Media and immobility: The affective and symbolic immobility of forced migrants

Abstract

Can we think about the role of media and information and communication technologies in the lives of forced migrants through the lens of immobility? The dominant focus in the communication studies literature is on mobility, movement and connectivity. Migration studies and anthropology however offer productive ways to conceptualize the mobility–immobility spectrum as well as the imaginative dimensions of (im)mobility. Building on two studies that were situated at the temporal and geographical edges of the ‘European refugee crisis’ – a 2015 study in a Syrian refugee camp in Turkey and a 2017–2018 study with Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi refugees in Belgium – this article develops a conceptual framework of media and immobility in the context of forced migration. It coins the pair concepts affective immobility and symbolic immobility to highlight and understand practices of disengagement with media and information and communication technologies, agentic disconnectivity and feelings of symbolic fixedness.