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On the basis of a trajectory ethnography, that gains longitudinal insights in the twists and turns of migration trajectories, this contribution aims to understand the fragmented mobility processes of African migrants once they have... more
On the basis of a trajectory ethnography, that gains longitudinal insights in the twists and turns of migration trajectories, this contribution aims to understand the fragmented mobility processes of African migrants once they have arrived in Europe. Inspired by the work of Tim Ingold (2007; 2011), it differentiates mobility processes that are characterized by flexibility and openness (wayfaring) from mobility processes in which options for the migrants are limited and their pathways are more or less channelized (transporting). With these conceptual and empirical insights, I reflect on the value of trajectory research in the field of transnational migration studies.

Chapter of edited book: Trajectories and Imaginaries in Migration (Hillmann, Van Naerssen and Spaan 2018 eds)
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Hospitality as a notion has emerged as a critical philosophical category in human geography for addressing various issues around asylum migration and citizenship. In this paper, we identify two major limitations of empirical studies... more
Hospitality as a notion has emerged as a critical philosophical category in human geography for addressing various issues around asylum migration and citizenship. In this paper, we identify two major limitations of empirical studies focusing on hospitality in this context. First, empirical studies tend to investigate relations between pre-known guests (“migrants”) and pre-defined hosts (states, local organisations, activist movements, churches), thereby overlooking shifting dynamics of social relations. Second, although critical geographers have emphasised a relational sense of place in their empirical discussions on hospitality (in the context of asylum migration), observations are mostly place-based and focus on how different cities or organisations provide hospitality (or not). To re-think hospitality, we instead start from negotiating our own practices as researchers in relation with actors in the field of refugee support, actively forging and navigating shifts in these relations, thereby creating action research processes under the title of ‘Asylum University’. In so doing, we re-position Derrida’s concept of ‘cities of refuge’ in the in-between spaces of shifting roles, (un)certain (im)mobilities, border-crossings and tensed emotional geometries that intertwine in an entangled web of hospitality, in ways that are yet-to-be-known. In other words, we challenge researchers that investigate hospitality in the context of asylum migration to apply a process geographical approach that actively follows guest-host relations (including the ones they become entangled with) instead of freezing them in time and space. This allows for an approach that is more self-critical and sensitive to what we call “asylumscapes” - the dynamic processes of refugee hospitality.
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This PhD thesis focuses on the migration trajectories of sub-Saharan Africans who are heading for the European Union. With an analytical framework that is inspired by the new mobilities turn, and by the means of a trajectory ethnography,... more
This PhD thesis focuses on the migration trajectories of sub-Saharan Africans who are heading for the European Union. With an analytical framework that is inspired by the new mobilities turn, and by the means of a trajectory ethnography, I have investigated migrants' journeys by focusing on the changeability of migrants' aspirations, the importance of social connections and disconnections, and migrants' experienced mobility/immobility.
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Hospitality as a notion has emerged as a critical philosophical category in human geography for addressing various issues around asylum migration and citizenship. In this paper, we identify two major limitations of empirical studies... more
Hospitality as a notion has emerged as a critical philosophical category in human geography for addressing various issues around asylum migration and citizenship. In this paper, we identify two major limitations of empirical studies focusing on hospitality in this context. First, empirical studies tend to investigate relations
between pre-known guests (“migrants”) and pre-defined hosts (states, local organisations, activist movements, churches), thereby overlooking shifting dynamics of social relations. Second, although critical geographers have emphasised a relational sense of place in their empirical discussions on hospitality (in the context of asylum migration), observations are mostly place-based and focus on how different cities or organisations provide hospitality (or not). To re-think hospitality, we instead start from negotiating our own practices as researchers in relation with actors in the field of refugee support, actively forging and navigating shifts in these relations,
thereby creating action research processes under the title of ‘Asylum University’. In so doing, we re-position Derrida’s concept of ‘cities of refuge’ in the in-between spaces of shifting roles, (un)certain (im)mobilities, border-crossings and tensed emotional geometries that intertwine in an entangled web of hospitality, in ways that are yet-to-be-known. In other words, we challenge researchers that investigate hospitality in the context of asylum migration to apply a process geographical approach that actively follows guest-host relations (including the ones they become entangled with) instead of freezing them in time and space. This allows for an approach that is more self-critical and sensitive to what we call “asylumscapes” - the dynamic processes of refugee hospitality.
