On migre ou bien on fait migrer pour l’honneur et par devoir

1. 19 posters on OPPORTUNITIES part 1
2. 19 posters on OPPORTUNITIES part 2
3. 19 posters on OPPORTUNITIES part 3
4. Figures de candidats sénégalais à la migration
5. Carnets de route : Récits et figures d'émigrés Sénégalais  
6. Migrants Sénégalais: Passer par le Niger pour atteindre l'Europe
7. An introduction to level playing field: from a sporting metaphor to a social policy instrument
8. "Je migre, donc je suis"
9. "Expressions artistiques sur les causes profondes des migrations
10. Analyse des migrations sénégalaises : entre déconstruction et décentration empirique des causes
11. Beyond Viral Exemplarity: Critical Storytelling Practices in a Post-Truth World
12. Repenser la liberté de circulation
13. Narrative Maps: Perspectives on Migration from Africa
14. Narrative, Scale, and Two Refugee Crises in Comparison in the Italian Media
15. Narratives of Crisis vs. Narratives of Solidarity
16. German Welcome Culture Then and Now
17. Migration and Narrative Ecologies
18. Migration from Africa: Narrative Dynamics in the German Public Sphere
19. Analyse des migrations sénégalaises : entre deconstruction et decentration empirique des causes
20. Voies et voix de jeunes du Sahel : entre mobilités et migrations sous le prisme d’insécurité
21. 'CARIN' about migrants through news?
22. MIGRATING IS NOT JUST ABOUT MOVING (…)
23. Re-balancing the views on migration: presentations
24. On migre ou bien on fait migrer pour l'honneur et par devoir

1. Migration and Narrative. Key Terms and Concepts Revised edition
2. Narrative, Scale, and Two Refugee Crises in Comparison in the Italian Media
3. Narratives of Crisis vs. Narratives of Solidarity. Analyzing Discursive Shifts in Austrian Media Coverage of Refugee Movements
4. German Welcome Culture Then and Now. How Crisis Narration Can Foster (Contested) Solidarity with Refugees
5. Hungary’s ‘Rebalanced’ Media Ecology. Toxic Narratives on Migration, Gender, and Europe
6. Cross-country comparison of media selection and attitudes towards narratives of migration
7. Trends in attitudes towards migration in Europe. A comparative analysis
8. Narrative Dynamics and Migration
9. The Twitter Debate on Immigration in Austria, Germany, Hungary, and Italy: Politicians’ articulations of the discourses of openness and closure
10. Beyond Vicarious Storytelling. How Level Telling Fields Help Create a Fair Narrative on Migration. Revised edition.
11. Changing attitudes towards migration in Europe. Dynamic analyses (2002-2018)
12. Cross Talks in African countries. Adapting the Cross Talk methodology
13. Synthesis of changing attitudes towards and news media representations of immigrants
14. Navigating Political Waters: Network Analysis of the Syrian and Ukrainian Refugee Influxes in the Italian Discourse on Social Media
15. Unveiling Discursive Dynamics in Political Communication Networks: Exploring Syrian and Ukrainian Refugee Influx Discourse through Mixed-Methods on Social Media
16. Public perceptions on migration and journalistic roles: Recommendations for media professionals

1. Policy Brief: Cross-country comparison of media selection and attitudes towards narratives of migration
2. Policy Statement:  Unaccompanied Children Outside the Level Telling Field and Protection Systems
3. Policy Statement:  Social cooperation requires an equal telling field
4. Policy Statement: The integration policy field; doers, sayers and witnesses
5.  Newsletter 10
6.  Policy brief: the right to mobility
7. Policy brief: Trends in attitudes towards immigrants and migration in Europe
8. Policy brief: Climate Migrants vs. Political Refugees: Unravelling Perceptions and Communication Patterns on Migration
9. Policy brief: The Level Telling Field and EU policy responses to the Ukrainian displacement.
10. Policy Statement: Recommendations for journalists
11. Policy Statement: How to Empower Migrants to Share Their Stories in Public Discourses on Migration and Integration Recommendation for Action for Journalists, Representatives of NGOs, and Activists
12. Policy Statement:Re-balancing the views on migration

In this report, we provide a cross-country comparison of news media consumption patterns and anti-immigrant, refugee, and Muslim sentiments in four European countries: Austria, Germany, Hungary, and Italy. Data were collected among adults aged 25 to 65 through an online survey fielded during three weeks in May and June 2021.

