Sounds of the jungle: Re-humanizing the migrant

Abstract

This article examines the cross-border tensions over migrant settlements dubbed ‘The Jungle’ in Calais. The Jungle, strongly associated with the unauthorized movement of migrants, became a physical entity enmeshed in discourses of illegality and violation of white suburbia. British mainstream media have either rendered the migrant voiceless or faceless, appropriating them into discourses of immigration policy and the violent transgression of borders. Through the case study, Calais Migrant Solidarity (CMS), we highlight how new media spaces can re-humanize the migrant, enabling them to tell their stories through narratives, images and vantage points not shown in the mainstream media. This reconstruction of the migrant is an important device in enabling proximity and reconstituting the migrant as real and human. This sharply contrasts with the distance framing techniques of mainstream media, which dehumanize and silence the migrant, locating the phenomenon of migration as a disruptive contaminant in civilized and ordered societies.