhalts, eines Ereignisses oder einer Personengruppe produzieren wie reproduzieren." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"The Strong Cities Network (SCN) conducted an online investigation into the scale and scope of Russian-language stigmatisation and abuse of Central Asian labour migrants. Through a mixed-methods approach that combined natural-language processing technology with manual qualitative research, the SCN w
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as able to identify key narratives and terminology used to dehumanise and ostracise Central Asians. This paper presents the SCN's findings and provides a series of recommendations for addressing anti-migrant hateful and polarising content online." (Executive summary)
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"Dieser Bericht vertieft die Ergebnisse einer Medienanalyse, bei der zu pädagogischen Zwecken (gute wie schlechte) Beispiele von Medienberichterstattung im Zusammenhang mit rassistischer Diskriminierung in Schweizer Nachrichtenmedien zusammengetragen wurden. […] Diese Studie stützt sich auf deta
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illierte Untersuchungen von drei Artikeln mit diskriminierenden Auswirkungen. Sie umfasst die Analyse der Artikel selbst (Diskursanalyse) und vertiefte Gespräche (Forschungsinterviews) mit den Autorinnen bzw. Autoren der Artikel, weiteren Journalistinnen und Journalisten sowie Mitgliedern der Redaktion, die für den jeweiligen Artikel zuständig war. Diese Interviews ermöglichten es, die wichtigsten Schritte bei der Produktion von Nachrichten, die als diskriminierungssensibel bezeichnet werden können, nachzuvollziehen und die dabei wirksamen Berufspraktiken und -logiken zu identifizieren." (Vorwort, iii & Abstract iv)
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"[…] The studies presented here […] seek to explore two questions: how have Arab diasporic communities in Europe used Arab media in transnational political action formation since 2011? And how does the use of different media platforms stimulate or confine particular diasporic action, and what do
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es this mean for our understanding of mediatized diaspora? The project conducts a comparative study between the use and users of Syrian, Tunisian, Bahraini, and Egyptian regime-critical and politically mobilized media. The four Arab countries have been selected because they represent different patterns of immigration that are formed by colonial connections and current conflicts." (Introduction, page 2)
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"The potential benefits of increased digitalisation to refugees, living in situations where access to information and spaces for communication exchange are of the essence, are yet to be realised. Uganda’s forced migrants, both those in refugee settlements and those self-settled in urban areas, hav
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e demonstrated their eagerness to get and stay connected to the internet through social media platforms, regardless of the challenging context. The internet connectivity available to them ranges from cellular networking, wireless local area networking to personal area networking technologies. As communications systems and networks continue to grow and new social media applications are developed, the lives of refugees and humanitarians operating in settings of asylum are in reasingly likely to be affected in dynamic ways. As Maitland (2020) reminds us, connectivity (and its risks) can help overcome or ameliorate some of the sources of vulnerability. The road ahead is paved with complexities associated with refugee protection and inclusion in humanitarian programming in a ubiquitous digital environment, further accelerated by the exigencies of social distancing due to Covid-19." (Conclusion, page 35)
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"The current scale and duration of displacement prompts renewed urgency about livelihoods prospects for displaced people and the role of humanitarian organisations in fostering them. This special issue focuses on how aid organisations, together with the private sector and other actors, have worked t
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o include refugees in new forms of online work within the web-based digital economy. Building on comparative analysis and a comprehensive review of the field of digital livelihoods among the forcibly displaced, in this introductory article we argue that including refugees in this digital economy is currently neither a sustainable form of humanitarian relief nor is it a development solution that provides large-scale decent work. We show how digital livelihoods approaches have gained a special footing in the middle ground between short-term economic relief and long-term development. Indeed, digital economies seemingly offer a variety of ‘quick-fix’ solutions at the transition from humanitarian emergency towards long-term development efforts. While digital economies harbour significant potential, this cannot be fully realised unless current efforts to include refugees in digital economies are complemented by efforts to address digital divides, uphold refugees’ rights, and ensure more decent working conditions." (Abstract)
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"Because refugees face barriers to making a livelihood online, aid organisations and private enterprises support them by building bridges across digital divides, connectivity problems or skill gaps. They thereby become intermediaries and brokers that facilitate connections between refugees and onlin
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e income opportunities, which often lack decent working conditions and adequate protections. Because digital livelihood initiatives lack the power to reshape these conditions and the value of work in the internet economy, they fail to become mediators with a transformative impact. The result is that the internet economy reshapes livelihoods provision far more than aid can reshape its disempowering effects, despite successes in driving forward refugees’ digital inclusion. Based on more than three years of research including interviews, field visits and surveys, this article foregrounds the current risks that result from the inclusion of refugees into precarious forms of online gig work. To ensure a decent future of work for refugees in the internet economy, the current push for digital livelihoods will require an equally strong push for stronger protections, inclusive regulations and rights." (Abstract)
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"A decade into the Syrian war, Lebanon remains the country hosting the largest number of refugees per capita worldwide, limiting their work to three sectors of the economy. Most of the employed refugees have therefore been active in the informal market under indecent and insecure working conditions.
