VIGO: Exploring the role of images in migration governance

This project builds on the idea that images create and share social meaning, influence public opinion and thereby shape government policy and systems of governance. The ability of images to highlight an issue’s salience, suggest interpretation, arouse sentiment, and legitimize or undermine a claim is so substantial that we can describe the phenomena as ‘visual governance’. In other words, images – their production and reproduction – can be shown to have a significant role in establishing governance goals at the local, national and global levels. The ability of visual imagery to attract global attention on governance challenges such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic are recent examples.

Despite the clear evidence that imagery has influence, scant research has been devoted to understanding the effect that visual representation has on migration governance. Consider how images of overcrowded migrant boats, starving polar bears on melting glaciers, and infographics showing the latest COVID-19 mortality rates have gone viral and changed popular understanding. Questions such as ‘to what extent do images promote new views about who the refugees are?”, and “to what extent do images contribute to shaping the agenda of European and Canadian government institutions working on migration policies?” remain largely unanswered. The VIGO project will be the first of its kind to provide a comprehensive analysis of the role of images in migration governance.

This project aims to establish a theory of “visual governance” – the concept that aesthetic representations of migration matters (e.g., through pictures, infographics, maps, etc.), produced and used by actors at different levels of government and civil society, and even asylum seekers, themselves, in fact, shape migration governance. The project will develop an analytical lens through which we can investigate the role played by images in all matters of transnational migration governance.

• Massari, A. (with Achilli, L.). (2023) Enter the Boogeyman: representations of human smuggling in mainstream narratives of migration (external link)  in Achilli L. and Kyle D. (eds), Global Human Smuggling. Buying Freedom in a Retreating World, Johns Hopkins University Press 

• Massari, A. (2023) No countries for refugees. Canada and Europe’s shrinking asylum space (external link) , PKI Global Justice Journal (August 2023) – open access

• Massari, A. (2024), “ (PDF file) Reframing Migration: The Use of Visual Communication by Government Institutions”, CERC Migration Policy Brief 19, Toronto Metropolitan University.
• Massari, A. (2024), The Visual Governance of Canadian Migration Agencies (external link) . Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 1–18.
• Massari, A. and Mohlo, J. (2024), Can the arts challenge mainstream representations of migration? An Inquiry into the Aga Khan Museum’s Afghanistan My Love Exhibition (external link) , International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society.
• Massari, A. (2023)  (PDF file) The role of images in migration governance. A proposed new theoretical framework and methodological approach, Working Papers Series produced jointly by the Toronto Metropolitan Centre for Immigration and Settlement and the CERC in Migration and Integration, Toronto Metropolitan University, Working Paper No. 2023/06 June 2023 – open access.

A video mini-series "Exploring the role of images in migration governance" has been created to support this project: