Comics and Migration: Representation and Other Practices

Comics and human mobility have a long history of connections. This volume explores these entanglements with a focus on both how comics represent migration and what applied uses comics have in relation to migration. The volume examines both individual works of comic art and examples of practical applications of comics from across the world.

Comics are well-suited to create understanding, highlight truthful information, and engender empathy in their audiences, but are also an art form that is preconditioned or even limited by its representational and practical conventions. Through analyses of various practices and representations, this book questions the uncritical belief in the capacity of comics, assesses their potential to represent stories of exile and immigration with compassion, and discusses how xenophobia and nationalism are both reinforced and questioned in comics. The book includes essays by both researchers and practitioners such as activists and journalists whose work has combined a focus on comics and migration. It predominantly scrutinises comics and activities from more peripheral areas such as the Nordic region, the German-language countries, Latin America, and southern Asia to analyse the treatment and visual representation of migration in these regions.

This topical and engaging volume in the Global Perspectives in Comics Studies series will be of interest to researchers and students of comics studies, literary studies, visual art studies, cultural studies, migration, and sociology. It will also be useful reading for a wider academic audience interested in discourses around global migration and comics traditions.

Ralf Kauranen is a sociologist and comics scholar affiliated to the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Turku, Finland. He led the project "Comics and Migration: Belonging, Narration, Activism", funded by the Kone Foundation and located at the Department of Finnish Literature, University of Turku, in 2018–2021.

Olli Löytty is an adjunct professor at the University of Turku, Finland. His research focuses on postcolonialism, nationalism, multilingualism, and representations of cultural encounters in literature. He is currently working on the project "Literature and Reading in the Era of Climate Crisis" at the University of Helsinki.

Aura Nikkilä is a doctoral researcher in art history at the University of Turku, Finland. Nikkilä’s doctoral project concerns the role of photography in migration-themed comics. She has published on multilingualism and transnationalism in comics as well as on empathy and activism in relation to graphic narratives.

Anna Vuorinne is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Comparative Literature, University of Turku, Finland. Her dissertation examines the conventions of human rights narration in contemporary German comics depicting migration. In her publications on comics, she has also written about the questions of gender, sexuality, and feminism.