Migrant and Refugee Students in New Experiences of Family Ties: Media, Surveillance and Sociability

Based on the highly mediatized arrival of migrants and refugees in Greece, over the last decades, this paper focuses on media technologies consumption of Albanian and Syrian students, and analyzes the way family ties are experienced at a distance. Civil wars, anti-regime protests, economic difficulties and climate change have forced large numbers of people to escape from their countries, to live as refugees or displaced from their homeland and to remain in a context of surveillance, uncertainty and insecurity. Media technologies and digital platforms contribute to the communication of family members and national communities in diaspora, give access to information and education. Thus, the aim of this paper is to describe the new experiences of sociability and education for children who have been, or still are in transition and temporary situation. Drawing on two ethnographic studies - one in 2005 on migrant children from Albania living in the agricultural area in Greece, and the other on Syrian refugee families staying in a refugee camp in Athens - the paper presents everyday media practices in the context of the mobility.