How do you sum up the immense work of OPPORTUNITIES?
Impossible, and so we try. 19 posters that guide you through our work, that make you want to read more and explore this website.

Part 1

How do you sum up the immense work of OPPORTUNITIES?
Impossible, and so we try. 19 posters that guide you through our work, that make you want to read more and explore this website.

Part 2

How do you sum up the immense work of OPPORTUNITIES?
Impossible, and so we try. 19 posters that guide you through our work, that make you want to read more and explore this website.

Part 3

In this paper migration in Senegal is explained: trends, reasons, populations, ... This paper is in French.

"Au cours des dernières années, le Sénégal est fortement marqué par la migration. Par conséquent, celle-ci est au centre des discussions des populations et au cœur de l’actualité. Fait social majeur, son importance s’est davantage accrue avec le fait sensationnel de migration par les pirogues. Elle est devenue un des rares thèmes de discussion avec les séances de lutte capable de réunir toutes les franges locales quels que soient l’âge, le sexe, le groupe ethnique, le niveau scolaire, le statut professionnel, etc. C’est ainsi que dans les journaux sénégalais, il est récurrent de lire dans la rubrique réservée aux "Faits divers" des scènes affairant à la question du voyage comme en témoignent ceux-ci :  « Abus de confiance : Il vend les 20 tonnes de ciment de la dame et voyage en Espagne (Le Soleil du mercredi 31 octobre 2007) ... Ces situations laissent penser à quel point la migration est au cœur des quotidiens des populations sénégalaises. Elle mobilise toutes les couches sociales avec une présence importante de jeunes originaires à la fois des zones rurales et urbaines, certains disposent de riches capitaux scolaires d’autres non et il en est de même pour les capitaux professionnels depuis plusieurs années. "

In this paper the route of migration in Senegal is explained. Testimonies are used to decribe the different trajects. ... This paper is in French.

"Les points exposés dans ce documents sont « pourquoi partir ? », les « destinations rêvées », les « préparatifs du voyage », les « difficultés rencontrées au cours du voyage » et l’ « expulsion : entre échec et source de motivation de l’émigré ».

In this paper on route of migration via Niger is explained. Testimonies are used to understand the reasons and the difficulties and barriers to migrate. ... This paper is in French.

"Cette recherche s’intéresse aux migrants sénégalais qui se rendent au Niger par voie terrestre en espérant, un jour, atteindre l’Europe à la suite de plusieurs escales. En route, les migrants sénégalais s'installent fréquemment dans des carrefours migratoires pour travailler et financer les prochaines escales. C’est ainsi que depuis le Mali (Bamako, Bougouni et Sikasso) ou au Burkina Faso (Bobo-Dioulasso, Ouagadougou, etc.), etc. des migrants sénégalais sont retrou-vés dans l’artisanat, la maçonnerie ou la vente ambulante, etc. Au Niger, ils sont souvent à Niamey ou à Agadez, deux grands carrefours historiques où ils se débrouillent pour leur sur-vie.

This paper provides a short introduction to the concept of level playing field (LPF) and how it has travelled from a sporting metaphor to other social spheres to invoke the need for the setting up of common rules to achieve equality of opportunity for all. The paper starts with a discussion of some of the conceptual issues of LFP (section 2) that lead us directly to one of the most important applications of LPF in economics in general (section 3) and international trade in particular. The latter pays particular attention to the principle of LPF in the setting up and evolution of the European Union (section 4). The paper also provides case studies of the application of LPF in other areas such as education (with a focus on the role of families) (section 5), labour market (with a focus on the relationship between LPF and discrimination) (section 6) and digital media (section 7). In section 8 the paper provides some thought on the nexus of LPF and level-telling-field. The final concluding section 9 provides some tentative general lessons emerging from the discussion of the nexus of LPF and LTF.

