Small migrant camp set up in woodland in Calais in October 2017, one year on from the demolition of The Jungle where 8,000 migrants lived. Joe Giddens/Press Association. All rights reserved.

At the end of a set of academic talks that dwelt heavily on the UK’s
hostile environment for immigrants, an audience member raised their hand. “Why
do individuals still want to come to England then if it’s so hard for them
here?” One panellist recounted their personal story of how they moved to the UK
“for love”, following a family member who had already emigrated from West
Africa to the United Kingdom. Others drew on various experiences. They spoke of
how the desire to be with family and friends made no journey insurmountable and
no sacrifice too much. Our shared need for meaningful and caring human
relationships was the overwhelming reason people gave for tolerating appalling
conditions in Calais before moving onwards across the Channel.

While for many this is undeniably the case, nevertheless, presenting
such a one-dimensional picture of migration to an open and interested audience
seemed to me like a missed opportunity. At a time of deepening scepticism about
migrants and their motivations, I ask myself what indeed are the potential
risks of presenting singular explanations for human movement?

Understanding migratory dynamics around the world and across Europe
requires a much more diverse set of explanations. In their countries of origin,
individuals might flee persecution and violence, suffocating state policies, or
the stasis of struggling economies. They might leave to protect their lives,
but keep moving to enhance them. Some might wish to remain close to the
country they left but be pushed further afield by familial expectations or
financial obligations. Others might face disapprobation by choosing to leave
their communities behind.

Alongside moving for family, people make decisions based on where their
language skills will be rewarded, where they think they will find a job, where
they know a population of their co-nationals already exists, and, as well as
many more reasons, where they hope they can access key social services,
education, support and protection. Throughout their journeys, they move away
from restrictive policies, racist police and publics, impenetrable job markets,
and endless other sources of insecurity and anxiety.  

Like us, migrants are not purely sentimental beings. Decisions around
their direction of travel can involve enormous trade-offs and enormously hard
choices. It is through accepting the texture of these movements, however, that we
are able to relate to people as we see in them the features of our shared
humanity. Part of building grounded and rounded relationships depends on this
ability to recognise the range of emotions, skills and characters we all
display. It involves acknowledging that individuals on the move share elements
of each and every one of us: that they are complicated, ageing, growing,
changing, and certainly imperfect. 

By focusing on those individuals who would appear superficially as the
most enriching for our societies – or the least threatening – we establish
certain norms around those acceptable to admit.  This risks
demonising the less ‘emotive’ arrivals, and those who are not content when one
goal of their journeys has been achieved. It leaves far less space for the
multi-facetedness of human behaviour and changeable human interests. As great
people have long cautioned, there are inherent dangers to the single story.

On the other hand, failing to acknowledge this complexity has enormous
political risks. It constitutes a missed opportunity for an honest and compassionate
discussion about the drivers of migration. When we frame support for open
borders and a greater freedom of movement in terms of helping people reach
their families, all it takes is one story when that is not the case to throw
that narrative and those who tell it into disrepute. We are then dismissed as
naïve, out of touch, and unrealistic, and our ability to bridge ideological and
political divides is seriously undermined.

More seriously this risks shattering trust in the arguments for an end
to criminalising migration. There are times when strategic essentialisms are
necessary. But when we are given the rare time and space to publicly nuance
narratives around migration, isn’t it important for us to push in the opposite
direction?

One alternative

One alternative might involve encouraging a less conditional compassion.
This should resonate with people’s understandings of migration, but seek to
overlay this with strong arguments for empathy and openness.

Across the spectrum of opinions on migration it is recognised that one
reason why people move is to better their economic situation. If we deny this,
we foreclose the ability to shape the debate around it in more compassionate
directions. If we admit these mixed motivations, seek to explain them with and
through the voices of those on the move, and begin to counter the denigrating
reaction that people have to these mixed motivations, we might have a broader
and longer-lasting impact with our advocacy.

The same goes for other factors influencing people’s journeys. If we do
not tell and respond to the full story, we cannot engender ethical principles
that will hold up to scrutiny and objection.  

How the predicaments that individuals face are understood, and how their
characters and needs are framed, absolutely underpins the ways that governments
and citizens respond to their arrival and whether they feel compelled to
welcome and assist people.

In working to change this, however, we must not replace misleading and
dehumanising portraits with mono-dimensional accounts of vulnerability and
victimhood, which paradoxically continue to set those on the move apart from
us. Instead we might think of ways to inject humanity and honesty into
discussions on human mobility, to bridge the gap crudely evident between left and
right, ensuring in the process that our responses are genuinely sympathetic to
the complexity of people’s experiences and emotions.