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Forced migration governance in Tunisia: Balancing risks and assets for state-making during independence and democratization

What explains the variation in states’ governance of forced migration? Why are some groups of forced migrants welcomed and others not? We argue that this depends on whether accommodating a particular group of forced migrants is perceived as an asset or risk to broader political developments at play. Drawing on qualitative material from Tunisia between 1950 and 2020, the paper analyses how the Tunisian state has dealt differently with the large-scale arrival of forced migrants from neighbouring countries after its independence in 1956 and throughout its democratic opening since 2011. We show that during the Algerian War of Independence, perceptions of displaced Algerians as international assets outweighed perceptions of domestic economic and political risks. This resulted in Tunisia’s supportive-open approach towards the nearly 200,000 Algerians who were welcomed as prima facie refugees and provided humanitarian assistance. In contrast, the estimated 500,000 Libyans who arrived after 2011 have been perceived both as domestic economic and ideological assets and as important political risks – domestically and internationally. This explains Tunisia’s largely laissez-faire approach, whereby state authorities initially welcomed Libyans but refrained from providing humanitarian assistance and residence permits. In both cases, Tunisian authorities had to carefully balance national sovereignty and international obligations in their forced migration governance.

Research with refugees in fragile political contexts: How ethical reflections impact methodological choices

Research with refugees poses particular ethical challenges, especially if data is collected in places where most refugees today live: namely countries neighbouring conflict, ones that are sometimes at war with their country of origin and where refugees are exposed to different degrees of legal vulnerability, posing security risks to participants and researchers alike. These challenges are exacerbated when data is collected across countries and includes survey research. The article adds to the emergent literature on ethics in forced displacement by highlighting how security precautions and ethical considerations influence and shape methodological choices. Based on recent fieldwork with Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Turkey in 2018, the article discusses a mixed-methods approach combining in-depth interviews with an individual survey based on multistage cluster sampling, random walks and limited focused enumeration. Advocating for a refugee-centred approach, it elaborates on: (i) how to negotiate ‘ethics in practice’; (ii) how risks and violence influence the choice of fieldwork sites; and (iii) how ethical considerations impact in particular quantitative or mixed-methods studies. It describes the advantages of including members of refugee populations in research teams, as well as open challenges with regard to risks, informed consent, confidentiality, sensitive issues, positionality, advocacy and collaborative writing efforts.

’I will return strong’: The role of life aspirations in refugees’ return migration

This article studies how return migration aspirations are formed and realized in the context of protracted displacement. Drawing on a mixed-methods study that included survey research and in-depth interviews in Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria conducted, we study whether respondents aspired to return (i) currently, with the conflict still ongoing; and (ii) in the future, if the war were to end. Our analyses reveal how broader life aspirations play a crucial role in shaping return aspirations, and how current and future return aspirations are separate concepts. Current return aspirations were strongly stratified. For economically vulnerable respondents, current return considerations were often related to survival, whereas for respondents from the educated middle class, current return aspirations were part of their broader life aspirations. Aspirations to return after the war's end were largely driven by a wish to realize broader life goals. Future return aspirations often functioned as a mental coping strategy to keep hope for change in the future — including political change — alive. Return abilities favored those with higher socioeconomic status, those who had remained neutral in the conflict and those willing to take high risks. Overall, our analyses illustrate the usefulness of the aspirations-abilities framework, and the important role of life aspirations, in understanding return-migration decisions in a context of protracted displacement.

Mobility Control as State-Making in Civil War: Forcing Exit, Selective Return and Strategic Laissez-Faire

This paper addresses the question of how different actors attempt to control mobility during civil war, and how mobility control and processes of state-making interact in such settings. Mobility in civil wars is often considered a political act by the various actors involved: Leaving the country can be perceived as an act of opposition, as can moving between territories which are controlled by different, opposing factions. Drawing on literature on strategic displacement and migration politics and combining this with empirical insights from the ongoing wars in Libya and Syria, the paper identifies three mechanisms of mobility control in civil war settings: forcing exit, selective return as a form of expulsion, and strategic laissez-faire as the intentional absence of regulation regarding displacement and return. The analysis reveals that all three mechanisms are employed by state actor(s), rebels, and militias, and can be understood as elements of a new (post)war order that includes some citizens while excluding others depending on perceptions of political threats. We interpret the three mechanisms as ways in which actors in civil war settings attempt to manipulate a country’s demography in their own favour in a process of state-making. The paper is based on fieldwork conducted between 2018 and 2021 in Syria, Lebanon, Libya, and Tunisia.

