Public and Political Discourses of Migration

Popular, political and media discourses frame the issue of migration and control how, when and where it appears in the public and political consciousness. These discourses are of crucial importance as they influence both the general public's perception of migration and the policies which regulate both the act of migration itself and migrant residents. Public and Political Discourses of Migration brings together an interdisciplinary group of established and emerging scholars, whose work interrogates the relationship between discourse and migration. Through the application of a variety of theoretical lenses drawn from the broad canon of discourse studies, each contribution unpicks the productive power of discourse in shaping the reality of migration, migration policy and migrant lives in the twenty-first century. The cases interrogated emerge, as do their authors, from a broad range of national, political and cultural contexts. They are linked by their fundamental questioning of a 'common sense' approach to migration in its contemporary form. In doing so, they address the question of whose interests these discourses and the structures they underpin serve. They 'make strange' accepted 'truths' regarding migration in the twenty-first century.