Construction of a „refugee crisis“ in Germany and beyond

Especially in 2015 media reports about the so called 'refugee crisis' had risen to new levels in Germany. The depiction as a crisis resulted from the specific way media portrayed the situation, or more precisely, the situation of Germany taking in refugees. This was done through the use of certain metaphors and pictures, such as describing the volume of humans entering the country as a 'wave of refugees' ('Flüchtlingswelle') or 'flood' in ordinary newspaper articles.

The refugee crisis was and is often times portrayed as a 'crisis for European/Western countries', in which the refugees seeking asylum are depicted as a problem, whereas the circumstances for humans leaving theire homes seems to be more of a secondary (if at all, a) concern. Connected with the notion of a crisis is fear of a potential danger, that again fosters specific laws, trying to keep 'control' through stricter migration laws and even deportation. And with this goes hand in hand the notion and distinction and maybe even stratification of humans seeking asylum, putting them in different categories of “deserving refugees” and “undeserving migrants”(Holmes and Castañeda 2016: 1).

But what does the refugee crisis really mean and who is affected by it? If crisis describes a time of turmoil in which the social world is changing with the notion of fear and the uncertainty of what it might become, then there is an issue within this understanding of such a transformational state. Because 'crisis' could be understood as a state of mind or as a state of physical and mental reality. On an international scale, refugee crisis sometimes is discussed as in whose 'responsibility' it is to take in asylum seekers. Neither a united Europe, nor a united Germany exists when it comes to answering this question. The so called 'welcome culture' ('Wilkommenskultur') in Germany is a topic of heated discussions in politics and among many Germans, having different opinions on whether Germany is doing enough or too much for asylum seekers.

When it comes to crisis being understood as a physical and mental reality, the people most affected by it are the people whose human rights are ignored, living in- or leaving the places/homes in which they experience endangerment of their well being, (political-) freedom and economic situation.

Often times we can find that media reports are taking historical as well as political and economical issues out of context and project these on the presence of asylum seekers and therefor enhancing fear. The outcome of this progress was visible in Germanys last elections and in several voices that express this fear towards cultural, religious and ethnic differences, while often at the same time being unfamiliar with said differences. The fact is ignored, that Germany is no homogeneous country. Migration has always been a major part of European history and was not established in 2015.

Refugees and the crisis that is constructed around it became an important contemporary topic in Anthropology today, showing the need to search for more thoroughly contextualized descriptions.

Reference:

Holmes, Seth M. und Heide Castañeda. 2016. Representing the “European refugee crisis” in Germany and beyond: Deservingness and difference, life and death. In: American Anthropologist. Vol. 43. Nr. 1. Seiten 1-13