Framing Immigration in Africa: How the Local Media Report Stories About Refugees in Sub-Saharan Africa

Immigration is often understood as a phenomenon involving people from the peripheral countries migrating to the ‘centre’ in pursuit of a better life. Common media narratives, for example, have recently focused on Africans and Arabs migrating to Europe through dangerous expeditions and Latin Americans seeking refuge in the United States and Canada. Such emphasis overshadows the essence of asylum seekers who get displaced as a result due to various forms of persecution. More importantly, the global peripheral is perceived as an environment that has little to contribute to the well-being of immigration, as a human right. Yet Africa, in particular, has made substantial contributions to helping immigrants both within and outside the vast continent. For example, stories of Polish people seeking asylum in African countries like Zambia and Tanzania (Shwikowski, 2019) are now terra incognita.