Abstract
This chapter is structured around the argument that the literature on media ethics tends to ignore the political dimensions of ethical positions. In the literature, ethical dilemmas arise with respect to how the media can approach refugees; what might constitute an appropriate representation, and how must audiences be positioned vis-à-vis the distant suffering of refugees. However, in treating these as ethical questions from a philosophical-moral point of view, there is a tendency to overlook the political dimension that is always present in ethical positions. Secondly, in this discussion, and notwithstanding important exceptions, the overall tendency is to focus on those who represent refugees and not on the refugee/migrant communities and their attempts to reclaim their media representation. This shows that the subject of research is turned into a voiceless object to be studied. This chapter foregrounds the politics of ethics by looking at political activist interventions by refugees themselves. The actions of refugee/migrant communities indicate a clear shift towards emancipation from imposed narratives, whether they come from the NGO and governmental sectors, the media or academic researchers. We argue that this shift represents a new phase in media activist ethics because through the political act of reclaiming their own voice, refugee/migrant communities resolve ethical dilemmas: very simply, for these communities the only ethical position is one that directly addresses the source of exploitation, subjugation and oppression. In this interpretation of ethics emerging from refugee and migrant activists themselves, media ethics and politics collapse into one another.
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Notes
- 1.
While we refer here to media and media ethics, the argument is taken to extend to research ethics at least insofar as this research leads to published outcomes, which then constitute forms of media.
- 2.
This does not mean that no aesthetic tropes are to be used in representing. Rather, Boltanski refers here to representations that sublimate suffering, turning it into a source of artistic contemplation, and thereby leading to a further differentiation between the spectators and the sufferers. Boltanski refers to de Sade’s works as an example of the pain of others turned into an occasion of aesthetic contemplation.
- 3.
The unwillingness of the European Union and its member states to accept migrants and refugees led to the political decision to ‘externalise’ border controls, or in other words, to effectively ask third countries to control migratory flows to Europe. This was formally instituted through agreements such as the EU-Turkey agreement of March 2016, and the agreement with Libya in 2018. In the former, the EU agreed with Turkey to return all migrants arriving through the Greek islands in exchange for €3 billion (see here for full details: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-towards-a-new-policy-on-migration/file-eu-turkey-statement-action-plan). In the case of Libya, the EU paid €286 million, ostensibly to strengthen local communities in order to deal with migrants, and to assist ‘voluntary repatriation’ (see here for more details: https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage_en/19163/EU-Libya%20relations).
- 4.
Austerity refers to the policy of cutting the budget of the state (Blyth, 2013). This in turn creates various pressures and intense competition for jobs and wages as budget cuts lead to job losses and lower wages. In Europe, where policies revolved around welfare provision, the competition for jobs and access to the more limited welfare available under austerity led to a rise of xenophobia and racism as only those considered as ‘belonging’ were seen as deserving access to jobs and welfare (Giglioli, 2016). For some (e.g. Bhattacharyya, 2018; Carastathis, 2015), racism is a technique of austerity that justifies and supports intense competition. The externalisation of border controls following the 2015 ‘crisis’ can be read as a European response that continues along the same lines: using belongingness and exclusion to justify austerity and the intensification of competition for access to basic rights, such as the right to work, health services, housing and so on.
- 5.
Gilets Noirs Press release 20 May 2019, http://www.statewatch.org/news/2019/may/fr-communique-gilets-noir-airport-5-19.pdf.
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Siapera, E., Creta, S. (2020). The Ethics of Media Research with Refugees. In: Jeppesen, S., Sartoretto, P. (eds) Media Activist Research Ethics. Global Transformations in Media and Communication Research - A Palgrave and IAMCR Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44389-4_11
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