In times of globalization, questions of planning in relation to migration tend to be fixated on state-centric approaches to cities and regions. In this paper, we formulate a ‘border lens’ that thinks beyond bounded notions of space and... more
In times of globalization, questions of planning in relation to migration tend to be fixated on state-centric approaches to cities and regions. In this paper, we formulate a ‘border lens’ that thinks beyond bounded notions of space and emphasizes the intricate emotional spatialities attached to borders and migration. In dialogue with Friedmann’s notion of planning for migrant ‘integration’, Sandercock’s ‘voices from the borderlands’ metaphor and Arendt's notion of 'action', we think through local everyday struggles and transformations involved in the negotiation of hospitality in the Dutch/German borderlands. With the border lens and our empirical vignettes, we aim to problematise the urban bias in planning discussions related to migration and to go beyond the state-centric question of ‘where to locate/fixate the migrant’.
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Many African would-be immigrants perceive ‘Destination Europe’ as one integrated space in which they can easily move to places that meet their aspirations. However, for those who have managed to enter the European Union (EU), reality... more
Many African would-be immigrants perceive ‘Destination Europe’ as one integrated space in which they can easily move to places that meet their aspirations. However, for those who have managed to enter the European Union (EU), reality often appears to be harsher than expected as asylum procedures, periods of detention and the lack of travel documents hinder their intra-EU mobility. By means of a ‘trajectory ethnography’, that aims to follow migrants through time-space, this research explores the interplay of the diverse mobility processes of (irregular) migrants and EU’s mobility regimes that result in the ‘multiplicity of transit’. This notion moves away from the concept that migrants may have well-weighted plans and concrete destinations in their heads when they are on the road. More fundamentally, it questions the spatial linearity of so-called transit migration, simplifying the mobility processes of African migrants.


Schapendonk, J. (2017). The multiplicity of transit: the waiting and onward mobility of African migrants in the European Union. International Journal of Migration and Border Studies, 3(2-3), 208-227.
http://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1504/IJMBS.2017.083247
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This panel is organized for the 2nd Transmobilities Conference (8-9 June, Radboud University, and discusses the politics and experiences attached to processes of escape. Escape may involve individual and collective evacuations from... more
This panel is organized for the 2nd Transmobilities Conference (8-9 June, Radboud University, and discusses the politics and experiences attached to processes of escape. Escape may involve individual and collective evacuations from conflict situations and war zones and hence may refer to sudden life-or-death experiences (refugee movements, evacuation of wounded soldiers). From a very different angle, moments of escape may in fact reflect forms of transgressive mobility that frees the actor from stringent control regimes or entrapment. In the context of the latter, escape routes may create new rooms to manoeuvre and reflect political subversions (Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos 2008). For example, undocumented migrants often disappear from the radar in the period they encounter the risk of deportation and simply escape to other places. At both extreme ends, processes of escape profoundly reflect the politics of mobility as it articulates the questions of a) who is able to move, and who is not (see also Cresswell (2008) on the Katrina hurricane) b) how is the escape process facilitated, how is it planned or organised? and c) what materiality – i.e. means of transportation, communication, infrastructure – is involved and what kind of experiences does it produce? This panel starts from William Walters' notion of viapolitics that articulates the politics of mobility as well as the diverse ways materialities shape processes of movement (Walters 2015). It invites papers that enhance our empirical, methodological and conceptual understanding of processes of escape.