« Nous avons toutes les raisons de partir ! Imagine-toi un homme de mon âge qui part en Europe sans diplôme sans formation et au bout de deux ans il revient au Sénégal pour construire de belles maisons, conduire de belles voitures, etc. Il revient au pays trouvant ses amis surdiplômés et surqualifiés mais qui vivent dans la galère. Il y a de quoi se demander si celui qui préfère rester au pays n’est pas en train de perdre son temps malgré les études faites. À la longue, les gens peuvent même se dire avec certitude que les jeunes qui ont choisi de migrer ont raison sur les autres. Voilà̀ une chose qui aiguise l’appétit de vouloir migrer »
(Amadou, 17 ans, Candidat à la migration).

Au Sénégal, au cours de ces dernières années, la migration a suscité de nombreuses interrogations et recherches qui ont influencé des politiques. Néanmoins le phénomène demeure difficile à cerner à cause des ambiguïtés qui se cachent derrière certains concepts. Si la sécheresse ou les crises politiques sont des raisons fréquemment évoquées pour expliquer les migrations sénégalaises, bien d'autres facteurs entrent
en jeu et échappent souvent aux analyses mécanistes qui tentent d'expliquer les choix des destinations migratoires.

Ce document de travail donne une vue d'ensemble des causes de la migration, des causes qui sont plus larges que ce que l'on pense habituellement en Europe.

Demander aux enfants de dessiner sur les causes de la migration est un exercice passionnant. En effet, il suffit de créer une situation motivante à travers la mobilisation d’une série de questions, afin qu’ils parviennent à produire une pensée créative et à réfléchir de manière critique sur la question migratoire. C’est donc un exercice d’éveil qui contribue au développement et à l’épanouissement de l’enfant. En d’autres termes, il forge un destin d’homme capable de participer pleinement à la marche de sa société et de son histoire.

Dessiner des images peut être un outil puissant d’expression et de communication visuelle pour les enfants du Club d’éducation artistique plastique du Collège d'Enseignement Moyen André Henry Louis Guillabert de Saint-Louis du Sénégal.

Les images dessinées par les enfants aident ceux-ci à s'exprimer diversement :

• Communication non verbale : Dessiner des images, offre aux enfants une autre façon de communiquer leurs pensées et leurs sentiments sans se fier uniquement aux mots.
• Expression créative : Dessiner des images, encourage les enfants à utiliser leur imagination et leur créativité pour transmettre leurs idées et leurs sentiments.
• Libération émotionnelle : Dessiner des images, fournit un exutoire sûr et constructif pour des émotions négatives comme la colère, la frustration ou la tristesse.
• Découverte de soi : en dessinant des images, les enfants explorent leur propre identité et leur sens de soi. Les enfants expérimentent différents styles, couleurs et supports, et les utilisent pour exprimer leur individualité et leurs préférences personnelles.
• Compétences en communication : Dessiner des images, aide les enfants à développer leurs compétences en communication en les encourageant à réfléchir sur la manière de transmettre efficacement leurs idées.

Dans l'ensemble, dessiner des images est un outil puissant permettant aux enfants du Club d’éducation artistique plastique du Collège d'Enseignement Moyen André Henry Louis Guillabert de Saint-Louis du Sénégal de s'exprimer librement en développant une gamme de compétences émotionnelles, créatives et communicationnelles. Le dessin permet ainsi à l’enfant de développer son imagination, son sens d’observation et son habileté manuelle.

Presentation of a survey on reasons to migrate. Presentation given as an introduction to the discussion with political representatives in Dakar, Senegal, February 2023.
Professor Aly Tandian

Paper presented at the MLA conference 2023 (San Francisco, January 5-8)

Marco Caracciolo, Ghent University

How can story be deployed in responsible and critical ways? My paper approaches that question by surveying three strategies that narrative can implement to move beyond “viral exemplarity.” I suggest calling these strategies “non-narrative corroboration,” “spatiotemporal network,” and “intersubjective confrontation.”

