[go: up one dir, main page]
Skip to main content

Advertisement

Springer Nature Link
Log in

Exodus 2.0: crowdsourcing geographical and social trails of mass migration

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Journal of Geographical Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The exodus of displaced populations is a recurring historical phenomenon, and the ongoing Syrian humanitarian crisis is its latest incarnation. During such mass migration events, information is an essential commodity. Of particular importance is geographical (e.g., pathways and refugee camps) and social (e.g., refugee activities and networking) information. Traditionally, such information had been produced and disseminated by authorities, but a new paradigm is emerging: Web 2.0 and mobile computing technologies enable the involved stakeholder communities to produce, access, and consume migration-related information. The purpose of this article is to put forward a new typology for understanding the factors around migration and to examine the potential of crowd-generated data—especially open data and volunteered geographic information—to study such events. Using the recent wave of migration to Europe from the Middle East and northern Africa as a case study, we examine how migration-related information can be dynamically mined and analyzed to study the migrants’ pathways from their home countries to their destination sites, as well as the conditions and activities that evolve during the migration process. These new data sources can provide a deeper and more fine-grained understanding of the migration process, often in real-time, and often through the eyes of the communities affected by it. Nevertheless, this also raises significant methodological and technical challenges for their future use associated with potential biases, data quality issues, and data processing.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

(data from: UNHCR 2017a)

Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

(data from: The Migrants’ Files 2014; IOM 2016a)

Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11

(source: Hu 2016)

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. For users interested in finding information on OSM user contributions, please visit https://hdyc.neis-one.org.

  2. For more information about mobile OSM editors, see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Comparison_of_editors.

References

  • Alencar A (2017) Refugee integration and social media: a local and experiential perspective. Inf Commun Soc. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1340500

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Andrade AD, Doolin B (2016) Information and communication technology and the social inclusion of refugees. Manag Inf Syst Q 40(2):405–416

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Andrienko N, Andrienko G, Pelekis N, Spaccapietra S (2008) Basic concepts of movement data. In: Giannotti F, Pedreschi D (eds) Mobility, data mining and privacy—geographic knowledge discovery. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 15–38. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75177-9

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Antoniou V, Fonte CC, See L, Estima J, Arsanjani JJ, Lupia F, Minghini M, Foody G, Fritz S (2016) Investigating the feasibility of geo-tagged photographs as sources of land cover input data. ISPRS Int J Geo Inf 5(5):64. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050064

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Auer S, Bizer C, Kobilarov G, Lehmann J, Cyganiak R (2007) DBpedia: a nucleus for a web of open data. In: Auer S, Bizer C, Kobilarov G, Lehmann J, Cyganiak R, Ives Z (eds) The semantic web. Springer, New York, pp 722–735

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Baker I, Card B, Raymond N (2015) Satellite imagery interpretation guide: displaced population camps. Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Retrieved on 24 July 24 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/yayxfufo

  • Boyd M (1989) Family and personal networks in international migration: recent developments and new agendas. Int Migrat Rev 23(3):638–670

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brekke JP, Brochmann G (2015) Stuck in transit: secondary migration of asylum seekers in Europe, national differences, and the dublin regulation. J Refug Stud 28(2):145–162

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brovelli MA, Minghini M, Kilsedar CE, Zurbarán M, Aiello M, Gianinetto M (2017) Migrate: a foss web mapping application for educating and raising awareness about migration flows in Europe. Int Arch Photogramm Remote Sens Spat Inf Sci 42(4):51–55

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Charmarkeh H (2013) Social media usage, Tahriib (Migration), and settlement among Somali refugees in France. Refug Can J Refug 29 (1). https://tinyurl.com/zq3qu2z

  • Chatfield AT, Scholl HJJ, Brajawidagda U (2013) Tsunami early warnings via twitter in government: net-savvy citizens’ co-production of time-critical public information services. Gov Inf Q 30(4):377–386