If you are interested in participating, please send a title and 250-word abstract to Joris Schapendonk (j.schapendonk@fm.ru.nl) or Craig Jones (craig.jones@ncl.ac.uk) by the 7 th of April Panel organizers:

Discussant: Derek Gregory (University of British Colombia, Raboud Excellence Professor, Radboud University)
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International Journal of Migration & Border Studies Special Issue on Transit Migration. (includes co-authored article on "Economies of transit: exploiting migrants and refugees in Indonesia and Libya"). Other contributors - Christina... more
International Journal of Migration & Border Studies Special Issue on Transit Migration.
(includes co-authored article on "Economies of transit: exploiting migrants and refugees in Indonesia and Libya"). Other contributors - Christina Oelgemöller, Brigitte Suter, Wendy Vogt, Judith Zijlstra & Ilse Van Liempt and Joris Schapendonk .
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Special issue [in Dutch] on practices and feelings of hospitality in, and beyond, Europe. Edited by Joris Schapendonk, Kolar Aparna and Olivier Kramsch
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In this article it is argued that ‘the journey’—as an embodied form of travel from one place to the other—is a fruitful analytical starting point to bring migration and tourism studies in closer dialogue with each other. With our focus on... more
In this article it is argued that ‘the journey’—as an embodied form of travel from one place to the other—is a fruitful analytical starting point to bring migration and tourism studies in closer dialogue with each other. With our focus on the ‘en route’ behaviour and experiences of two prototypical mobile figures (the transient migrant and the backpacker), we go beyond the usual categorical divisions of human mobility based on temporality (temporary tourists vs. long-term migrants) and politicization (welcomed tourists vs. unwanted migrants). With our empirical findings on migrants’ journeys and our analysis of published articles in tourism studies, we identify three aspects (personal transformation, social networking and risk taking) along which we conceptually mirror and merge the embodied journeys of the prototypical travellers. The analysis identifies relevant commonalities of different mobility processes and illustrates that individuals on the move easily jump over the categorical divide of migrants/tourists across time and space. We finally use these insights to contribute further to a mobility-driven research agenda in migration studies.
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In this article it is argued that ‘the journey’—as an embodied form of travel from one place to the other—is a fruitful analytical starting point to bring migration and tourism studies in closer dialogue with each other. With our focus on... more
In this article it is argued that ‘the journey’—as an embodied form of travel from one place to the other—is a fruitful analytical starting point to bring migration and tourism studies in closer dialogue with each other. With our focus on the ‘en route’ behaviour and experiences of two prototypical mobile figures (the transient migrant and the backpacker), we go beyond the usual categorical divisions of human mobility based on temporality (temporary tourists vs. long-term migrants) and politicization (welcomed tourists vs. unwanted migrants). With our empirical findings on migrants’ journeys and our analysis of published articles in tourism studies, we identify three aspects (personal transformation, social networking and risk taking) along which we conceptually mirror and merge the embodied journeys of the prototypical travellers. The analysis identifies relevant commonalities of different mobility processes and illustrates that individuals on the move easily jump over the categorical divide of migrants/tourists across time and space. We finally use these insights to contribute further to a mobility-driven research agenda in migration studies.
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As a welcome alternative to economic explanations of migration, the social network has become a key concept in migration studies. However, by maintaining a static conceptualisation of networks (as grid-like structures) and by suggesting... more
As a welcome alternative to economic explanations of migration, the social network has become a key concept in migration studies. However, by maintaining a static conceptualisation of networks (as grid-like structures) and by suggesting that social capital automatically derives from networks, we tend to fall into a form of network determinism. As an alternative, this paper makes the case for a practice approach to social networks that recognises the changeable nature of networks and the social endeavours that are needed to accumulate social capital. In so doing, I first revisit the work of Granovetter and Bourdieu in order to explore existing practice elements in their network approaches. I subsequently combine these insights with practice-oriented migration studies. This analysis results in four hitherto undertheorised elements that provide a foundation for the advocated networking approach. Finally, I illustrate the analytical value of this approach by discussing the networking practices of sub-Saharan African migrants en route for the European Union.