PPT d' Aly Tandian presented à Nouakchott, 17 -20 juillet 2023 Sénégal on the question of free mouvement or the right to be mobile

One of the key concepts of the OPPORTUNITIES project is the distinction between narratives on migration and narratives of migration. The former discuss migration from an observer’s perspective, for instance from the point of view of journalism, migration studies, or migration policies. In order to create a more balanced view of migration, the OPPORTUNITIES project programmatically includes what we call narratives of migration. This move towards strategic multiperspectivity in migration discourses involves, on the one hand, an inclusion of neglected media and genres. These are narrative resources which capture and portray first-hand experience of migration and the lived experience of migrants and refugees. The paper explores how the topic of migration has been dealt with in proverbs and songs from Senegalese poets and artists since the 1980s. While the songs by Senegalese artists in the 1980s seem to praise and celebrate migration, increasing criticism of young people that continue to undertake the increasingly dangerous journey to Europe has characterized some songs from the 2000s onwards. The paper also discusses ways that migration negotiated in Ghana and Senegal using novel and a travelogue as case studies. The multiple perspectives towards migration in the two texts make apparent the need to include different media and genres as well as the perspectives of migrants in migration discourses

Bringing together narrative theory, migration studies, and contemporary discussions in the environmental humanities, this article considers the significance of the concept of scale for media narratives on migration. The starting point is that migration is a multiscalar phenomenon that ranges from migrants’ personal experience to the global factors (such as poverty and climate change) that shape migration on a planetary scale. Media narratives are often unable to bring together those scales, privileging the scale of regional or national debates at the expense of migrants’ experience or global phenomena. We demonstrate that idea through the qualitative analysis of migration coverage in the Italian media, focusing on two newspapers (Corriere della sera and Il Giornale) and two periods in 2015 and 2022. We thus compare what is frequently described as the refugee “crisis” of 2015 and the wave of migration created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The analysis shows that, in both newspapers, migration coverage in 2015 was marked by a disconnect between local and global events, whereas in 2022 the event structure of the war afforded closer integration between scales. This suggests that, even when no simple causal linked can be established between the causes of migration and its effects, more efforts are needed to project a complex, nuanced image of migration in media storytelling.

When unprecedently large numbers of refugees from Middle Eastern countries fled to Europe in the years 2015 and 2016, the media depicted these events as a moment of crisis that put European cohesion to the test. Ever since the beginning of the so-called refugee crisis, framing migration as a problem that requires solving had been a common practice in European media. Yet media coverage of migration drastically changed in February 2022: After Russia had invaded Ukraine, causing millions of Ukrainians to flee their
home country, the persistent crisis narrative eventually made way for a narrative of solidarity.
The working paper traces the reasons and outcomes of this discursive shift by examining, from the perspective of interdisciplinary narrative research, how migration was framed and presented in journalistic interviews published in Austrian newspapers, including tabloids and broadsheets, in September 2015
and March 2022. The paper’s combination of methods from the social sciences and the humanities offers an analysis of not only the migration frames and the speakers’ positioning that become manifest in the interview sample (qualitative content analysis), but also the narrative strategies and stylistic devices that are used in the migration narratives emerging from these texts (discourse analysis and narrative analysis). The benefits of this innovative interdisciplinary multi-method approach, the paper argues, is a comprehensive discussion of migration narrative in media that also addresses frequent shortcomings of disciplinary analysis.

The initial response of German civil society to the so-called European refugee crisis in 2015/2016 is often framed as a welcome culture. How does this narrative of solidarity relate to the narrative of crisis which dominated European migration policy at the time, giving rise to right-wing populism in several member states of the European Union? And how does it differ from the narrative of solidarity we have been recently witnessing in the wake of the ongoing war in Ukraine, which has caused new refugee movements toward
Europe? This article sets out to investigate the dynamics of narratives of solidarity with refugees in the German public by juxtaposing what is now often called the “long summer of migration” with representations of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Drawing on insights from crisis research and
interdisciplinary narrative research, I will first argue that framing of historical conditions as crisis situations is based on the interplay of retrospective and prospective worldmaking – a key concept in the philosophy of mind and cognitive narrative theory – which sets in motion a complex (counter-)narrative dynamics. I will then proceed to investigate how such dynamics played out in the periods under investigation: Public debates of the refugee ‘crisis’ of 2015/2016, I will show, produced diverging counter-narratives (i.e., pro-migration vs. anti-refugee narratives) that competed for discursive hegemony, whereas representations of the war in Ukraine generated a widely shared narrative of solidarity with refugees

