Category: Research notes
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Border management and state sovereignty in the Sahel
Since 2015, European interventions in the Sahel have surged in response to ‘irregular’ migration to the EU and the perceived incapacity of the Sahelian states to control their own borders. In this blog post, Ekaterina Golovko scrutinises the notion of capacity building in relation to local surveillance committees in order to deconstruct the underlying logics…
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Welcome aboard KLM Air Land! Reflections on the mobilities turn
With inspiration from the rich symbolism of local transportation aesthetics in western Ghana, Nauja Kleist reflects on the mobilities turn on the basis of her keynote at the inaugural AMMODI workshop in September 2018. She summarises some of the key features of the mobilities approach and considers the perspectives it inspires and calls for, with…
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Fictional writing and migration knowledge. Reflections on Refugee in Europe by Mehaba Jemal
Talk about migration is widespread in present-day media. Paradoxically, the abundance of reports on migration does not seem to help bring the experience of migrants closer. On the contrary, the overuse of the term ‘migrant’ makes us forget that this word is much too broad to explain anything substantial about the people it denotes. Nikolay…
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The Trial of Dopé: The Modernity of Witchcraft Asylum Claims
As a professor of African History, and expert witness in US federal immigration court, Benjamin Lawrance reflects upon witchcraft accusations in asylum claims; how they are adjudicated; and why they tend to be rejected in court.
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The camp beyond the city: Kakuma and the development of a camp ecology
Kakuma refugee camp in Northern Kenya is emblematic for the debate about the ambiguous phenomenon of the protracted refugee camp. The camp has taken on an urban-like form; a dense, non-agricultural, informal settlement, that is characterized by the meeting of both curtailing and enabling forces, and human agency – by Bram J. Jansen