Policy Framing to Emotional Responses: Frame Analysis of Migration from Myanmar to Thailand

Wednesday, 29 January 2025 | 10:00 to 12:00 EST | Room 857, Eighth Floor, Kaneff Tower, Keele Campus, York University & Virtually via Zoom
With Tun Min Oo, Chiang Mai University
Respondent: Kai Ostwald, University of British Columbia
This study investigates how migration issues between Myanmar and Thailand are framed by policy actors and examines the role of emotions within this framing process. The main argument is that migration-related policies are partially framed by emotional meanings, aiming to respond to social emotions and build positive emotions no less than actual policy changes. Drawing on the policy framing concepts of Schön and Rein (1994) and subsequent elaborations by van Hulst and Yanow (2014), it explores framing as a sense-making process shaped by beliefs, perceptions, and intersubjective emotional meanings. Employing a qualitative case study approach, the research analyzes policy documents from government agencies, military institutions, political parties, civil society organizations, and international NGOs to trace how migration has been framed, whose emotional meanings are considered in this process, and how frames aim to generate positive emotional responses. By examining five key framing acts—sense-making (how policy actors construct the meanings of the problematic situation), selecting (how specific features of the problematic situation are selected), naming (how these selected features are communicated), categorizing (how things, acts, events, or people involved in the policy situation are identified), and narrating (how the problematic situation is binded together in a storyline)—the study aims to illustrate the significance of emotional meaning in interpretive policy analysis and provide insights into the emotional dimensions of policy-making in migration issues.
Virtual attendees can register at this link.
This event is part of the Burma Past and Present: Religion, Ethnicity and Power, a series of readings and discussion of works in progress. We will be reading and discussing work in progress with the author. Please email hmlwin@yorku.ca to receive a copy of the reading.
