Caring for others who look just like us: The representation of Ukrainian refugees on Dutch television

This article presents an analysis of Dutch television coverage of Ukrainian refugees, and shows how television has crafted affects of care and solidarity through a politics of representation that celebrated proximity and sameness of “us” and “them.” The research is based on an analysis of Dutch news, talk-shows and current affairs programs over the time-span of 1 year, collected from the archive of Sound and Vision. The article shows how television has produced and circulated affects of care and solidarity for Ukrainian refugees, and has contributed to the affective economy of migration that makes possible and capitalizes upon the distinction between deserving and undeserving migrants. Through its imaginations of Ukrainian refugees as white, family-oriented, caring, economically beneficial, and morally legitimate, television has transformed Ukrainian refugees into objects of collective care and solidarity. However, the article argues, this care and solidarity has proven to be both narcissist and self-centered, and conditional and discriminatory. Television has rendered the Dutch nation as caring, hospitable, and morally untainted, but has simultaneously reproduced racial hierarchies and perpetuated the myth of a white Europe and the neoliberal discourse of deservingness.