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Posts in Diversity
Asylum, Migration and Community

By Maggie O'Neill

Issues of asylum, migration, humanitarian protection and integration/belonging are of growing interest beyond the disciplinary areas of refugee studies, migration, and social policy. Rooted in more than two decades of scholarship, this book uses critical social theory and participatory, biographical and arts based methods with asylum seekers, refugees and emerging communities to explore the dynamics of the asylum-migration-community nexus. It argues that inter-disciplinary analysis is required to deal with the complexity of the issues involved and offers understanding as praxis (purposeful knowledge), drawing upon innovative participatory, arts based, performative and policy relevant research.

Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2010. 310p.

Deportation Union: Rights, accountability and the EU's push to increase forced removals

By Chris Jones, Jane Kilpatrick, Mariana Gkliati

Deportation Union provides a critical examination of recently-introduced and forthcoming EU measures designed to increase the number of deportations carried out by national authorities and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex. It focuses on three key areas: attempts to reduce or eliminate rights and protections in the law governing deportations; the expansion and interconnection of EU databases and information systems; and the increased budget, powers and personnel awarded to Frontex.

London: Statewatch, 2020. 63p

Border Wars and Asylum Crimes By

By Frances Webber

The criminalisation of asylum claimants who arrive with no documentation is the latest salvo in a ‘war on asylum’ which employs every possible method to keep the world’s unwanted masses, the displaced, the desperate and the destitute, away from the shores of Europe – from legal obstacles such as the common visa list,4 imposing impossible visa requirements on nationals of all refugee-producing countries, to British immigration officers stopping Roma passengers boarding aircraft at Prague airport,5 gunboats and military aircraft patrolling the Mediterranean and the coast of west Africa,6 landmines on the Greek border with Turkey7 and the shooting of people attempting to scale the barbed wire fences surrounding the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco.8 Anything goes, so long as the goal of keeping out poor asylum seekers and migrants is achieved.

London: Statewatch, 2006. 37p.

Transnational Policing and Sex Trafficking in Southeast Europe: Policing the Imperialist Chain

By Georgios Papanicolaou

Mounting a vigorous critique on existing approaches to transnational policing, this book lays out an argument situating transnational policing within contemporary transformations of the capitalist state and imperialism, looking at the particular case of regional police cooperation against sex trafficking in Southeast Europe.

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. 254p.

Undocumented Migrants and their Everyday Lives: The Case of Finland

By Jussi S. Jauhiainen and Miriam Tedeschi

This open access monograph provides an overview of the everyday lives of undocumented migrants, thereby focusing on housing, employment, social networks, healthcare, migration trajectories as well as their use of the internet and social media. Although the book’s empirical focus is Finland, the themes connect the latter to broader geographical scales, reaching from global migration issues to the EU asylum policies, including in the post-2015 situations and during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as from national, political, and societal issues regarding undocumented migrants to the local challenges, opportunities, and practices in municipalities and communities. The book investigates how one becomes an undocumented migrant, sometimes by failing the asylum process. The book also discusses research ethics and provides practical guidelines and reflects on how to conduct quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research about undocumented migrants. Finally, the book addresses emerging research topics regarding undocumented migrants.

Cham: Springer Nature, 2021. 190p.

Contemporary Issues in Human Rights Law: Europe and Asia

Edited by Yumiko Nakanishi

This book analyzes issues in human rights law from a variety of perspectives by eminent European and Asian professors of constitutional law, international public law, and European Union law. As a result, their contributions collected here illustrate the phenomenon of cross-fertilization not only in Europe (the EU and its member states and the Council of Europe), but also between Europe and Asia. Furthermore, it reveals the influence that national and foreign law, EU law and the European Convention on Human Rights, and European and Asian law exert over one another.

The various chapters cover general fundamental rights and human rights issues in Europe and Asia as well as specific topics regarding the principles of nondiscrimination, women’s rights, the right to freedom of speech in Japan, and China’s Development Banks in Asia.

