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Migration information campaigns are a popular approach to migration management and are being deployed by Western states across the globe. These campaigns are multifaceted communication strategies designed to identify, communicate with, and influence migrants and potential migrants through advertisements, community engagement, and interpersonal interventions. Using Australia’s campaigns as a case, this article demonstrates how migration information campaigns function as a form of pastoral power, contextualising migration information campaigns within broader rationalities of governance. Building upon the recent literature on peer messengers and migrant intermediaries, the article further shows migration information campaigns to be actualising pastoral government through a widely adopted approach to behavioural change, the credible messenger model. In addition to consideration of messengers and intermediaries of all kinds, Australia and the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) specific use of what they call ‘community liaisons’, a category of intermediary yet to be examined in the migration information campaign literature, is detailed as a case. Additionally, the article empirically documents and analyzes states’ use of field research to inform and refine the design of migration information campaigns.
Josh Watkins (Thu,) studied this question.