Although storytelling plays a central role in policymaking and communication efforts surrounding migration, the use of the concept of narrative has so far only received little attention in academic debates on transnational mobility. This survey article sets out to pave the way for a new exchange between
migration studies in the social sciences and narrative research on migration in the humanities by introducing the concept of a narrative ecology of migration. Taking our cue from previous research on cultural, media, and narrative ecologies, we argue that narratives on migration travel through different cultural and discursive contexts where they encounter other stories which either sustain or challenge their significance. Our argument unfolds in two steps: After first providing a survey of previous research on narrative ecologies, which we see as a subset of media ecologies, we will describe the different levels of the narrative ecology of migration by discussing the ways in which different narratives on migration interact with each other on local,
national, and European levels

The term Fluchtursachenbekämpfung (which can be loosely translated in English as: addressing the root causes of irregular migration) has become a buzzword for development policies in Germany that are geared at curbing migration from Africa by attempting to ‘solve’ the root causes of irregular migration in home countries. Using the idea of narrative dynamics (Sommer, “Migration”), this paper aims at showing that such a one-sided, Euro-centered perspective on migration from Africa to Europe side-steps the potential for other perspectives about (irregular) migration that focus on possible contributions of (long-standing) African diasporic communities to economic growth in the host and home countries. Secondly, by pointing out the blind spots of a Euro-centered perspective on migration, the paper opens up the possibility of transforming the debate on migration in Germany’s public sphere from narratives that merely talk about migrants to narratives that engage with migrants and long-standing diasporic communities in order to explore the debate on migration from the perspective of migrants

PPT introducing policy dialogue with stakeholders in Dakar, at the Dakar consortium meeting February 2023. See also newsletters

PPT by Aly Tandian about "Ways and voices of young people in the Sahel: between mobility and
migrations under the prism of insecurity" given at the 

FORUM INTERNATIONAL AFRIQUE-EUROPE DE MADRID, Sécurité, migrations et développement en Afrique-Europe. Madrid, les 20 et 21 septembre 2023

Hungary has the most restrictive migration policy in the European Union, and its discriminatory LGBT law and anti-European rhetoric keep alienating more liberal member states. Starting with a survey of Hungary’s ‘rebalanced’ media landscape, this essay explores the narrative dynamics of Viktor Orbán’s nationalist rhetoric. We focus on the government’s manipulative ‘national consultation’ strategy and billboard campaigns to show how new communication channels are established which allow the government to address its national audience directly, making it largely independent from both legacy media and social media. We further argue that the “immigration and terrorism” narrative of 2015 is designed to fuel ontological insecurity and, like the toxic narratives on gender and Brussels initiated by Orbán, serves a dual purpose: it fosters the centripetal dynamics of Hungary’s nationalist narrative while fueling the centrifugal dynamics of an anti-liberal vision of Europe

In recent years, public discourse and political actors have increasingly used a deservingness rhetoric to refer to the arrival and permanent settlement of migrant groups. However, scholars have drawn on the concept of deservingness without developing a clear theoretical framework for it. Following our recent work on the migrant deservingness framework, in the present study we use the CARIN criteria (Control, Attitude, Reciprocity, Identity, Need) to establish the extent to which host nationals in eight nations impose conditions towards accepting permanent settlement among migrants. Specifically, we examine the links of these deservingness perceptions with news media consumption in seven European countries and Colombia using online survey panel data (N = 12,142). Our findings indicate that consuming news via commercial television and in popular newspapers, in particular, is linked to greater conditionality regarding migrant settlement. Consuming public television or quality news sources is only weakly linked to (reduced) conditionality. We discuss these findings using the migrant deservingness framework.

