Perception of Refugees in Lithuania

This article offers a partial answer to the question, “why are the vast majority of Lithuanians opposed to refugees immigrating to Lithuania?” I use cultural model theory (CMT) to find the salient characteristics Lithuanians attribute to refugees. Using methods associated with CMT, I shed light on s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSwiss journal of sociocultural anthropology Vol. 28
Main Author Dapkūnaitė, Rūta
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
German
Published Bern Open Publishing 22.02.2023
Subjects
cultural model
integration
media
perception
refugees
resistance
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Summary:This article offers a partial answer to the question, “why are the vast majority of Lithuanians opposed to refugees immigrating to Lithuania?” I use cultural model theory (CMT) to find the salient characteristics Lithuanians attribute to refugees. Using methods associated with CMT, I shed light on some of the underlying conditions from which a negative perception of refugees emerges. Surprisingly, the negative image of refugees is not just reproduced from social media and news platforms that overwhelmingly depict refugees negatively but stems from Lithuanians’ precarious feelings about their own lives. I thus propose that Lithuanians cultural models of refugees do not simply mirror political or social media portrayals of them as folk devils, but that Lithuanians construct their own cultural models from their life experiences and use these to substantiate their cultural model of refugees.
ISSN:2813-5229
2813-5237
DOI:10.36950/sjsca.2022.28.8024