CMD engages with the impact of discourses and policies that construct migration through the lens of crises on people using unauthorised routes to enter the EU and the UK and are as a result illegalised. To do so, CMD posits illegalised migrants as agents of change working with them to impact the current narratives on migration and related practices and to enhance intercultural exchanges.

The project is carried out in three successive modules across five European countries (Italy, France, Denmark, Spain, and the United Kingdom).

Module one: CONSTRUCTION

CMD comparatively examines how institutional narratives and data production link migration to crises, illegality, and criminality and construct a hegemonic lexicon of migration that illegalises specific types of migration while framing others as ‘meriting’ recognition (proof of deservingness).

Module two: DECONSTRUCTION

In the second module, CMD collaborates with illegalised migrants to test alternatives to discourses of deservingness. Working with illegalised migrants, CMD co-creates an alternative lexicon of migration that challenges and deconstructs the current hegemonic lexicon of migration and is informed by their own experiences and narratives of displacement.

Module three:  RECONSTRUCTION

CMD engages in intercultural exchanges with stakeholders in education, journalism, and advocacy to create and disseminate a just lexicon of migration. It proceeds to further develop, test and disseminate educational resources in the form of a toolkit for action and a training programme to enhance the intercultural competence of stakeholders working in the above-specified fields.

KEYWORDS:

crisis, migration, discourse, counter discourses, lexicon, migration governance, spaces of hearing, solidarities.