In recent years, Senegalese migrations have taken on significant proportions and its populations
are leaving to conquer new territories, increase their locations and optimize their opportunities
and chances of success. Migration occupies an important part in the socialization of the
Senegalese populations because proverbs and songs are used to build the person. Thus, migration
cannot be analyzed as a phenomenon but as a social fact. To travel is to exist in the eyes of your
community

Après un répit, la migration irrégulière notamment par voie maritime semble reprendre de plus belle. Plusieurs départs, dont certaines tentatives tuées dans l’œuf, ont été enregistrés ces derniers jours. Interrogé sur le phénomène, le sociologue des migrations Aly Tandian, professeur titulaire CAMES, au Département de Sociologie de l’Université Gaston Berger (UGB) de Saint-Louis, relève qu’au Sénégal, en delà de l’insuffisance ou manque de connaissances sur les causes profondes des migrations irrégulières, la migration est souvent analysée comme un «phénomène alors que la migration est un fait social total». Le consultant international, directeur du Laboratoire d’études et de recherches sur le Genre, l’Environnement, la Religion et les Migrations (GERM) qui a créé l’Observatoire Sénégalais des Migrations, souligne qu’au Sénégal, «on migre ou bien on fait migrer pour l’honneur et par devoir… Les populations migrent parce qu’il leur est impossible de gagner assez et d’épargner».

You find the article here

You find here the presentations of the meeting with experts from the Center of Migration Studies of the University of Ghana: click on the photo

Based on an OPPORTUNITIES survey on media consumption and attitudes towards migrants, OPPORTUNITIES formulates a first set of recommendations on how politicians and media should communicate.

There are large groups of minors and juniors who need protection but lack carers and representatives with voice. These groups do not merely operate on the margins of the level telling, but they are out-side it. They are completely excluded despite the facts that they are physically present in societies, socially entangled, and that their life worlds are directly affected by the structures and systems of society. We are referring, here, to unaccompanied migrant and refugee children in the European Un-ion’s Member States. For those children fleeing prosecution in their home countries, the asylum regimes of the host coun-tries provide, and/or ought to provide, a level of protection. The degree to which this level of protec-tion is acceptable and holistic remains debatable and needs to be verified by statistics on whether minors’ applications for refugee status are increasing, processed without obstacles and are successful. But migrant children who are not in the asylum system remain exposed to very serious, and often life threatening, risks. They have travelled to the EU alone, may lack documentation, are alone in host countries and face serious risks of exploitation, abuse and neglect. In this Policy statement we suggest national strategies based on both horizontal and vertical objectives to raise the voice of children

In this Policy Statement we discuss the need of social cooperation. The narratives on migration as a threat to societal survival, on the one hand, and as an enabler of societal renewal, on the other, show the importance of the existence of a democratic public sphere which can expose irrationality and prejudice in various arguments by persistent appeals to justice and reason. Narratives on migration are necessarily conditioned, circumscribed and shaped by both ideologies and historical contexts and, by ensuring that there exists a level telling field, well-informed policies and sustainable solutions can be appropriately devised. Instead of societal survival, it is more accurate to refer to societal renewal and processes of change in social relations particularly since the latter ensure the continuity of societies in the long run. Instead of the mandatory integration of new-comers, it might be better to talk about the inclusion and equal participation of all residents. It is true, one cannot legislate away prejudice. But, instead of divisions between ingroups and outgroups, it is advisable for political communities to promote an ethic of listening, respect for human dignity and fundamental rights, to acknowledge the inevitability of the fluidity of society and to seek to transform differences, tensions and conflicts into creative communal conversations.

In this Policy Statement we give five policy recommendations to articulate a fairer narrative on migration and integration. As stated in ‘Migration and Narrative: Key Terms and Concepts’, ‘integration policies, and the demands made by states for (better) integration of migrants, often fall short of treating migrants as full members of, and equal participants, in the community’. This presupposes not only the promotion of intercultural under-standing, but also the creation of a public arena which subscribes to the principles of a ‘level telling field’. A level telling field is open to all participants and permits the sharing of experiences, rights claims, arguments and perspective with a view to designing policies and strategies that are fair and respectful of the values of the European Union, such as, respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.

