Reception in crisis: Discursive practices and political actions

Abstract

Since 2014-2015, population displacements caused by the Syrian civil war along with the broader range of migratory flows to Europe have resulted in a situation that has often been described in host countries as a crisis. Because the relation between migration and crisis is fraught with complications, most migration studies now include a prior warning about the term crisis or the expression migratory crisis, as a reminder that the discursive frame is not neutral and should therefore be kept at a distance. Indeed, the set of interpretations generated by the word crisis are questionable and inherently biased. Originally used in medical vocabulary, it refers to an intense period that represents a break in the "normal" course of events ("pathological" implications are always inherent) while at the same time positing a resolution, an "exit from crisis" that calls for solutions (Veniard, 2013). The question is whether, even when kept at a distance, the mere use of expression migratory crisis does not fall into the same pattern; after all, it has the same semantic structure and seems to propagate the same set of interpretations.

Chapitre 5. « Pouvons-nous être amis ? »

“…Voir chapitre 1 de cet ouvrage, « La Bulle de Babel », et chapitre 8, « Les mots de l'asile ». Sur les mots de l'asile, voir également Calabrese & Veniard, 2018. 43.…”