Call for paper submissions for the monographic section 'Journalism and Human Mobility: Towards the Construction of New Narratives on Migrations'
Call for paper submissions for the monographic section 'Journalism and Human Mobility: Towards the Construction of New Narratives on Migrations,' edited by Amarela Varela-Huerta (UACM) and Eileen Truax (UAB).
The narratives surrounding contemporary migrations, the forms of refuge and asylum, forced internal and transnational displacement, migration as a consequence of climate change, return, deportation, and many other forms of human mobility occupy a prominent space on social digital platforms and mass media. Audiences receive information about the exodus, transit, and arrival at destinations of migrants through a narrative constructed in a crisis key, which prioritizes the criminalization and problematization of migration and migrants both in their individual stories and collectively.
The dominant presence of violence in information about migrations—detentions, deportations, entrapments, massacres, kidnappings, disappearances, rapes, murders—, the institutionalization of cruelty from punitive and discriminatory state legal logics, and the normalization of xenophobic practices in societies witnessing the journey and arrival, means that narratives about human mobility focus mainly on the moments of transit and arrival, which are often very newsworthy, but do not explain the full cycle of migration. Telling the origin of displaced and migrant people, the causes that have motivated their mobility, and especially telling what happens after arriving at the destination—beyond the deserts, shipwrecks, and jungles—is fundamental to understanding migration phenomena comprehensively and to constructing a more accurate and just narrative about migrants and migrations from a human rights and social justice perspective.
We call on journalists, researchers, and students of migration, borders, exile, refuge, asylum, and return to propose academic works to consider the keys for journalism that prioritizes migrants and complexifies their stories, desires, fears, and networks of affection and care; that explains the causes and consequences of human mobility by incorporating the complex humanity of each person beyond their status as migrants into the narrative.
Submissions are welcome in both Spanish and English. The texts deemed favorable will be translated into both languages for publication in Obra Digital.
Submission of manuscripts: Until November 15, 2024
Publication: June 2025
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- Reports, studies and proposals, doctoral thesis results, literature reviews (state-of-the-art articles), reviews and curated scientific interviews.