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We use two trajectory ethnographies that follow the migration processes of Sudanese and Nigerians heading for the European Union across space and time, to explore how the main theoretical principles of the mobilities debate add value to... more
We use two trajectory ethnographies that follow the migration processes of Sudanese and Nigerians heading for the European Union across space and time, to explore how the main theoretical principles of the mobilities debate add value to transnational migration research. We thereby particularly appreciate the relational ontology of the mobilities approach and its analytical focus on the differentiation of power and experiences in mobility processes. By providing in-depth insights into how migration trajectories evolve—that is, how they are produced, facilitated, slowed down, and blocked—we argue that a thorough analysis of migrants’ im/mobilities helps us to reveal the spatial frictions, embodied efforts, and emotions that are inherent aspects of transnational engagements.
In the late 1990s transit migration to the European Union (EU) has emerged as a new field of discussion in both policy arenas and academia. It refers to migrants who are moving to third countries in the hope of reaching the EU after a... more
In the late 1990s transit migration to the European Union (EU) has emerged as a new field of discussion in both policy arenas and academia. It refers to migrants who are moving to third countries in the hope of reaching the EU after a short waiting period in the ‘transit country’. It is often seen as the missing link between emigration and settlement in the framework of irregular migration to the EU. This paper contributes to the transit migration debate by approaching migrants' transit statuses from a mobilities perspective. Based on empirical data gathered by the means of ethnographic engagements with sub-Saharan African migrants in so-called European transit spaces (Morocco and Turkey), it discusses migrants' experienced immobility and physical immobility on their ways to the EU.
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This chapter examines research related to migration in a globalizing world. It attempts to answer questions such as what do we know, and what kinds of research partnerships have been created in order to gain a better understanding of... more
This chapter examines research related to migration in a globalizing world. It attempts to answer questions such as what do we know, and what kinds of research partnerships have been created in order to gain a better understanding of ongoing developments? To the extent that we generate knowledge, whose voices are heard, and who decides on the kind of information that is used for policy making and in public debates? Finally, in order to answer the questions that remain open, what kind of capacity do we need, and how can we strengthen our capacity to understand the implications of rising numbers of migrants? The chapter starts by exploring migration research in three regions – Latin America, Asia and in Africa. Finally, section 4 presents some conclusions related to regional differences, and about how to encourage partnerships, strengthen the embeddedness of research in society and improve capacity building.
This first working paper in a series discussing the different implications of the concept of transit migration focuses on the role of information in the migration process of sub-Saharan African migrants towards Europe. Both the... more
This first working paper in a series discussing the different implications of the concept of transit migration focuses on the role of information in the migration process of sub-Saharan African migrants towards Europe. Both the pre-migration phase and the actual migration are taken into account. The first part outlines the migration encouraging factors in Senegal and the second part focuses on the importance of information and information-sharing when migrants are travelling through Africa on their way to Europe.
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In this chapter we focus on the stark contrast between the opportunities provided for money, goods and other materials to flow across national and continental borders versus possibilities for people –notably migrants- to do the same. It... more
In this chapter we focus on the stark contrast between the opportunities provided for money, goods and other materials to flow across national and continental borders versus possibilities for people –notably migrants- to do the same. It might be argued that these are two different kinds of flows, as they have different implications at a local level. Yet, we argue this to be a false differentiation; placing people, but not the economical flows they produce outside the globalization formula. In this chapter we compare flows of African migrants with those of goods and money they generate to assess whether, and how –from a transnational, functionalist and liberal viewpoint – these are fundamentally different flows.
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Onder een tentzeil wachten op die ene kans om de Europese Unie in te komen. Veel migranten draaien er hun hand niet voor om. Vaak leven zij tijdenlang in informele nederzettingen, die de rafelranden van Europa een ander aanzien geven. Het... more
Onder een tentzeil wachten op die ene kans om de Europese Unie in te komen. Veel migranten draaien er hun hand niet voor om. Vaak leven zij tijdenlang in informele nederzettingen, die de rafelranden van Europa een ander aanzien geven. Het nieuwe landschap dat daardoor ontstaat krijgt de vorm van een ‘grenswachtland’.
