Destigmatization Through Visualization: Striving to redefine refugee workers’ worth

Refugee workers struggle to find employment because they are stigmatized. Research suggests that organizations can help destigmatize actors such as refugees by recognizing them and confirming their worth in society. Here, we explore pictures refugee job-placement Austria Germany used redefine refugees’ moral worthiness – is, relation higher-order normative principles civic duty, efficiency creativity. Analysing images organizations’ destigmatization efforts is essential, visualize materialize rather than abstractly describing them. Hence, visualization shapes the of eyes prospective employers. Combining social semiotics with economies framework, found use three practices professionalizing, domesticizing stylizing draw on distinct orders. We although these were intended destigmatize, also counterintuitively restigmatize. By leveraging semiotic studies visualization, our results advance stigmatization showing how unintendedly restigmatize revealing identified built upon multiple forms worth. Our analysis theoretically methodologically extends organizational morality explaining dimensions expressed through visual registers.