Category: EN Perceptions

What: Policy roundtable based on findings from ten #H2020 projects, including PERCEPTIONS

When: 1^st March 2022, 2022, 08:30-16:00

Where (hybrid): Norwegian House of Research and Innovation, Rue Guimaard 9, Brussels and online

How: Free registration online → https://inclusive-europe.com/registration/

Migrations and migrants in the EU: Changing narratives – modifying practices – influencing policies.

Join us live in Brussels on March 1st or watch the broadcast.

Including migrants in the European Union has not been a uniform process and has revealed several obstacles in the path of making the inclusion and integration of people on the move efficient, humane, and dignified.

PERCEPTIONS, a Horizon 2020 project focusing on understanding the impact of narratives and perceptions of Europe on migration, led by SYNYO, joins forces with 9 other EU-funded projects. The roundtable will be the occasion for PERCEPTIONS to communicate its preliminary results to high level decision-makers in Brussels on providing practices, tools and guides for practitioners, on the (economic, cultural, political) impact of various narratives, images and perceptions of the EU, on innovative solutions to enhancing integration and cohesion, and on the role of domestic agents.

In this roundtable, we will bring together researchers, practitioners, journalists, and policymakers to discuss the potential of re-interpreting existing narratives, to present good practices resulting from the ongoing projects, and to inform political decision-making processes.

This event offers a rare opportunity to engage with researchers and practitioners from 34 countries including 21 EU countries, representing a total of 135 institutions.

Get insights into state-of the-art fieldwork and practices and learn about solutions that have been tested on the ground!

Visit our website for more information: https://project.perceptions.eu/

See the agenda: https://inclusive‐europe.com/agenda/

The Euro-Arab Foundation participated this Thursday in the congress “Migration in focus: addressing informational challenges in humanitarian actions” organized by the project H2020 MIRROR (Migration-Related Risks Caused by Misconceptions of Opportunities and Requirement) that takes place on December 15 and 16 in Malta. The congress focuses on information gaps in the formulation and implementation of public policies aimed at migrants.

The Migration in Focus conference, organized under the umbrella of the EU-funded project MIRROR, seeks to act as an interactive platform fostering debate on the most challenging and novel issues in the field of migration. The main focus of the conference is identifying novel ways to fill in “informational gaps” in formulating and deploying policies and humanitarian responses targeting migrants. As such the organizers are seeking contributions aimed at identifying good practices and tools that have positively contributed to enhancing knowledge in this field as well as studies on existing gaps and persistent challenges.

In relation to the protection of human rights and migration, Patricia Bueso and Jose María González Riera, FUNDEA researchers, have presented “Recommendations and insights of practitioners’ practice”, focusing on the case of Morocco to point out good practices and recommendations for a better protection of the human rights of migrants. The information comes from the field work that the Euro-Arab Foundation has carried out in Morocco in the framework of the PERCEPTIONS project. In this task, migrants and professionals related to the migration sector were interviewed.

Researchers from “the Department of Projects & Research” of the Euro-Arab Foundation will participate in the IMISCOE Annual Conference ‘Crossing borders, connecting cultures’ (July 7-9).

Two panels ‘Migrants’ perceptions of the EU. Imaginaries, policies and symbolic management across Europe and beyond‘ will be dedicated to presenting the results of the PERCEPTIONS H2020 project on July 7, from 14:00 to 15:30, and from 15:45 to 17:15.  

These two panels will analyse  how migrants perceive migration to Europe , as well as the narratives of journalists and policy makers and how this (potentially) relates to each other. Perceptions on (migration to) Europe are structured by prevailing and each continuously reinforcing narratives that are spread through (social) media, by policy makers and personal networks. These perceptions vary along migration trajectories as they are part of social constructions that are repeatedly reinterpreted through a series of stories and highly impacted by information campaigns and migration management by policy makers.

José M. González Riera and Patricia Bueso Izquierdo will present some of the results of the research carried out by the Foundation in a paper  titled: Across the Strait: migrants’ narratives on Europe in Morocco and Spain.

Our research has studied the Moroccan context, which in the last three decades has become a key transit country, mainly for sub-Saharan nationals on their way to Europe. At the same time, it continues to be the origin of a sizeable amount of Moroccan citizens migrating to the EU. Additionally, Morocco is consolidating as a host country, mainly for sub-Saharans (Khrouz & Lanza, 2015), many of whom reside irregularly despite of the two regularisations that the country has recently implemented (Benjelloun, 2017). A question often raised is which visions of the final destination move so many people to undertake such a costly and often perilous journey. This paper aims at comprehending the ways in which the perceptions and narratives of Spain/Europe are framed amongst migrants in Morocco on transit to Spain/Europe as well as potential Moroccan migrants. Such views will be then contrasted with those of migrants who have already arrived to Spain. Based on the assumption that these imaginaries are affected by migrants’ experiences, we aim at analysing the evolution of this narrative plasticity, assessing the ways in which the migration itinerary interacts with the perceptions and narratives from the country of origin to the final destination. We will depict the evolution of various patterns of narrative itineraries in parallel to the migration journeys.

This paper is based on the empirical research findings stemming from the fieldwork conducted in Morocco and Spain. The key outcomes will be discussed in terms of a better management of the migration flows and the development of migratory policy recommendations.

More information:

• IMISCOE Conference:
  https://www.imiscoe.org/conference/programme
• PERCEPTIONS project: https://project.perceptions.eu/ 
• Twitter: @RProjectsFUNDEA

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