This paper analyzes the migration process of sub-Saharan Africans heading for Europe in the framework of the conceptual discussion on transit migration. It focuses on the organization and facilitation of migration and the sharing of... more
This paper analyzes the migration process of sub-Saharan Africans heading for Europe in the framework of the conceptual discussion on transit migration. It focuses on the organization and facilitation of migration and the sharing of information among migrants in their process of migrating.
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We welcome contributions that…: • … present empirical findings on migrant trajectories/onward movements /return mobilities and how these trajectories affect migrant identities • …discuss the methodological implications of trajectory... more
We welcome contributions that…:
• … present empirical findings on migrant trajectories/onward movements /return mobilities and how these trajectories affect migrant identities
• …discuss the methodological implications of trajectory research. What are possible research designs to investigate migrant trajectories? What are the promises and pitfalls of these designs?
• …discuss the conceptual (dis)connections of migration studies and mobilities studies.
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Call for papers in the context of the Life Phase Matters Seminar (29-30 Nov 2018, Utrecht University), organized by the Transmobilities network.
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Panel during the 2nd Transmobilities Conference, 8-9 June 2017, Radboud University Nijmegen. Despite migratory movements to Europe being negligible within a global context, they are the most represented in the media and political... more
Panel during the 2nd Transmobilities Conference, 8-9 June 2017, Radboud University Nijmegen.

Despite migratory movements to Europe being negligible within a global context, they are the most represented in the media and political debates (alongside USA) such as the recent ones around BREXIT. These representations tend to reinforce stereotypes and prejudices of migrants as 'the Other' (passive victim, exotic other, among others), rather than focusing on the relational dimensions such as the geopolitical and geo-economical contexts underlying the same, relations of solidarity across borders, affective relations between actors blurring categories of 'citizen' versus 'migrant'/'refugee', among others. In this session we would like to understand the lived dimensions of asylum migration and all the underlying relations producing and contesting asylum regimes of EU states. From solidarity movements, to everyday friendships and social networks, or genealogies of Europe's asylum laws, to the role of historical geopolitical relations (for instance, bilateral agreements between EU states and former colonies). Exploring these relations implies understanding the tensions between 'rights' and 'laws' involved in asylum migrations and all the emotionalities and politics that emerge in protecting or claiming the same. In particular the session seeks to open discussions from three main angles First, what are the historical, (geo)political, (geo)economic relations producing asylum regimes between EU states and countries from which migrants leave, transit, reside? What implications does this have on the processes and emotionalities involved in everyday interaction between actors on the ground? Second, what actions and relations are being forged by actors operating within the formal asylum structures as well as informal networks aiming to gain access to and/or transform the same? What kinds of spatialities and socialities are being produced from the same? Third, what are their implications for political visions and subjectivities on migration that are relational (such as 'shared responsibility', 'transnational histories')? With this in mind we invite paper that address the relational dimensions of asylum.
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This panel is organized in the framework of the 2nd Transmobilities-Development Conference to be held at Radboud University, 8-9 June 2017. This panel discusses the politics and experiences attached to processes of escape. Escape may... more
This panel is organized in the framework of the 2nd Transmobilities-Development Conference to be held at Radboud University, 8-9 June 2017. This panel discusses the politics and experiences attached to processes of escape. Escape may involve individual and collective evacuations from conflict situations and war zones and hence may refer to sudden life-or-death experiences (refugee movements, evacuation of wounded soldiers). From a very different angle, moments of escape may in fact reflect forms of transgressive mobility that frees the actor from stringent control regimes or entrapment. In the context of the latter, escape routes may create new rooms to manoeuvre and reflect political subversions (Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos 2008). For example, undocumented migrants often disappear from the radar in the period they encounter the risk of deportation and simply escape to other places. At both extreme ends, processes of escape profoundly reflect the politics of mobility as it articulates the questions of a) who is able to move, and who is not (see also Cresswell (2008) on the Katrina hurricane) b) how is the escape process facilitated, how is it planned or organised? and c) what materiality – i.e. means of transportation, communication, infrastructure – is involved and what kind of experiences does it produce? This panel starts from William Walters' notion of viapolitics that articulates the politics of mobility as well as the diverse ways materialities shape processes of movement (Walters 2015). It invites papers that enhance our empirical, methodological and conceptual understanding of processes of escape.
