Fuzzy Cognitive Maps as a Tool to Forecast Emotions in Refugee and Migrant Communities for Site Management

Abstract

Refugees and migrants arrivals in the Mediterranean since 2014 have resulted in humanitarian relief operations at national and international levels. Decision making by relevant actors in all aspects of humanitarian response impacts on the well-being of People of Concern (PoC). Site management decisions take into account a wide range of criteria in diverse sectors, including protection of PoC. Criteria address basic relief response, such as water, sanitation and nutrition, social characteristics, as well as protection of PoC. In particular, site management decisions may affect relationships between PoC, leading to tensions or peaceful coexistence between PoC. In this paper a decision making process is proposed for the forecasting of emotions in PoC sites in order to assist site management decisions, particularly in the context of avoidance of tensions. The method uses Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM) to forecast emotions based on input data obtained from site management reports. Historical data from site management reports in Greece have been used for deriving the indicators used in the input layer of the designed FCM. The proposed method will be applied to forecast potential tensions in PoC sites in Greece.