Migration

From 26 to 28 June 2024, a workshop funded by the DFG on "Postpandemic Remnants: Long-term Covid-19 Impacts on Migration/Mobility in the Global South" took place at the ABI in Freiburg with 20 participants from various social science disciplines. The workshop was organised and conducted by the DFG Network: Migration and Imm/mobility in the Global South in Times of a Pandemic.

As a kick-off to this last of four workshops, Dr Gunjan Sondhi from The Open University (UK) gave a public keynote speech at the University of Freiburg. In the lecture entitled "Repairing Infrastructures of (Im)Mobility - Lessons from the Covid-19 Crisis", Dr Sondhi addressed the question of the extent to which crises, which should be seen as moments rather than events, reveal internal contradictions in society and the underlying system. The focus here was on the infrastructure failure concerning the (im)mobility of international students and other vulnerable migrants. Although these migrants have always faced weak infrastructures, the pandemic has exacerbated the intensity of this experience of spatial and temporal insecurity. Although the pandemic as an active moment of crisis is over, the repair work started on these migrant infrastructures is not yet sufficient.

The second day of the workshop was initially dedicated to analysing the long-term effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on migration and mobility in the Global South. The inputs were based on a research project Franzisca Zanker (ABI) coordinated in 2021. Joyce Takaindisa from the University of Witwatersrand focussed in her presentation on exemptions granted to Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa during the pandemic. She focussed on the post-pandemic interplay between xenophobia and constantly changing political migration regulations.

Luisa Gabriela Morales Vega from the Autonomous University of Mexico State presented her research on Mexico's national migration controls in the wake of the post-pandemic. She showed that the tightened state migration controls in Mexico are a remnant of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The participants then split into smaller groups and went on an interactive walk to discuss their own experiences and observations on the after-effects of the pandemic on migration in the countries they are researching. This walk was the prelude to a writing workshop in which the participants prepared short texts for a joint publication to be published following this workshop.

The last day of the workshop gave the participants another opportunity to work on their texts and exchange ideas. Finally, the next steps for the network group and other possible publications were discussed in plenary and invitations to various academic conferences were extended.

20 June is World Refugee Day. The UNHCR writes:

"It is the day that reminds us that millions of people are forced to leave their homes. The United Nations Refugee Agency publishes the annual "Global Trends" report, which summarises the dramatic situation worldwide in sober figures. At the same time, the UNHCR recognises the strength, courage and resilience that refugees, internally displaced persons and stateless people demonstrate on a daily basis. There are currently 120 million people on the move - the largest number of displaced persons ever recorded."

Franzisca Zanker published her analysis "Outsourcing Asylum to African States? An endeavour destined to fail" on the recently launched platform www.externalizingmigration.info. The platform offers contributions from academics on the topic, in text and video form and as podcasts. 

Franzisca Zanker's contribution looks at the European strategy of outsourcing asylum procedures to third countries and uses previous attempts at cooperation to show that the political interests of African partner countries are not being sufficiently taken into account: 
 

"Rwanda is not the first country to be addressed by European states in the matter of accepting third-country asylum seekers. The current debate is rather the most recent endeavour in an ongoing externalization effort that tries to convince African countries by various carrot and stick methods to take back their own “rejected” nationals, and ideally, even third-country nationals. The difficulty of successful cooperation pinpoints the unlikelihood of outsourcing asylum ever becoming a viable option for potential African partner countries."

Read the full entry here.

Global academia is in the midst of renewed debates and interventions against the persistent inequalities in African and Africanist higher education following calls for decolonising academia. Migration patterns and policies, as well as research on them, are often deeply informed by post-/colonial relations, and migration research has been slow in exposing and addressing its post-/coloniality.

The collaborative Research Group AMMODI therefore hosted a virtual roundtable in December 2023. The recordings of this event are now available online as a video!

The roundtable seeked to address the structural inequalities embedded in Africanist migration research through a set of dialogues between researchers, journal editors, and librarians who confront these issues in different ways. It aimed to diagnose the persistent inequalities in the field, and offer inspiration for ways to work towards more equity and inclusivity.The roundtable also briefly introduced the AMMODI database of over 200 Africa-based scholars working on migration, mobility and displacement and their work, which aims to be one step towards increasing the visibility of African migration research.

For Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, a recent decision to withdraw from the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has thrown up questions about how they will navigate regional mobility in future. Ecowas covers a variety of sectors, but migration is a major one. The bloc’s protocols since 1979 have long been seen as a shining example of free movement on the continent. They gave citizens the right to move between countries in the region without a visa, and a prospective right of residence and setting up businesses.

As multidisciplinary scholars, Franzisca Zanker, Amanda Bisong, and  Leonie Jegen have previously researched migration governance in west Africa, at the regional level, and in particular contexts like Niger. In an article for The Conversation, they argue that Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso have much to lose if their departure from Ecowas curtails mobility. But it is likely that informal mobility will continue anyway.

You can find the full article on the website of The Conversation. 

Reading List: The Meanings, Consequences and Geopolitics of Deportation

In recent debates, deportations have become such a widely accepted political ambition that there is little room to question the necessity of a supposedly more “efficient” deportation apparatus. Yet, many studies have shown for a long time how challenging the implementation of deportations are, that they are embedded in complex geopolitical considerations, and that deportations are often problematic from a (human) rights perspective. Last, but not least, they have devastating impact on the lives of deported people. We compiled this list and introduction in order to improve the knowledge of such critical aspects in public debates. It is addressed to researchers and students, journalists and the wider interested public.

The list was compiled in March 2024 by 

Judith Altrogge (judith.altrogge [at] uni-osnabrueck.de)
Leonie Jegen (l.f.jegen [at] uva.nl)
Laura Lambert (laura.lambert [at] leuphana.de)
Franzisca Zanker (franzisca.zanker [at] abi.uni-freiburg.de) 

The reading list as PDF