By Laura Madokoro
Amidst the evolving coverage about the refugees from Syria, there has been a lot of discussion about what term best describes the people who are leaving their homes, taking to boats, and attempting to make their way to Europe.
Editors at Al Jazeera sparked the discussion on 20 August 2015, when they announced that they would no longer use the term “migrant” to describe the departing Syrians. Barry Malone explained the term migrant had “evolved from its dictionary definitions into a tool that dehumanises and distances, a blunt pejorative.”[i] Taking issue with the “umbrella term” for allegedly “diminishing” and erasing the complexities of a very difficult situation, Al Jazeera posited that by using the term refugee, where appropriate, it could counter the conflation of “migrants” with “nuisance” and give “voice” back to the people making the headlines. Al Jazeera’s effort to humanize its coverage should be applauded but the network’s stand is not without complexities of its own.
My own research focuses work on the history of humanitarian assistance, migration and refugeehood. Scholars describe refugeehood as the act of becoming a refugee through various political processes, e.g. the labeling by media, or governmental policies.[ii] The thinking is that there is no essential quality that makes someone a refugee but rather they come to be identified as a refugee, largely through political circumstances (and I would add self-identification). In contrast to Al Jazeera’s strategy, my approach to studying the history of refugeehood has been to refer to people as migrants, not refugees. My reasons for doing so are rooted in efforts amongst scholars to correct the impression that migration is a one way, permanent phenomenon. It is also a response to the historiographical literature that privileges government narratives of welcome and assistance over personal stories of migration. And it is, ultimately, as an effort to shed light on the relatively recent development of migration categories, which often obscure the broader forces at play in the history of global migration.
Let me elaborate.
I never knew Harold Geddes, although I saw him now and then fifteen years ago when I first starting working at Mount Allison. Geddes died in 2004 after a long life that is now marked — literally — on the town of Sackville, New Brunswick. He was one of those characters that people in small towns love or wonder about, the kind of person who is described as quirky, eccentric, or weird depending on one’s perspective. He is best known for a singular (and long-standing) act: street cleaning, a point clearly made by the plaque that commemorates his life. In it, we see an aging but still vital man, hat tilted, who stares firmly, unapologetically, and directly at the observer. The effect is to present Geddes as a self-confident man who did not flinch from someone else’s gaze. To one side are the tools of his trade: a broom and shovel. The Geddes memorial is situated across the street from the Sackville, NB “art wall,” that commemorates better-known local and national figures, including the poet Douglas Lochhead. Exactly why Geddes became celebrated part of local history is telling. He represents, I want to suggest, an interesting alternative engagement with the past and what should be celebrated in it.