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark L (1989) Early warning of refugee flows. Refugee Policy Group. Washington DC. Retrieved on 16 Mar 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/zr2ouax

  • Crawley H, Duvell F, Sigona N, McMahon S, Jones K (2016) Unpacking a rapidly changing scenario: migration flows, routes and trajectories across the Mediterranean. Unravelling the Mediterranean Migration Crisis. Research brief no. 1, March 2016. Retrieved on 12 Mar 2018, from https://tinyurl.com/y8ar7jzu

  • Cresswell T (2014) Place. In: Lee R, Castree N, Kitchin R, Lawson V, Paasi A, Philo C, Radcliff S, Roberts SM, Withers C (eds) The sage handbook of human geography. Sage, Thousand Oaks, pp 3–44

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Crooks A, Pfoser D, Jenkins A, Croitoru A, Stefanidis A, Smith D, Karagiorgou S, Efentakis A, Lamprianidis G (2015) Crowdsourcing urban form and function. Int J Geogr Inf Sci 29(5):720–741

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crooks AT, Malleson N, Wise S, Heppenstall A (2018) Big data, agents and the city. In: Schintler LA, Chen Z (eds) Big data for urban and regional science. Routledge, New York, pp 204–213

    Google Scholar 

  • dbpedia (2017) mappings.dbpedia. Ontology Classes. Retrieved on 2 Oct 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/obzs5d7

  • Dekker R, Engbersen G (2014) How social media transform migrant networks and facilitate migration. Glob Netw 14(4):401–418

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dijstelbloem H (2017) Migration tracking is a mess. Nature 543:32–34. https://doi.org/10.1038/543032a

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dodge S, Weibel R, Lautenschütz AK (2008) Towards a taxonomy of movement patterns. Inf Vis 7(3–4):240–252

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dorn H, Törnros T, Zipf Z (2015) Quality evaluation of VGI using authoritative data—a comparison with land use data in Southern Germany. ISPRS Int J Geo Inf 4(3):1657–1671

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards S (2008) Computational tools in predicting and assessing forced migration. J Refug Stud 21(3):347–359

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eurostat (2017) Eurostat: your key to European statistics. Retrieved on 16 Mar 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/jt4q84d

  • Flickr (2015a) Refugees charging phones at a makeshift charging station courtesy of Joshua Zakary. Retrieved on 2 Oct 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/y6woev3y

  • Flickr (2015b) Refugees arriving at the greek island of kos courtesy of Christopher Jahn, International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. Retrieved on 2 Oct 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/y7x5wze3

  • Fonte CC, Antoniou V, Bastin L, Estima J, Arsanjani JJ, Bayas J-CL, See L, Vatseva R (2017) Assessing VGI data quality. In: Foody G, See L, Fritz S, Mooney P, Olteanu-Raimond A-M, Fonte CC, Antoniou V (eds) Mapping and the citizen sensor. Ubiquity Press, London, pp 137–163

    Google Scholar 

  • Galton A (2000) Qualitative spatial change. Oxford University Press on Demand, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodchild M (2007) Citizens as sensors: the world of volunteered geography. GeoJournal 69(4):211–221

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haklay M (2010) How good is volunteered geographical information? A comparative study of OpenStreetMap and ordnance survey datasets. Environ Plan B 37(4):682–703

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hanson K (2016) Refugee crisis? There’s an app for that. Londonist. Retrieved on 3 Sept 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/y7vtp4c3

  • Herfort B, de Albuquerque JP, Schelhorn SJ, Zipf A (2014) Exploring the geographical relations between social media and flood phenomena to improve situational awareness. In: Joaquín Huerta J, Schade S, Granell C (eds) Connecting a digital Europe through location and place. Springer, New York, pp 55–71

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Houttuin S, Huson E (2016) Algeria: the new migrant staging post for Europe. IRIN: The Inside Story on Emergencies. October 25. Retrieved on 2 Oct 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/ybgwo77e