Protection of human rights should be guaranteed in the international community, and research based on a comparative law approach is useful for the protection of human rights at a higher level. As the product of academic cooperation between ten professors of Japanese, Taiwanese, German, Italian, and Belgian nationalities, this work responds to such needs.

Cham: SpringerNature, 2017. 218p.

Return: Nationalizing Transnational Mobility in Asia

Edited by Biao Xiang; Brenda S. A. Yeoh and Mika Toyota

Since the late 1990s, Asian nations have increasingly encouraged, facilitated, or demanded the return of emigrants. In this interdisciplinary collection, distinguished scholars from countries around the world explore the changing relations between nation-states and transnational mobility. Taking into account illegally trafficked migrants, deportees, temporary laborers on short-term contracts, and highly skilled émigrés, the contributors argue that the figure of the returnee energizes and redefines nationalism in an era of increasingly fluid and indeterminate national sovereignty. They acknowledge the diversity, complexity, and instability of reverse migration, while emphasizing its discursive, policy, and political significance at a moment when the tensions between state power and transnational subjects are particularly visible. Taken together, the essays foreground Asia as a useful site for rethinking the intersections of migration, sovereignty, and nationalis.

Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2013. 217p.

Illegal Migration and Gender in a Global and Historical Perspective

Edited by Marlou Schrover, Joanne van der Leun, Leo Lucassen and Chris Quispel

Two issues come to the fore in current debates over migration: illegal migration and the role of gender in illegal migration. This incisive study combines the two subjects and views the migration scholarship through the lens of the gender perspective, investigating definitions of citizenship and the differences in mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion for men and women, producing a comprehensive account of illegal migration in Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, Mexico, Malaysia, the Horn of Africa and the Middle East over the nineteenth- and the twentieth centuries.

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008. 196p.

Proximity Violence in Migration Times: A Focus in some Regions of Italy, France and Spain

Edited by Ignazia Bartholini

"This volume, edited by Ignazia Bartholini, principal investigator of the PROVIDE - Proximity on Violence: Defence and Equity project (Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme - 2014-2020) funded by the EU, shifted the interpretative focus of its research from gender-based to proximity violence. This theoretical intuition-assertion, fruitful too at empirical level, is informed by a wide-scale reconstruction of the phenomenon of migratory violence and corroborated by the results of the action research carried out by six international teams ˗ Ismu, Oxfam, Telefono Donna, Badia Grande, Aseis Lagarto, SamuSocial International, the University of Jaén and the University of Palermo. Systems of protection, formal and informal good practices, as well as critical issues regarding the reception of migrants, are explored and narrated by the co-authors of the volume thanks to the action research they conducted with the collaboration of a plethora of professionals who narrate and illustrate the topic of proximity violence, providing their own particular frames of reference, views and counterfactual reflections. Furthermore, the discussion of legislation provided offers a cogent cross section of what has been done to contrast the violence which thousands of asylum seekers and refugees undergo and how much national governments need to do in order to host and recognise victims of proximity violence."

Milano, Italy: FrancoAngel, 2019. 225p.

Navigating Borders: Inside Perspectives on the Process of Human Smuggling into the Netherlands

By Ilse van Liempt

Navigating Borders into the Netherlands provides a unique in-depth look at human smuggling processes. Based on biographical interviews with smuggled migrants in the Netherlands, the study reveals considerable differences that exist in smuggling's underlying causes, how journeys evolve, and outcomes of the process. This research from an insider's perspective clearly demonstrates that smuggled migrants are not passive actors, there is a broad variety in types of smugglers, and interactions between migrants and smugglers largely determine how the smuggling process evolves.

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007. 215p.

Trafficking and Fragility in West Africa

By Laura Ralston

Trafficking is an emerging concern in West Africa. In 2011, 17 percent of all cocaine consumed in Europe—21 tons—passed through the region, for a retail value of US$1.7 billion. This paper discusses the evolution of trafficking in the region and provides estimates of the size and value of trafficking flows to demonstrate the significance of this illegal activity. Although this topic is gaining increasing attention, less attention has been has been paid to how trafficking is perpetuating fragility. This paper contributes to this area of research by identifying five channels through which trafficking is intensifying fragility in the region. The relative importance of each channel is discussed, with specific countries as case-study examples. Possible programmatic responses are then suggested with examples of policy approaches successfully adopted elsewhere in the world.

Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2015. 34p.

Critical Perspectives on Child Sexual Exploitation and Related Trafficking

Edited by Margaret Melrose and Jenny Pearce

This volume is the first major exploration of the issues relevant to young people who are affected by sexual exploitation and trafficking from a variety of critical perspectives. Issues include accommodation, gangs, migrant and refugee communities, perpetrators, international policy and the language through which we construct child exploitation.

Houndmills, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 211p.

A Deadly Shade of Green: Threats to Environmental Human Rights Defenders in Latin America

By Center for International Environmental Law and Vermont Law School

Latin America is, by far, the most dangerous region of the world for environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs). The lack of effective guarantees of human rights protection in Latin American States has created this dire situation. The absence of effective safeguards is worsened by the weak rule of law in most Latin American countries, by worrying trends of impunity that corrode the fabric of society, and by the fact that environmental movements usually concern major development projects involving powerful governmental and corporate interests.

This report illustrates the severe human rights violations in Latin America against environmental defenders, who engage in lawful activities that bring to light environmental damage and human rights abuses. Though not exhaustive, this report provides an overview of recent incidents throughout Latin America. The incidents cited cover a range of human rights violations, including violent attacks, torture, disappearances, and killings.

London: Article 19; Center for International Environmental Law; Vermont Law School: 2016. 72p.

Human Trafficking: Issues Beyond Criminalization

By The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences

There are two statements that Pope Francis has constantly repeated from the beginning of his Pontificate: that ‘Human Trafficking is Modern Slavery’ and that this practice is a ‘Crime against Humanity’. PASS endorses both without reservation having, in fact, been the first to coin the latter phrase. However, each statement merits closer inspection because they denote rather different issues. Both have been crucial in shaping the leadership that the Catholic Church has assumed and the agenda she has adopted in spearheading a social movement opposing this morally horrendous treatment of human persons. As many social scientists have noted, today’s digital media make initial protests and demonstrations by new social movements easier to organize than ever before. Conversely, to hold a movement together whilst pushing its agenda forward remains as difficult as ever. The latter is where our Academy (in fact, the two Academies) can make a contribution. We are not ‘beyond moral outrage’; that remains our constant bedrock. However, it also requires a clearer definition of what new social provisions are needed not merely to eliminate Human Trafficking quickly but to restore respect – and self-esteem – to those whose human dignity has been assaulted and battered through the process of being trafficked. It is to this that the first statement points unequivocally.

Vatican City, The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences Acta 20, 2016. 522p.

Global Study on Smuggling of Migrants 2018

By United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

This study shows that migrant smuggling routes affect every part of the world. It is based on an extensive review of existing data and literature. The study presents detailed information about key smuggling routes, such as the magnitude, the profiles of smugglers and smuggled migrants, the modus operandi of smugglers and the risks that smuggled migrants face. It shows that smugglers use land, air and sea routes – and combinations of those – in their quest to profit from people’s desire to improve their lives. Smugglers also expose migrants to a range of risks; violence, theft, exploitation, sexual violence, kidnapping and even death along many routes.

New York: University Nations, 2018. 170p.

ASEAN and Trafficking in Persons: Using Data as a Tool to Combat Trafficking in Persons

Edited by Fiona David

The report explores how proper data collection and use can combat trafficking. It defines relevant terms and how country case studies (Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Cambodia) highlight concepts, successes and missteps in practice.

Geneva, SWIT: International Organization for Migration, 2006. 164p.

Migrant Smuggling Data and Research: A global review of the emerging evidence base

Edited by Marie McAuliffe and Frank Laczko

Migrant Smuggling Data and Research: A global review of the emerging evidence base presents a unique review of what is being collected and what can be done to further build the evidence base on migrant smuggling globally. The report is the result of a collaboration between the International Organization for Migration and researchers from a range of backgrounds and academic disciplines, and supported by the Government of Turkey.