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Human mobility does not occur without social and spatial friction. This is particularly articulated in the context of an increasing securisation of migration whereby states and supra-states tend to frame international migration as a... more
Human mobility does not occur without social and spatial friction. This is particularly articulated in the context of an increasing securisation of migration whereby states and supra-states tend to frame international migration as a homeland security problem, leading to enhanced border control and the combatting of human smuggling, normalized in the everyday of host societies through television reality programmes like Border Security (Australia), UK Border Force, etc. At the same time, human right organisations and critical scholars have emphasized the human insecurity involved with migration flows and point to the countless deaths of innocent people simply looking for better futures abroad (Ferrer-Gallardo and Van Houtum 2014) as well as the exploitative acts of corrupt border guards and smugglers that are hereby produced (e.g. Triulzi and McKenzie 2012; Van Reisen, Estefanos and Rijken 2014). Moreover, when we look at the dynamics in the destination countries, we see that migrants continue to find themselves in precarious social-economic conditions and legal situations (Schuster 2005; Lucht 2012) with a substantial number of migrants facing the risk of deportation every single day (De Genova and Preutz 2010). Other forms of friction exist in the transnational space between the country of origin and destination locations. The frictions produced concern, among others, contestations over dual citizenship versus senses of loyalty, and the political engagement of diaspora communities on site and elsewhere. Moreover, migrant investments may reproduce, or even exacerbate social inequalities and divisions in countries of origin, not least if they are based on persistent social and cultural obligations.
Yet, the notion of friction is not to be understood in a negative manner only. Frictions can also have profound effects, resulting in new societal directions, or in affirmations of particular social institutions, creating incentives that may be sustainable, because of the hard questions asked on their role and impact along the way. Yet in all cases it does require critical thinking, and analyses that take on various perspectives, are steeped in insights of more holistic developments (geo-political, economic or otherwise), and which maintain an open perspective to temporal and spatial dimensions. This conference consists of the following eight different panels.
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Globalisation has given rise to new and intensified transnational and translocal relationships. This is reflected in the rise and intensification of a range of mobilities of individuals and communities. In the 'age of migration', workers... more
Globalisation has given rise to new and intensified transnational and translocal relationships. This is reflected in the rise and intensification of a range of mobilities of individuals and communities. In the 'age of migration', workers in varied skill sectors, investors, tourists, students, (health) care providers and seekers etc. are moving across and within national borders and living in transnational/translocal spaces more than ever before. New and/or intensified flows and circulations of people (bundled with other non-human flows) are contributing to rapid transformations in all parts of the world. Human mobility has indeed become one of the most important stratifying factors in this time of globalisation. While there is a global competition for so-called skilled migrants and talented students creating smooth pathways for some movers, other migrants looking for humanitarian protection face hard borders and long asylum procedures in their migration processes. This 2-day Workshop focuses on the politics of mobility and examines the nature of different types of mobilities and their impact on human development in our urbanising world. The Workshop considers the importance of place, space and temporalities. It encourages in particular a translocal perspective to interrogate the causes, nature and impact of migration and mobilities, paying attention to the contexts of and processes in migrants' places of origin, destinations and on the road.
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Book review of Ruben Andersson's 'Illegality, Inc. Clandestine Migration and the Business of Bordering Europe' and the edited book by Iris Berger and colleagues entitled: 'African Asylum at a Crossroads: Activism, Expert Testimony and... more
Book review of Ruben Andersson's 'Illegality, Inc. Clandestine Migration and the Business of Bordering Europe'  and the edited book by Iris Berger and colleagues entitled: 'African Asylum at a Crossroads: Activism, Expert Testimony and Refugee Rights.
In AFRICA 85 (3), pp. 595-597
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