  • Hu E (2016) An agent-based model of the European refugee crisis. GitHub repository, https://github.com/elizabethhu/refugee-abm. Retrieved on 22 Sept 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/yd5s6sjc

  • Hübl F, Cvetojevic S, Hochmair H, Paulus G (2017) Analyzing refugee migration patterns using geo-tagged Tweets. Int J Geo Inf 6(302):1–23

    Google Scholar 

  • Hutchinson A (2017) Top social network demographics 2017. Social Media Today, March. Retrieved on 3 Sept 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/y75qvt7m

  • International Organization for Migration (IOM) (2016a) Mediterranean migrant arrivals reach 358,403; Official Deaths at Sea: 4,913. December 23. Retrieved on 16 Mar 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/j6larhb

  • International Organization for Migration (IOM) (2016b) Missing migrants project: tracking deaths along migratory routes worldwide. Retrieved on 16 Mar 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/hgus5jz

  • Kim GH, Trimi S, Chung JH (2014) Big-data applications in the government sector. Commun ACM 57(3):78–85

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kittur A, Kraut RE (2008) Harnessing the wisdom of crowds in Wikipedia: quality through coordination. In: Proceedings of the 2008 ACM conference on computer supported cooperative work, pp 37–46

  • Komito L (2011) Social media and migration: virtual community 2.0. J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol 62(6):1075–1086

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Latonero M, Kift P (2018) On digital passages and borders: refugees and the new infrastructure for movement and control. Soc Media Soc. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118764432

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mabogunje AL (1970) Systems approach to a theory of rural–urban migration. Geogr Anal 2(1):1–18

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maitland C, Xu Y (2015) A social informatics analysis of refugee mobile phone use: a case study of Za’atari Syrian refugee camp. In: Proceedings of the 43rd research conference on communication, information and internet policy. Retrieved on 2 Oct 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/ydhzsl68

  • MAPS.ME (2017) Free offline world maps. Retrieved on 10 Mar 2018, from https://tinyurl.com/y8tvkq23

  • Miranda CO (1990) Toward a broader definition of refugee: 20th century development trends. Calif West Int Law J 20(2):9

    Google Scholar 

  • Mislove A, Lehmann S, Ahn YY, Onnela JP, Rosenquist JN (2011) Understanding the demographics of Twitter users. In: Proceedings of the 5th international AAAI conference on weblogs and social media (ICWSM), Barcelona, Spain, pp 554–557

  • Mooney P, Minghini M (2017) A review of OpenStreetMap data. In: Foody G, See L, Fritz S, Mooney P, Olteanu-Raimond A-M, Fonte CC, Antoniou V (eds) Mapping and the citizen sensor. Ubiquity Press, London, pp 37–59

    Google Scholar 

  • Nathan R, Getz WM, Revilla E, Holyoak M, Kadmon R, Saltz D, Smouse PE (2008) A movement ecology paradigm for unifying organismal movement research. Proc Natl Acad Sci 105(49):19052–19059

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nature (2017) Data on movements of refugees and migrants are flawed (editorial). Nature 543:5–6. https://doi.org/10.1038/543005b

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neis P, Zipf Z (2012) Analyzing the contributor activity of a volunteered geographic information project—the case of OenStreetMap. ISPRS Int J Geo Inf 1(3):146–165

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Norris P (2001) Digital divide: civic engagement, information poverty, and the internet worldwide. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • O’Reilly T (2005) What is web 2.0: design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. Retrieved on 22 Sept 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/p8z24dw

  • OpenStreetMap (2017) Za’atari refugee camp OSM object. Retrieved on 10 Mar 2018, from https://tinyurl.com/y8l9lflo

  • OpenStreetMap Wiki (2017) Refugee camp mapping. Retrieved on 3 Sept 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/ydavj4r7

  • Palen L, Vieweg S, Sutton J, Liu SB, Hughes AL (2007) Crisis informatics: studying crisis in a networked world. In: Proceedings of the third international conference on e-social science, Ann Arbor, MI. https://tinyurl.com/ydgl2zoh

