Towards sustainable migration governance: Of crisis,methodology and social media

Abstract

Migration is among the most cross-cutting, the most puzzling and the most politicized issues globally. This is as people increasingly move internationally and governments (state actors), non-state actors and other actors in the migration ecosystem struggle to govern migration. Unfortunately, many of the migration governance tactics and strategies that have been developed and deployed have been largely chaotic, piecemeal, counter-productive and unsustainable. Most existing migration governance architectures have been problems, rather than solutions. While different countries have attempted many migration governance architectures, increasingly insufficient attention has been paid to the issue of sustainability of migration governance across levels and this has to change. There is a very urgent need for sustainable migration governance. With sustainable migration governance, migration has the capacity to effectively contribute to development, rather than been constructed, narrated and reacted to as existential threat. It is against this background that this essay examines migration crisis that confronts many countries, especially popular destination countries, to unearth and unpack intersectionalities of methodology and social media. This is to contribute to knowledge on the usually taken-for-granted, but very important, need for sustainable migration governance.