Posted on by Valentina Benincasa

The construction of an internal humanitarian border: the case of Puebla, Mexico

Introduction The October 2018 migrant caravans prompted migration to be reconfigured as a political issue in the Central America–Mexico–United States region. Described as a forgotten crisis by the European Commission (European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, 2021), transit and settlement migration from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to Mexico had until then been invisible …

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Posted on by Sara Riva

Neoliberal and Neocolonial Entanglements: Women Seeking Asylum in the US

Paloma had been in the immigration detention center for four days when I met her. While in confinement, she and her children had been given clothes and a room to share with other families. While discussing her asylum interview, I asked about her job in her native country. Taking her hand to the back of …

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Posted on by Saumya Pandey

The Poland-Belarus Border: A Conversation with Marta Bivand Erdal

Saumya: Could you share a little about your research on migration? Marta: I am a human geographer, and I am interested in emigration as well as immigration and transnational ties that result from people moving from one place to another, but who have family members and close people in other places around the world. An …

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Posted on by Svenja Schurade

Writing a history of the “long summer of migration”: Reflections on activist-academic practices

Abstract: In this paper we reflect upon our work in camps along the so-called Balkan route in 2016, from a perspective that merges activism, academic insights, and political orientations. Our experiences, the materials we collected, and subsequent reflections led to the creation of the exhibition “Yallah!? Along the Balkan route,” which is located at the …

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Posted on by Heidi Mogstad

Building a school in the ‘dark hell’ of the Moria camp: A conversation about hope, politics and humanity with refugee entrepreneur Zekria Farzad

The interview was conducted in January 2021, but this text also incorporates some extracts from previous and later conversations. The text has been edited and amended for clarity by Heidi Mogstad and Zekria Farzad. —-—– Introduction: In humanitarian (and some scholarly) discourses, refugees are often portrayed as passive and powerless victims stripped of political agency …

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Posted on by Saumya Pandey

Migration, Labour and Violence in Northeast India: An interview with Dr. Dolly Kikon

Saumya Pandey (SP): Shall we start with your research journey? How did you come to write about the lives of migrant workers from Northeast India? Dolly Kikon (DK): My work that we are speaking about relates to the second book I wrote with Bengt G. Karlsson, Leaving the Land: Indigenous Migration and Affective Labour in …

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Posted on by Gabriella Sanchez

The “real” transformation of migrant smuggling in the time of COVID-19

As COVID-19 continues to spread around the world, allegations of migrant smuggling networks evolving, changing, and undergoing drastic transformations as a result of the pandemic are starting to emerge. Claims of this kind are not new. In fact, assertions of smuggling undergoing Darwinian transformations tend to follow the aftermath of border closures, ramped-up immigration enforcement …

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Posted on by Luigi Achilli

Waiting for the Smuggler: Tales Across the Border

In September 2015, the image of three-year-old Alan Kurdi lying on a beach after drowning while trying to reach Greece from Turkey sent waves of  indignation around the world. A few weeks later, equal moral outrage was generated by the suspicions that Abdullah Kurdi, Alan’s father, could have been one of the smugglers who that …

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Posted on by Heike Drotbohm

Navigating the blurred boundaries of aid. On the pitfalls of post-humanitarian encounters

This post is part of a series linked to the workshop “Assessing the Anthropology of Humanitarianism: Ethnography, Impact, Critique”. —————————————— The critique of humanitarian aid is not a prerogative of academic scholars. Aid workers know too well the limitations, risks and threats of large-scale aid work; they have questioned in detail the efficiency and legitimacy …

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Posted on by Antonio De Lauri

Border walls and fences: an interview with Antonio De Lauri

There seems to be a current international preoccupation with border walls as a form of security and protection – with people both advocating and protesting their construction. However, walls and barriers are not a new phenomenon. What is the continuing historical factor motivating the construction of border barriers? Throughout global history border barriers have had …

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