Sixteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

The increasingly globalised and interconnected world is countered with border restrictions, increasing hostilities, and conflicts in nations, and a lack of understanding of the refugee crisis in the mainstream narratives. A “RAND Social and Economic Well-Being” research report informs: “In the past two decades, the global population of forcibly displaced people has more than doubled, from 34 million in 1997 to 71 million in 2018 (2019: ix).” With increasing political strife and unrest, refugees are left with no option other than seeking refuge and a safe haven in other nation-states. With antagonism from the natives of a place and the policies against the refugees getting harsher each day, do technology, the Internet, and online spaces help in creating alternate spaces to help disseminate the refugee stories and narratives to foster understanding and garner support and solidarities for the displaced individuals and communities? This study attempts to understand how selected blogs and social networking pages are being used to create alternate and unconventional spaces for the refugees. Selected content from pages such as, “Refugees At Home”, “UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency”, etc. are analysed to understand if the humanitarian aspects of the refugees are being brought about through these online pages, and whether, the refugees are being given a human face through the online stories. This paper reviews how the refugee crisis is being constructed in the online spaces with the aid of technology, and how several binaries are contested in these online spaces.