In this Policy Statement we give five policy recommendations to articulate a fairer narrative on migration and integration. As stated in ‘Migration and Narrative: Key Terms and Concepts’, ‘integration policies, and the demands made by states for (better) integration of migrants, often fall short of treating migrants as full members of, and equal participants, in the community’. This presupposes not only the promotion of intercultural under-standing, but also the creation of a public arena which subscribes to the principles of a ‘level telling field’. A level telling field is open to all participants and permits the sharing of experiences, rights claims, arguments and perspective with a view to designing policies and strategies that are fair and respectful of the values of the European Union, such as, respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.

In this newsletter you find the minutes with pictures of the consortium meeting of Dakar, February 2023

The Policy Brief on the Right to Mobility is a summary of discussions and conversations OPPORTUNITIES held in Dakar with NGOs and policy makers. 

The right to mobility is an essential component of a fair development policy based on prevention through investment in African countries and on regular migration. Social policies are needed to stop irregular migration.

The aim of this policy brief is to summarize how attitudes towards immigrants and migration have changed in the last two decades in Europe (2002-2018), and what is driving these changes. It summarises the main results of two policy reports that have been published in the framework of the Opportunities
project.

In particular, the policy brief addresses the following objectives:

• Understand the evolution in changing attitudes towards migration across European countries.
• Understand the impact of the refugee crisis of 2015-2016 on citizens’ perceptions of migration and migrants.
• Identify how factors at the individual and at the contextual levels influence citizens’ perceptions of migration and changes therein.

In this Policy Brief we aim to explore how people perceive climate migrants and compare it with the perceptions of political refugees and migrants in general. By examining the current perceptions and potential future trends, we seek to understand the evolving attitudes towards climate migrants. Additionally, we will investigate the relationship between perceptions, attitudes, and communication to gain insights into the dynamics of public opinion and the potential impact of communication
strategies on attitudes towards climate migrants.
The findings from this study have significant implications for both policymaking and journalism. Policymakers and journalists, depending on their contexts and motivations, can either reinforce existing perceptions, which may vary between dimensions such as world-orientation and ethnocentrism, compassion and pragmatism, social utopianism, and selfishness, or they can work towards adapting or even reversing these attitudes. However, it is crucial to recognize that reinforcing existing attitudes is relatively straightforward, while changing them can be a challenging task. Through this text, we aim to provide guidance on potential strategies to achieve such adaptations or reversals.

This Policy Brief uses the concepts developed during the OPPORTUNITIES study to analyse the consequences of the Russian invasion in Ukrain which 10 million people sought refuge in EU member states.

The Policy Brief shows how narratives on migration (from an outside (etic) perspective seeking to devise policy solutions that reflect the concerns of the host society or of the interlocutor) and narratives of migration (that is, stories reflecting the lived experience of migration and present mobility from an inside (emic) perspective) clarifies political choices for temporary protection.

Mass media often frame migration as a crisis. The OPPORTUNITIES project wants to shed another light on migration, seeing it rather as an opportunity. Journalists often share this concern and want to develop alternative views on migration. They want to speak on behalf of migrants, but speaking on behalf of migrants does not come without risks. To counter the risks of “vicarious storytelling”, the OPPORTUNITIES team has developed recommendations and an alternative strategy of “allied storytelling”.

In this policy statement you find a Step-By-Step Guide to Allied Storytelling.

In this policy statement you find the results of the public event of Accra 2024 with several recommendations on migration: topics are MIGRATION AND FAIR RECRUITMENT ; INTEGRATION OF MIGRANTS; MIGRANTS AND SOCIAL PROTECTION; LEGAL/ REGULAR PATHWAYS, SOCIAL INVESTMENT AND SUSTAINABLE RETURN; CLIMATE REFUGEES.