  • Ram A (2015) Smartphones being solace and aid to desperate refugees. Wired. Retrieved on 16 Mar 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/hpakt82

  • Rao M (2015) A digital survival guide for the modern refugee: a compendium of helpful apps for migrants on the move. Huffington Post: The World Post. Retrieved on 24 July 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/ybuja5d7

  • Rehrl K, Gröchenig S (2016) A framework for data-centric analysis of mapping activity in the context of volunteered geographic information. ISPRS Int J Geo Inf 5(3):37. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5030037

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ReliefWeb (2017) Syrian Arab republic dashboard. Retrieved on 24 July 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/y8buo589

  • Sampson R, Gifford SM (2010) Place-making, settlement and well-being: the therapeutic landscapes of recently arrived youth with refugee backgrounds. Health Place 16(1):116–131

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schmeidl S (1997) Exploring the causes of forced migration: a pooled time-series analysis, 1971–1990. Soc Sci Q 78(2):284–308

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz HA, Eichstaedt JC, Kern ML, Dziurzynski L, Ramones SM, Agrawal M, Shah A, Kosinski M, Stillwell D, Seligman ME, Ungar LH (2013) Personality, gender, and age in the language of social media: the open-vocabulary approach. PLoS ONE 8(9):e73791

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sebti B (2016) 4 smartphone tools Syrian refugees use to arrive in Europe safely. Non-Government Organization. Retrieved on 16 Mar 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/jp3ks62

  • See L, Mooney P, Foody G, Bastin L, Comber A, Estima J, Fritz S, Kerle N, Jiang B, Laakso M, Liu HY (2016) Crowdsourcing, citizen science or volunteered geographic information? The current state of crowdsourced geographic information. ISPRS Int J Geo Inf 5(5):55. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050055

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Seltzer EK, Jean NS, Kramer-Golinkoff E, Asch DA, Merchant RM (2015) The content of social media’s shared images about Ebola: a retrospective study. Public Health 129(9):1273–1277

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shacknove AE (1985) Who is a refugee? Ethics 95(2):274–284

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shelton T, Poorthuis A, Graham M, Zook M (2014) Mapping the data shadows of hurricane sandy: uncovering the sociospatial dimensions of ‘big data’. Geoforum 52:167–179

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sloan L, Morgan J, Burnap P, Williams M (2015) Who Tweets? Deriving the demographic characteristics of age, occupation and social class from twitter user meta-data. PLoS ONE 10(3):e0115545

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stefanidis A, Cotnoir A, Croitoru A, Crooks A, Rice M, Radzikowski J (2013a) Demarcating new boundaries: mapping virtual polycentric communities through social media content. Cartogr Geogr Inf Sci 40(2):116–129

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stefanidis A, Crooks A, Radzikowski J (2013b) Harvesting ambient geospatial information from social media feeds. GeoJournal 78(2):319–338

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stefanidis A, Vraga E, Lamprianidis G, Radzikowski J, Delamater PL, Jacobsen KH, Pfoser D, Croitoru A, Crooks AT (2017) Zika in Twitter: temporal variations of locations, actors, and concepts. JMIR Public Health Surveill 3(2):e22

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stillwell J (1978) Interzonal migration: some historical tests of spatial-interaction models. Environ Plan A 10(10):1187–1200

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stouffer SS (1940) Intervening opportunities: a theory relating mobility and distance. Am Sociol Rev 5(6):845–867

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • The Migrants’ Files (2014) Counting the dead. Retrieved on 16 Mar 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/z72f6q5

  • The World Bank (2015) The Kurdistan region of Iraq: assessing the economic and social impact of the Syrian conflict and ISIS. World Bank, Washington. Retrieved on 18 May 2018, from https://tinyurl.com/yccokqu7

  • The World Bank (2016) The welfare of Syrian refugees: evidence from Jordan and Lebanon. World Bank, Washington. Retrieved on 18 May 2018 from https://tinyurl.com/y9v5loub

