How the Rohingya mobilised digital solidarity
Deccan ChronicleSonipat, Mar 26 In January this year, a raging fire spread through crammed Rohingya refugee settlements at Kutupalong in Bangladesh’s coastal district of Cox’s Bazar, destroying shelters and displacing thousands. An army of independent Rohingya digital content creators, who lived in the camps, took it upon themselves to catch the global attention by making short videos of the damage and arson. A pilot study conducted by this writer among digital content creators in Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps revealed that Facebook, along with YouTube, remained the most popular platform. The network of independent Rohingya digital content creators in Bangladesh’s refugee camps reached out to the public with serious messages of hardships and the trials of refugee life as well as comedic videos and rap music. By narrating Rohingya folktales through animation and visual storytelling, digital content creators in Kutupalong refugee camp evoked the memory of and reclaimed the motherland that they left behind.
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