Kirsten Forkert is a lecturer in Media Theory at Birmingham City University. Her research looks at the politics of cultural work and education. Her PhD thesis explored the conditions experienced by freelance artists in London and Berlin and serves as the basis for her first book, 'Artistic Lives' (Ashgate, 2013). She has also published on media art, activism, and the globalisation of education in several journals and edited collections. Prior to academia, Kirsten was active as a media artist, curator and critic. She has been involved in community media, media art and activist projects, including 'Video In' in Vancouver, Canada, and 'Democracy Now!' and the '16beaver Collective' in New York.

Introduction: Conflict, media and displacement in the Twenty-First Century
1 How postcolonial innocence and white amnesia shape our understanding of the "refugee crisis"
Interlude: Global war and media absences
2 War Narratives: Making sense of conflict
Interlude: Songs, jokes, movies and other diversions
3 Social media, mutual aid and solidarity movements as a response to institutional breakdown
Interlude: How it feels to be made a migrant: restrictions, frustration and longing
4 The processes of migrantification: how displaced people are made into migrants
Interlude: Telling stories about war differently
5 Refusing the demand for sad stories
Conclusion: Unsettling dominant narratives about migration in a time of flux
Bibliography

Based on interviews and workshops with refugees in both countries, the book develops the concept of "migrantification" - in which people are made into migrants by the state, the media and members of society.