The report shows that important research has been undertaken on the transnational crime aspects of migrant smuggling, including on routes, smuggling organization (such as criminal networking and facilitation), smuggler profiles and fees/payment. Likewise, there is an emerging academic literature on migrant smuggling, particularly the economic and social processes involved in smuggling, which has largely been based on small-scale qualitative research, mostly undertaken by early career researchers. Contributions from private research companies, as well as investigative journalists, have provided useful insights in some regions, helping to shed light on smuggling practices. There remains, however, sizeable gaps in migration policy research and data, particularly in relation to migration patterns and processes linked to migrant smuggling, including its impact on migrants (particularly vulnerability, abuse and exploitation), as well as its impact on irregular migration flows (such as increasing scale, diversity and changes in geography). Addressing these systemic and regional gaps in data and research would help deepen understanding of the smuggling phenomenon, and provide further insights into how responses can be formulated that better protect migrants while enhancing States’ abilities to manage orderly migration.

Geneva, SWIT: International Organization for Migration, 2016. 340p.

Justice and Human Rights in the African Imagination. We, Too, Are Humans

By Chelozona Eze

Justice and Human Rights in the African Imagination is an interdisciplinary reading of justice in literary texts and memoirs, flms, and social anthropological texts in postcolonial Africa..Inspired by Nelson Mandela and South Africa’s robust achievements in human rights, this book argues that the notion of restorative justice is integral to the proper functioning of participatory democracy and belongs to the moral architecture of any decent society. Focusing on the efforts by African writers, scholars, artists, and activists to build flourishing communities, the author discusses various quests for justice such as environmental justice, social justice, intimate justice, and restorative justice. It discusses in particular ecological violence, human rights abuses such as witchcraft accusations, the plight of people affected by disability, homophobia, misogyny, and sex trafficking, and forgiveness.   This book will be of interest to scholars of African literature and films, literature and human rights, and literature and the environment.

Abingdon, Oxon, UK; New York: Routledge, 2021. 185p.

The Libyan Migration Corridor

By Sylvie Bredeloup and Olivier Pliez

Since the mid 1990s, the media have directed our attention to the thousands of Southern Sahara Africans who take life threatening risks crossing the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic ocean. Their numbers on migratory routes leading to Europe are increasing, joining up, especially in the “Libyan crossroad” with North Africans, Egyptians and even Asian migrants on the same quest. This image reflects reality, but only partially so, for it leads one to believe that these migrants cross the Sahara in the hope of reaching Europe. It should be pointed out that one of the main misunderstandings when evoking these migrations flows is to reduce them to the act of crossing the straits of the Mediterranean Sea. Since the 1990s, the Libyan case exemplifies the way the multilateral (EU-Maghreb) or bilateral (Libya-Italy) political negotiations between the two shores of the Mediterranean sea rapidly focus on the figure of the “illegal sub-Saharan migrant in transit”. This simplistic view is dangerous because it erases the historical dimension of the movement of people and its consequences. The Sahara is not merely a desert to be crossed; it is an area that has been shaped for more than half a century by the various migrant, trader or pastoral communities who have contributed to its massive urbanisation and economic development. At the same time, the reorganization of African migration is affected by the inflation of tensions, border and police controls, the diversification of routes between Niger, Chad Sudan and Libya consequently contributes to the perpetuation of transit spaces. There are tens of thousands of these migrants who settle down more or less durably in these new transit areas dependants on opportunity, status controls, and expulsions. But these transit areas have also become places where migrants seek employment, create new economic activities, or develop new skills while working, studying or practicing other tongues. As migration patterns across the Sahara are reconfigured, the impact is more visible in some places. But their durability should not be taken for granted. Villages specialised in the transit economy may easily decline as new diplomatic relations are formed between countries of immigration and third countries

Florence, Italy: European University Institute. 2011. 23p.