Five Country Conference Watch

There appears to be a substantial amount of work on refugee and immigrant discourse analysis; however, a clear gap exists in how advocacy, particularly by academics, public intellectuals, and practitioners, can interrupt and counteract de-humanizing discourse around asylum-seekers and refugees as ‘bogus,’ self-selected’, ‘fraudulent’, ‘illegitimate,’ ‘deviant’, etc., based on their method of arrival and nature of persecution. Authors overwhelmingly agree that shifting this public discourse will not be easy. But how exactly does a shift in “collective will” take place with in a shrinking space for advocacy? And how can academics inform advocacy work in this area? What do counter-narratives that capture the national imagination look like?