Mediating a compromised solidarity

ABSTRACT

This article explores popular media as resources for judgment in how settled migrants in Europe imagine solidarities toward newer arrivals seeking entry into the region. It discusses the news and entertainment consumption of Filipino nurses in London and how this figures in their imaginary of social and political bonds with refugees. Drawing on ethnographic interviews, I argue that these Filipino migrants can only articulate a compromised solidarity: one fractured between empathy with refugees and concern about what these newer arrivals might mean for settled migrants in the city. I then explain how the media contribute to this fracturing. One way is that the xenophobia in popular media content on social media leads the Filipinos to assert their difference with other migrants, including refugees. A second is that the Filipinos deploy popular media content, especially on British television, to assert that they belong to UK society more than other migrants, again including refugees.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.