Beyond the Migrant "Problem": Visualizing Global Migration. (September 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Risam, Roopika
• Other Names: Ponzanesi Sandra guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Television & new media. Volume 20:Number 6(2019)
• Page Start: 566
• Page End: 580
• Publication Date: 2019-09
• Subjects: migration -- data visualization -- mapping -- digital humanities -- digital rhetoric -- composition; Télévision -- Aspect social -- Périodiques; Télévision -- Aspect économique -- Périodiques; Médias -- Publics -- Périodiques; Civilisation -- Histoire -- Périodiques; Television broadcasting -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Digital media -- Periodicals; 302.234505
• DOI: 10.1177/1527476419857679
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1527-4764

Abstract

An area that has received comparatively little attention, in both postcolonial digital humanities and its overlap with studies of media and migration, is how geo-spatial data visualizations contribute to the othering of the migrant and how they can be used, in turn, to challenge the instantiation of the migrant as a "problem." Positioning data visualizations of migration as a narrative genre, this article considers how data visualizations of migration reinforce the trope of migrant-as-problem and how they might resist this inscription. Through multimodal rhetorical analysis of data visualizations of migration, I examine the interplay of written-linguistic, visual, and spatial modes of communication deployed in two approaches to visualizing migration and propose that the contexts of collaboration behind their composition influence their representation of the migrant as a "problem" and hold the power to resist this narrative.