Waiting in Line, Moving in Circles : Spaces of Instability in Christian Petzold’s Transit

Loosely based on a 1944 novel by German writer Anna Seghers and set in present-day France, Christian Petzold’s Transit is a story of fateful migration, in which conflicting agencies and shifting identities are translated into an aesthetic principle. Its fluctuating interrelations between images, texts, and temporalities transform the film into an ultimate “non-place,” which, except for a few hints at fascism and a refugee crisis, provides no explanation or overview of its political implications. Alongside the characters, spectators are thrown into a world defined by fragile image spaces and zones of exclusion, always haunted by fragments of the past and glimpses of an uncertain future.

THE INTERCULTURAL ASPECT OF DISTANCE EDUCATION IN GREECE: A CASE STUDY OF EXPLORING EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP’S REPRESENTATIONS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Intercultural education in Greece has recently been brought to the foreground, due to the worldwide migrant/refugee crisis. However, the COVID-19 pandemic outburst in 2020 forced distance education and, hence, technology utilization upon all stakeholders. In this regard, by adopting a qualitative approach and by exploring educational leaders’ representations, this paper aims to investigate whether intercultural and distance education principles can be combined in order for students with a different cultural background to continue attending their lessons, as most native students do. The findings of this study demonstrate that intercultural principles are hard or in some cases impossible to be applied in distance learning and consequently, refugee/migrant students end up falling behind or being entirely excluded from the educational process.

Echoes of Empire: racism and historical amnesia in the British media coverage of migration

This paper looks at how the British media addressed the issue of migration in Europe between 2015 and 2018, four years when the topic was high on news and political agendas, due to the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ and the UK’s debate on Britain’s relationship with the European Union and free movement of people. Based on a sample of 400 articles from two national newspapers, The Guardian and The Times, the paper compares the content and discourse between the left-wing and right-wing press. The paper argues that media representations turn refugees into ‘migrants’ and portray them as either a threat to the national economy and security or as passive victims of distant circumstances. The study historicizes these media narratives and reveals that the discourse they employ advances the racialised mix of knowledge and historical amnesia and reproduces the age-old hierarchies of the colonial system which divided humans into superior and inferior species. Migrant voice is largely missing from the coverage. History, that could explain the causes of ‘migration’, the distant conflicts and Britain’s role in them, is also nowhere to be found. The paper considers the exclusion of history and migrant voices from stories told to the British audience and reflects on their domestic and international implications.

Media framing of immigrants in Central Europe in the period surrounding the refugee crisis: Security, negativity, and political sources

This article investigates how all the main quality and tabloid newspapers and the television newscasts of the main broadcasters in Czechia and Slovakia framed immigrants, what the tone of the employed frames was, and who the main framing actors were before and during the EU refugee crisis (2013–2016). Using quantitative content analysis (N = 7,910), we show that security and cultural frames are most commonly employed while the victimization frame is much less common. Whereas tabloids use the security and cultural frames more often, the victimization, economic and administrative frames are more often invoked in quality media. We also show that the framing of immigrants is predominantly negative, and that the security and cultural are the most negatively valenced frames. Finally, we document a dominance of political actors and the practical invisibility of immigrants and refugees in the media coverage.

The Interventions of a Mobile Mental Health Unit on the Refugee Crisis on a Greek Island

This present study concerns refugees and asylum seekers who have been referred to a Mobile Mental Health Unit (MMHU-Ch) in rural Greece on a Northeast Aegean Island during the refugee crisis in 2015. Our objective is the examination and recording of psychopathology characteristics’, the presentation of the therapeutic interventions provided, and the difficulties. The sample is composed of 418 requests made by refugees, asylum seekers, adults, and children. The clinical and demographic data have been gathered from the MMHU-Ch’s charts. The study is retrospective, descriptive with quantitative and categorical variables. The data has been analyzed with the utilization of SPSS. The dominant diagnosis in children involves anxiety disorders, developmental disorders, and PTSD. One noteworthy finding is the high percentage of suicide behavior regardless of psychiatric diagnosis, which should be further examined. As far as interventions are concerned, the conclusions which have arisen are the gradually stronger commitment of the referents, but also the high percentage of requests that dropped out. Further examination of the interventions and their efficiency is recommended as well as probing the features of psychopathology in the long term with a view to clarifying the patronizing and aggravating factors.