  • The World Bank (2017a) DataBank home. Retrieved on 24 July 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/cq9guf3

  • The World Bank (2017b) Forcibly displaced: toward a development approach supporting refugees, the internally displaced, and their hosts. World Bank, Washington. https://doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-0938-5. Retrieved on 25 Sept 2017 from https://tinyurl.com/y9tnoojf

  • Tomaszewski B (2017) GIS for refugees, by refugees. ArcNews 39(3):4–5

    Google Scholar 

  • United Nations Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons (1951) Final act and convention relating to the status of refugees. United Nations, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • United Nations General Assembly (2015) Transforming our world: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. United Nations (UN) resolution A/RES/70/1. Retrieved on 25 Sept 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/od9mens

  • United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2013) UNHCR statistical online population database: sources, methods and data considerations. Retrieved on 26 Mar 2018, from https://tinyurl.com/ycyzmabd

  • United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2016) Global trends: forced displacement in 2015. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Retrieved on 16 Mar 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/h2uw8h5

  • United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2017a) UNHCR statistics: the world in numbers. Retrieved on 16 Mar 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/hks95am

  • United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2017b) Operational portal refugee situations: Syria regional refugee response. Retrieved on 2 Oct 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/ycd3aq96

  • Ushahidi (2017) Read the crowd. Retrieved on 22 Sept 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/y8ydcuc3

  • Valtonen K (2004) From the margin to the mainstream: conceptualizing refugee settlement processes. J Refug Stud 17(1):70–96

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Deursen AJ, Van Dijk JA (2014) The digital divide shifts to differences in usage. New Med Soc 16(3):507–526

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wall M, Campbell O, Janbek D (2017) Syrian refugees and information precarity. New Med Soc 19(2):240–254

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Watson I, Nagel C, Bilginsoy Z (2015) ‘Facebook refugees’ chart escape from Syria on cell phones. CNN Today. Retrieved on 2 Oct 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/y9u5nk2m

  • Weiss-Meyer A (2017) Apps for refugees: how technology helps in a humanitarian crisis. The Atlantic, May. Retrieved on 8 Aug 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/y9nzzwsv

  • Widener M, Horner M, Metcalf S (2013) Simulating the effects of social networks on a population’s hurricane evacuation participation. J Geogr Syst 15(2):193–209

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang A, Fan H, Jing N (2016) Amateur or professional: assessing the expertise of major contributors in OpenStreetMap based on contributing behaviors. ISPRS Int J Geo Inf 5(2):21

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhong C, Arisona SM, Huang X, Batty M, Schmitt G (2014) Detecting the dynamics of urban structure through spatial network analysis. Int J Geogr Inf Sci 28(11):2178–2199

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zook M, Graham M, Shelton T, Gorman S (2010) Volunteered geographic information and crowdsourcing disaster relief: a case study of the Haitian earthquake. World Med Health Policy 2(2):6–32

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zottarelli LK (1998) Determinants of refugee production: an exploratory analysis. Thesis, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas. Retrieved on 16 Mar 2017, from https://tinyurl.com/ht7jb7l

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the four anonymous reviewers for providing invaluable comments and suggestions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and GeoInformation Science, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Troy Curry, Arie Croitoru, Andrew Crooks & Anthony Stefanidis

  2. Center for Geospatial Intelligence, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Arie Croitoru, Andrew Crooks & Anthony Stefanidis

  3. Department of Computational and Data Sciences, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Andrew Crooks

  4. Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis (CINA) Center, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Anthony Stefanidis

Authors
  1. Troy Curry
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Arie Croitoru
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Andrew Crooks
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Anthony Stefanidis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Arie Croitoru.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 3609 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Curry, T., Croitoru, A., Crooks, A. et al. Exodus 2.0: crowdsourcing geographical and social trails of mass migration. J Geogr Syst 21, 161–187 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10109-018-0278-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10109-018-0278-1

Keywords

JEL Classification

Search

Navigation