Consent
Our practice of reporting in the field of migration in the years since 2016 has initiated an ongoing process of defining and refining the way we produce our stories. In all cases, it starts with consent. We make clear to anyone weighing participation in our archive and community that a written story with accompanying photograph will be made visible publicly on our website, and stored for future use in our Humanitarian Archives. While most agree to those terms with written or verbal consent and are made aware of our Privacy Policy, others expressing safety or security concerns but who still wish to participate will be made anonymous, either by name change or by remaining unpictured, or both.

Anonymized Journey Stories by MotM are not uncommon, and can be identified in the Journey Story Archive with a placeholder picture, a stock photo of the Mediterranean Sea or Sonoran desert landscape, which reflect the two primary terrains in our areas of reporting so far. In select cases, a participant’s first name will also be changed to keep their identity private; MotM as a rule, only publishes the first names of participants in our community, as a further protection. As an organization that has done much of its work at points of first reception or ports of entry, encountering people in a vulnerable state, while unfortunate, is often the norm. We take care to assess whether individuals are sound emotionally and psychologically to participate, and if they are not, an interview will be put on hold, potentially indefinitely. Protecting the security and wellbeing of our friends in the migrant community supersedes even our organization’s own programming objectives.

Since the methodology of our work is defined by long-term relationships between our correspondents and those they meet in the migrant community, there are instances in the months and years beyond our first encounter (which may occur at a “hotspot” or point of first reception following their emergency rescue at sea, for example) that enable the documentation of their Journey Story at a later date. In either case, each individual consents to participation and publication of their story. If we encounter a person in the migrant community who does not want their story shared, you will not find it on our website or in our archival records.

In instances where consenting individuals whose stories are published on the website decide at a later date that they would no longer like to participate, those stories are anonymized and their names are removed from the correspondent’s outreach list. Our lines of contact, of course, remain open to anyone wishing to participate again, if they so choose, and their return would be welcomed. Written consent at this stage would, once again, be required to reestablish outreach communication from the correspondent and any subsequent documentation they may collect.

MotM understands that life shifts and as it does it can affect one’s interest to participate in the MotM community and archive. This would be relevant to anyone navigating the struggles of normal life, but it is particularly acute for those in the migrant community who are frequently traumatized, dehumanized by migration policies that view them only at a systems level; who are frequently caught in transitory states or in patterns of insecure housing; and who are marginalized or vilified by global political rhetoric and misinformed media narrative. The individuals in the migrant community bear the brunt of these indignities, and more; and while it is in the revealing of these injustices that lessens the weight of their impact on the individual experiencing them and is a reason most choose to participate with MotM, other individuals may feel differently.

Participating community members may, in fact, as time goes on see success and growth beyond the periods of strife and transition we initially document in their lives. In these cases, people may pull back or wish to speak less about a lived experience that categorizes them as “migrant.” Forgetting the past, or wanting to move on from a period that may retraumatize people or disturb their peace in whatever capacity is not an uncommon phenomenon in the migrant community, which even our own presence has the potential to disrupt. We recognize this limit may occur and respect anyone’s wishes to communicate less in the future, or not at all.

Most, however, choose to continue forward with MotM as a trusted friend and advocate in their lives, and we value the enriching experience of them being a part of ours.

Protection of Minors
Additional ethical criteria concern the protection of minors. In the years since the inception of our work, MotM has developed a strict policy of withholding the publication of photos of any of its participants who are minors. This is important because it is an especially vulnerable population that is often unaccompanied during perilous, traumatizing journeys, emergency rescues, cultural adjustment and more. It is, therefore, the responsibility of everyone who encounters those in this protected group, including MotM, to practice extra safeguards to look after their interests, specifically, privacy and security in absence of parental or legal guardianship.

For transparency, a number of original Journey Stories in our archive are of people who at the time of interview were then aged under 18 years, meaning it was unethical for us to publish their photos. Although we have in those cases since gained permission from the people after they have reached the age of consent, we have applied the learnings to current work and practices, and restrict the release of photographs of all profiles until they reach legal age, and with consent.

As a humanitarian organization with an historical aim, we must however recognize the urgency to capture a valuable moment in a person’s history with our camera. We do so with care and security in mind. So in the immediate moment of Journey Story production and release, to safeguard the privacy of the minor, we withhold the photograph from accompanying a person’s written Journey Story. In its place, a standardized stock landscape image from our library would be used as placeholder; once the participant reaches legal age, and with additional consent, their photograph will then replace the placeholder image.

Ethics of Photography
Since the first days of our work in Lampedusa, Sicily, in 2016, capturing the beauty of the people we meet in the migrant community has been at the heart of what we strive for in our photography. An effort toward “beauty” may seem counterintuitive to the difficult, sometimes graphic, narratives we detail in our Journey Story documentation, and indeed against the established human and migration rights narratives and iconography with which we have come to associate humanitarian services.

The tropes of people in distress are well worn, however, and have the capacity to exploit those most vulnerable who we aim to uplift. Stereotypical imagery may include people in undignified situations or circumstances, shrouded, dirty or in tatters, for example, or otherwise not expressing an individual person as they see themselves. This iconography has the capacity to keep vulnerable people firmly within the framework in which they are seen at that moment, keeping the viewer, from whom it may well be intended to elicit sympathy and forge a human connection, in a place of pitying, or in any case at a superior viewpoint. Photography leveraging this kind of stereotypical imagery keeps the subject at a distance, as “victim,” and the viewer as “privileged,” or elevated apart from it, minimizing the empathetic connection required to initiate change. It in short creates an us-them binary that MotM objectively strives to evolve past, so that all of us learn to see the people in the world around us on equal terms.