Vulnerability, Digital Technologies and International Law: Reflections on Contemporary Migration Flows
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COSPECS, University of Messina
Italy -
COSPECS, University of Messina Italy
Abstract
Migration, considered a ‘total social fact’, remains one of the most debated topics in contemporary society. Unfortunately, migration is not always a positive experience for everyone. Certain categories of people, such as women, children, persecuted ethnic minorities, and those fleeing conflict zones, widespread violence and natural disasters, are undoubtedly more exposed to its adverse effects. The socially disadvantaged conditions of migrants can also overlap with the risk of exclusion from digital literacy. ‘Digital availability’ is an essential asset for networking through the entire period of migration, which varies according to the departure and destination contexts and skills of use. Vulnerability can be a key concept when it comes to exploring the connection between migration processes and increasing digitisation, with both positive and negative consequences. Despite the frequent use of the term ‘vulnerability’ in political and legal discourse, its normative content is neither always clear nor universally accepted. Often treated as a self-explanatory condition, it is habitually used to distinguish migrants according to specific groups based on precise characteristics – especially refugees or asylum seekers – without specifying how the notion is conceptually understood or defined. The aim of our work is to provide some suggestions about three different concepts of vulnerability (subjective, situational and structural), the impact of the legal concept of vulnerability on migration processes and how situations of vulnerability are sometimes accentuated by the spread of media and social media.
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Author Biographies
Ph.D in Sociology of Law is a lawyer. A former adjunct professor at the Universities of Macerata, Messina and Catania, she currently teaches Social Semiotics in the COSPECS Department, University of Messina. From 4 June 2021: National Scientific Qualification as Associate Professor of Sociology of political and legal phenomena. As an “independent” Researcher of Legal and Cultural Anthropology, she has conducted many anthropological fieldworks in Italy and in Europe, as well as in India (Kerala) and Africa (Ivory Coast, Tanzania and Zambia). She is member of the WCSA and the ISA RCSL WG Legal Pluralism and Gender/Women in the Legal Profession and of the IRC Gender in Customary and Indigenous Law and Proceedings. She has participated as a speaker at countless national and international conferences and is the author of more than forty-five scientific publications.
Antonia Cava is Associate Professor of Sociology of Cultural and Communicative Processes and Delegate for Communication of the Department of Cognitive Sciences, Psychological, Education and Cultural Studies of the University of Messina, where she teaches Cultural Industry and Media Studies, Sociology of communication and Theories and techniques of radio - television communication. Member of several national and international research groups, her focus is on Audience Studies. She has been Manager of the Master course “Expert in social action on minors and mafia” of the University of Messina and she is currently in charge of a book series of the Interuniversity Centre for research on sociology of law, information and law institutions (Aracne Editrice). She has taught, over the time, in courses of higher training, university master courses and Phd courses about topics such as communication and media. She has been Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy -Aristotle University of Thessaloníki (Greece) and at the Faculty of Education and the Department of French, Romanesque, Italian and Arabic Philology of the University of Murcia. She has taken part in congresses in Italy and abroad, and she has written over 70 publications for Italian (Mondadori, Mimesis, FrancoAngeli) and international (Springer, Peter Lang) publishers and for Italian and foreign peer-reviewed journals (among which Sociology of law, Media Education, Mediascapes Journal, Brain Science, Comunicación y Género).
