The stories we tell: How Diversity is Narrated and Community is Created in two Copenhagen Neighborhoods Garbi Schmidt

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1 Transit Europe Abstracts and bios The refugee crisis and its multiple implications Joaquín Arango Since the summer of 2014, the mass afflux to the southern coasts of Europe of unprecedented numbers of people escaping life threatening conditions and desperately searching international protection has resulted both in a major humanitarian tragedy and in an existential crisis for the European Union. Such crisis is a multifaceted and multidimensional one that, in addition to its staggering human costs, involves a collapse of the European asylum system and repeated breaches of communitarian and international legislation, threatens the maintenance of free circulation in the Schengen space, entails a deepening of North South and East West fractures within the EU, and fuels the rise of euroscepticism and xenophobia. Its long term implications are uncertain and worrisome. The stories we tell: How Diversity is Narrated and Community is Created in two Copenhagen Neighborhoods Garbi Schmidt garbi@ruc.dk Presently there is much not least political focus on how social cohesion and community is upheld, both nationally and locally. In this paper I will focus on two particular neighborhoods in Copenhagen, Østerbro and Nørrebro, to offer some perspectives on the debate. Questions I wish to investigate are the following: What perceptions about the spatial and place bound distinctiveness of the neighborhoods exist; how do they relate to aspects of diversity and class; and how do they affect, for example, how public spaces are orchestrated and community performed? The perceptions are not necessarily in accordance with the everyday life of people although they do have a noticeable impact on self perception and understanding of home. Besides, the paper will focus on the phenomenon of cultural festivals that appear to be strategies for community building in both neighborhoods. What do such

2 events teach us about expectations towards diversity, social cohesion, conviviality and community, and what stories are told and retold in that regard? Communication in the society of difference: Between pluralism and (dis)engagement Silvio Waisbord We have solid insights about the conditions needed to promote plural communication in contemporary societies, including diverse media systems and critical media literacy. We are in terra incognita, however, regarding the conditions necessary for citizens to actively engage in communicating with difference. Studies have shown that we favor communicating with like minded individuals and groups, based on existing, shared attributes grounded in political, ideological, religious, national and other factors, and that we are reluctant to engage with Others. The "communication in identity," however, is insufficient in contemporary societies characterized by diversity writ large. Democracy also demands "communication in difference" the engagement with Others with whom we have known and unknown differences. Yet this type of communication is by far more complex and challenging that "communication in identity" for it raises the prospect of conflict, challenging convictions, critical reasoning, compromise, and consensus. These formidable difficulties underlie a raft of phenomena central to contemporary societies from xenophobia to partisan polarization, as well as the preference and reinforcement of homophilic spaces of communication. A key challenge for communication studies is to confront head on Rawls' question about how democracy is possible in societies divided by many factors, and provide insights into how wellintentioned desires for true engagement with difference are possible. Humanitarian Technologies: from ideals of participation to practices of governance in emergencies and disaster recovery Mirca Madianou m.madianou@gold.ac.uk The 2013 World Disasters Report uses the term 'humanitarian technology' to refer to the empowering nature of digital technologies such as mobile phones and social media

3 for disaster recovery. It is claimed that interactive technologies enable affected communities to participate in their own recovery, respond to their own problems and make their voices heard. Digital technologies are welcomed for their potential to catalyze a power shift in humanitarianism by providing feedback structures that empower local communities to hold humanitarian agencies into account. Indeed a new era of humanitarianism is proclaimed which is driven by digital developments (Meier, 2015; UN OCHA, 2012). Despite the enthusiasm regarding the role of digital technologies as tools for recovery there is little evidence to assess their impact. My talk unpacks some of the dominant narratives surrounding digital technologies for disaster recovery and humanitarian relief. Rather than assuming the usefulness, inherently progressive or democratizing nature of communication technologies, I will reflect on the affordances of digital media, their actual uses by disaster affected people and how these contribute to key processes of humanitarian practice such as participation and accountability. I will do so by drawing on a year long ethnography of the Typhoon Haiyan recovery, including interviews with affected people and humanitarian workers. The response to Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in 2013, represents the most systematic implementation of initiatives aimed at facilitating voice and empowering local communities to hold agencies into account. My talk is also informed by interviews with additional humanitarian officers employed recent emergencies such as the Nepal earthquake and the European refugee crisis. Although digital technologies are rendered as solutions to longstanding critiques of humanitarianism, I argue that processes mediation can amplify existing power inequalities between aid workers and disaster affected people, or even within affected communities themselves. Bios Joaquín Arango is Professor of Sociology, Complutense University of Madrid, and Director, Center for the Study of Migration and Citizenship, Ortega y Gasset Research Institute. Until

4 recently he was President of Spain s National Forum for the Social Integration of Immigrants. Trained as a demographer and economic historian at the University of California Berkeley and as a sociologist at the Complutense University, Prof. Arango has worked as an expert for the European Commission, the Council of Europe, ILO, OECD, and other international institutions. His current areas of interest include migration systems and migration regimes, immigration and integration policies, labor migration, irregular migration, and the impacts of the economic crisis. Current or recent research projects which he has led, or participated in, deal or have dealt with temporary vs. permanent migration, irregular migration and the underground economy, the impact of admission policies on integration, attitudes towards immigration and diversity, the mainstreaming of immigration policies, and migrant domestic workers. Garbi Schmidt is Professor of intercultural Studies at the University of Roskilde, Denmark. She holds a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Lund. She has written extensively, both in English and the Scandinavian languages, about Muslim minorities in the West, Danish migration history and immigrant life in Denmark. Silvio Waisbord is Professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. He is Editor in Chief of the Journal of Communication and former editor in chief of the International Journal of Press/Politics. His books include, Media Movements: Civil Society and Media Policy Reform in Latin America (with Soledad Segura, Zed, 2016), Media Sociology: A Reappraisal (editor, Polity, 2014), Reinventing Professionalism: Journalism and News in Global Perspective (Polity, 2013) and Global Health Communication (co edited with Rafael Obregon, Wiley, 2012). He has lectured and worked in more than 30 countries, has written or edited 10 books, and published more than 100 journal articles, book chapters, and newspaper columns. Dr. Waisbord has written on communication and social change, news and politics, journalism, global health communication, and media policy. He serves in the Advisory Board of the Latin American program of Open Society Foundations. He holds a Licenciatura in sociology from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, San Diego.

5 Mirca Madianou is Reader in the Department of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London where she works on the social consequences of communication technologies in a transnational and comparative context. Her work makes theoretical and substantive contributions to the areas of migration, disaster recovery, humanitarian relief and their intersection with digital technology. She has directed two ESRC grants: Humanitarian Technologies [link: ] and Migration, ICTS and transnational families [ link: /read ] which have led to several publications on the social consequences of new communication technologies among marginalised and migrant populations. She is the author of Mediating the Nation: News, Audiences and the Politics of Identity (2005) and Migration and New Media: Transnational Families and Polymedia (2012 with D. Miller) as well as editor of Ethics of Media (2013 with N. Couldry and A. Pinchevski). Mirca is currently the Vice Chair of the Philosophy, Theory and Critique division of the International Communication Association (ICA).