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One solution currently being promoted by humanitarian and development organisations and the private sector is that digital work in web-based labour markets can provide an alternative that circumvents these local restrictions, offering refugees a way to make a livelihood online. This field report contests this assumption, based on analysis of the impact and experience of a digital skills training programme that reached some 3000 beneficiaries by 2021. The report critically examines how a context of regulatory restriction and economic crisis in Lebanon undermines the feasibility of digital refugee livelihoods, thereby offering a critique of the idea that web-based income opportunities transcend local markets, policies and regulations. Due to discriminatory policies, ICT-related exclusion, and financial exclusion, the programme’s objective shifted from online work to local work. Ironically, most of those graduates who found work did so in the local informal labour market once more, having failed to secure any form of sustainable online income opportunity." (Abstract)
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"This op-ed outlines key issues humanitarians should consider when assessing their ‘digital responsibility’ to foster digital refugee livelihoods. This includes in particular the need to develop robust monitoring and evaluation frameworks of outcomes of digital livelihoods trainings for refugees
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– and spaces for critical engagement with the results of such evaluations, including stopping digital livelihoods programming when risks outweigh benefits. It argues that ethical humanitarian engagement in technology must include the development of coherent, contextualised sets of norms and frameworks for responsibility and protection in the digital sphere, including those that address humanitarian efforts to assist refugees to enter the digital economy." (Abstract)
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"Through in-depth qualitative research and a survey to confirm and quantify findings, this study aims to provide a more holistic understanding of how displacement-affected communities in three humanitarian settings are using their mobile phones. These settings were chosen to provide a variety of per
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spectives on the research questions: North and Akkar governorates in Lebanon, which host tens of thousands of Syrian refugees and are the most economically underdeveloped regions in the country; Iowara refugee settlement in Western Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG), which hosts between 2,500 and 3,000 refugees from West Papua, Indonesia (Iowara is an extremely remote settlement that is hard to reach from the nearest town of Kiunga and has a host population of only about 200 people); Bor Protection of Civilians (PoC) site in South Sudan, which hosts about 2,687 internally displaced Nuer people and is located 7 kilometres from the urban centre of Bor Town. Deep qualitative engagement and surveys with refugees, internally displaced people (IDPs) and host communities revealed complex digital worlds in which people use their mobile phones to navigate and cope with difficult daily realities. Connecting with friends and family, staying up to date on news and information from home or relaxing with music are all ways for people to respond to the challenges they face. However, these complex uses also present risks for mobile phone users. The research highlights the impacts of low digital literacy, online scams, misinformation, disinformation and hate speech (MDH), and how humanitarians, mobile network operators (MNOs) and other digital and financial service providers can help protect people from those risks." (Executive summary)
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"Diaspora journalists and digital media play an important role as stakeholders for war-ridden homeland media landscapes such as Syria. This study analyzes, from a safety in practice perspective, the physical and digital threats that challenge the work of Syrian citizen journalists examining the role
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of three online advocacy networks created by Syrian diaspora journalists to promote newsafety. Through a meta-journalistic discourse analysis of the networks’ published visions and missions, and 12 in-depth interviews with the founders and other selected members of the networks, the paper investigates how journalists working for these networks perceive threats, what counterstrategies they adopt, and how they understand the changing nature of their roles. Findings demonstrate that diaspora journalists perceived physical and digital threats as inescapable, following them across borders. Counterstrategies are implemented through collaborations with civil society actors and human rights organizations, aiming to offer professional safety training programs and emergency rescue for journalists under attack, but also through the release of safety guides or codes of conduct. Grounded on the findings, we propose four novel journalistic roles for promoting newsafety from exile: sousveillance, defender, trainer, and regulator/policy developer. While the networks follow some traditional journalistic ideologies, they also show a hybrid conceptualization of journalism." (Abstract)
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"The article draws on the concepts of “felt needs” and “politics of listening” widely used in community development and applies them more broadly to the humanitarian crisis suffered by internally displaced persons in Burkina Faso. It investigates the two-way communication stream between radi
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o journalists and listeners drawing on feedback collected remotely from 153 representatives of internally displaced and host communities in Burkina Faso during COVID-19. It argues that while a voice must be given to marginalised communities, it must also be listened to and acted upon. Rather than radio journalism being a loudspeaker for top-down messaging, the study argues that alternative approaches should be adopted in conflict- and pandemic-affected areas. It finds that a balance is needed between the information that listeners feel they need in their new extreme circumstances and the information that radio journalists, drawing on their expertise, feel would be strategically empowering." (Abstract)
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"The war in Ukraine is just the latest instance where attention-grabbing events have fuelled the rapid spread of false or misleading news about refugees and migrants. This Issue Paper examines the challenges posed by disinformation about refugees from Ukraine, as well as the responses taken so far t
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o address it. It inspects which disinformation actors spread false claims about Ukrainian refugees, and how. It sheds light on why migration-related disinformation is so pervasive and how disinformation narratives change over time and space. It also examines which audiences are more susceptible to online disinformation. The paper also identifies positive developments and shortcomings in the EU's responses." (Executive Summary, page 5)
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