Fighting words: How words and imagery impact sentiment

For those who have followed the political debates, news broadcasts, and social media discussions surrounding refugees and their resettlement options, it’s clear that the sentiment is not overwhelmingly positive. In 2018, it is predicted that only 20,000 refugees will be resettled in the United States despite the nation’s cap of 45,000 (Amos, 2018).

The discussion of displaced people is often filled with words and phrases like “refugee crisis,” “illegal,” “refugee problem,” and “burden.” At first glance, this terminology may not seem to be a particular stumbling block in creating positive resolutions for refugees, but words are powerful. How refugees are talked about, photographed, and portrayed in the media and otherwise shapes public understanding, sentiment, and political policies. The negatively charged words so often used in discussions of displaced people serve to shift the focus and blame from the situations causing displacement to the refugees themselves.

Even the term “refugees” groups all displaced people into a neat category with no consideration for the different driving factors and situations faced by this diverse group of people. Removing the individual people from discussions of refugee rights and resettlement is the easiest way to create policies that ignore the individual needs of refugees for the convenience of the nation-state.

However, the imagery used to showcase the struggles of many refugees searching for asylum can help reshape, individualize, and contextualize what it truly is like to be a refugee.

My first experience truly grasping and understanding the magnitude of displaced people and their struggles was with the photography of Sebastiao Salgado. In his series “Migrations,” he captures the daily lives of refugees from around the world (Brookman, 2016). 

Region of Chimborazo © Sebastião Salgado / Amazonas images. Ecuador. 1998. 

Refugee from the Zepa enclave. Kladanj, central Bosnia. 1995 © Sebastião Salgado / Amazonas images

Rwandan refugee camp of Benako. Tanzania. 1994 © Sebastião Salgado / Amazonas images. All images © Sebastião Salgado, courtesy Taschen

His photography reshaped the issue for me. It was no longer an antiquated problem of distant people. It opened my eyes to the individuality of those fleeing their countries and the need to enact policies that ensure they can redefine their lives.  

“What I want is the world to remember the problems and the people I photograph. What I want is to create a discussion about what is happening around the world and to provoke some debate with these pictures. Nothing more than this" (Salgado, 2005).

Words and images are not arbitrary. They carry an immense power to shape how situations are viewed, felt, and politicized. There is an immense need to change the conversation about refugees to showcase their humanity, agency, and individuality.

References:

Amos, Deborah. 2018. The Year The U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program Unraveled. NPR.

Brookman, Jacob. 2016. Sebastião Salgado’s Eternal Images of Humanity on the Move. British Journal of Photography.

Salgado, Sebastião. 2005. The Photographer as an Activist Talk. University of California, Berkley.