Search results for "asylum protest"

Visibility in mediated borderscapes : The hunger strike of asylum seekers as an embodiment of border violence

2018

In 2012, two Afghan asylum seekers camped outside the Parliament building in Helsinki during a hunger strike that lasted for 72 days. Although the protest was very visible in the city space, the mainstream media and most politicians ignored it. This paper analyzes the protest and its mediation through the concepts of borderscape and visibility. Using methods of visual and discourse analysis, we examine the ways in which the hunger strike protest – and its mediation – negotiate the (in)visibility of borders. We show how the city can be a site for both policing and for politicizing asylum issues. In particular, we focus on the ways in which protesting asylum seekers embody borders and border …