Tag: Latest posts
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Displacement agriculture: neither seen nor heard
Cover photo by author. Burundian labour migrants outside Nyarugusu refugee camp. Series Introduction This post is a part of a series introducing the recent anthology Invisibility in African Displacements (Zed Books 2020). The book was edited by Simon Turner and AMMODI co-founder Jesper Bjarnesen, and offers new analytical ideas for understanding migrant in/visibilisation. In each…
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Introducing “Invisibility in African Displacements”
Series Introduction This post is a part of a series introducing the recent anthology Invisibility in African Displacements (Zed Books 2020). The book was edited by Simon Turner and AMMODI co-founder Jesper Bjarnesen, and offers new analytical ideas for understanding migrant in/visibilisation. In each post, the contributors present their chapter in a more accessible format,…
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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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Involuntary returns from Libya and reintegration in Ghana
Involuntary returns of sub-Saharan African nationals are likely to become an increasingly central feature of international migration governance. Relying on findings from their empirical study on the experiences of Ghanaian migrants forcibly returned during the political crisis in Libya in 2011, Leander Kandilige and Geraldine Asiwome Adiku consider the challenges facing multi-stakeholder coordination of safe…
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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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Multi-Focal Power in Refugee Research
Sudanese asylum seekers first began coming to Israel in significant numbers in 2005, the numbers increasing until Israel sealed its border in early 2013. The vast majority of asylum seekers are men, arriving at a relatively young age. Based on her experiences working with, and conducting research about, Sudanese asylum seekers in Israel, Lisa Richlen…
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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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Shifting the narrative on African migration
Negative public opinion in Europe is a major obstacle to holistic and sustainable policies relating to African migration. Based on his observations of migration debates in Sweden and Denmark, Jesper Bjarnesen argues for a shift in wording and perspective away from politicised opinions about immigration, or misplaced ideas of humanitarian responsibilities, towards a more constructive…
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From Campus to Camp and Back
In this field note, Marcia C. Schenck reflects on her ongoing involvement with Princeton University’s Global History Lab courses in Kakuma refugee camp. Through courses in global history, she argues, camp residents are not only given access to academic knowledge but also empowered to produce compelling historic narratives by using their location advantage; migration experience;…
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Africa at the gates: Europe’s lose-lose migration management plan
Since the summer of 2015, the question of how to stem the flows from Africa and the Middle East is at the centre of increasingly existential debates about the very future of Europe. Loren B Landau and Iriann Freemantle contemplate the underlying logics and effects of EU migration management.