Daring to aspire: Theorising aspirations in contexts of displacement and highly constrained mobility

Binary distinctions between ‘refugees’ and ‘economic migrants’ continue to prevail in humanitarian discourse, with asylum policies heavily focusing on refugees’ vulnerabilities and reduced choices. By addressing the paradox between vulnerability and agency embedded in the international protection regime, this article aims to lay the foundations for reconceptualising aspirations in contexts of displacement and highly constrained mobility. First, we analyse how the current asylum regime selectively encourages certain aspirations among refugees and delegitimises others which do not fit the image of the hopeless refugee deserving assistance. Then, we pursue three new analytical avenues in adding nuance to previous versions of the aspiration–capability framework. First, we discuss the importance of aspirations to stay in contexts of displacement and suggest that aspirations to stay and to migrate should not be seen as mutually exclusive. Second, drawing on psychological studies, we highlight that aspirations can be an emotional resource even in contexts where their realisation seems to be or certainly is unreachable. Lastly, we propose looking at the political dimensions of individual and collective aspirations to understand how displaced people can strive to induce social and political change despite the structural constraints they face.

Disentangling Forced Migration Governance: Actors and Drivers along the Displacement Continuum

In this paper, we study the question of who and what drives forced migration governance in origin, host, and transit states, drawing on empirical material from the contemporary Syrian and Libyan, and the historical Algerian displacement situations. These three cases are examples for different forced migration governance approaches, ranging from open-supportive (Algeria), to restrictive-selective (Syria) and laissez-faire (Libya). We identify three key drivers of forced migration governance to explain variation in governance outcome: domestic, geopolitical, and international-normative drivers. We understand forced migration governance as a state-making strategy for different state and non-state actors in origin, transit, and host countries. We argue that while forced migration governance is negotiated around humanitarian principles in which international organizations and civil society play a crucial role, the international-normative driver remains strongly bound to domestic and geopolitical logics. Political and economic interests are key factors of forced migration governance in host countries, especially if they align with political interests and state-making strategies of state and non-state actors in origin countries.

Violence, life aspirations and displacement trajectories in civil war contexts

Drawing on qualitative data from the civil wars in Syria and Libya since 2011, this paper seeks to build a better understanding of immobility and of displacement trajectories within conflict countries and towards neighbouring countries. The paper shows that different types of violent experiences—personal threats, generalized violence, an increasing hopelessness relating to the absence of violence in the future—trigger different exit movements across internal and external borders. Second, the analysis demonstrates that migration decisions in civil war contexts are complex processes with people balancing between strategies of how to avoid violence with strategies of how to realize broader life aspirations related to family, love, work and political change. Life aspirations often play a more important role once people move out of a situation of immediate danger and in later phases of trajectories and influence (im)mobility patterns in three different directions: stay, move (on) or return. Life aspirations, especially related to political change, outweigh perceptions of violence in some cases. Financial vulnerability can force people to stay in or return to violent contexts.

(Trans)formations de l’État et gouvernance des migrations forcées en Tunisie

Comment les États gouvernent-ils les migrations forcées lors des moments critiques de leur (trans) formation ? En s’appuyant sur des entretiens et des documents d’archives de la Tunisie entre 1950 et 2020, cet article analyse la manière dont l’État tunisien a géré l’arrivée massive de migrants forcés en provenance des pays voisins à deux moments critiques de sa formation : l’arrivée des Algériens après l’indépendance tunisienne en 1956, dans le contexte de la guerre d’indépendance algérienne, et l’arrivée des Libyens après la révolution tunisienne en 2011 dans le cadre du conflit libyen. Notre analyse montre que l’approche politique vis-à-vis les migrations forcées est directement liée à la transformation de l’État tunisien au niveau national, bilatéral et international : pendant la guerre d’indépendance algérienne, la redéfinition de l’État tunisien postcolonial comme État solidaire avec l’indépendance algérienne et sa défense de la souveraineté nationale au niveau international ont entraîné soutien et ouverture envers les réfugiés algériens, suivis par leur rapatriement. En revanche, l’État tunisien s’est montré réticent à fournir une aide humanitaire et des permis de séjour aux Libyens. En fait, la Tunisie a répondu à l’arrivée massive des Libyens par une politique de « laisser-faire stratégique » – une politique d’absence stratégique de l’État, ce qui était lié au fait que la Tunisie post-révolutionnaire se concentrait sur la démocratisation de ses institutions, la redéfinition de sa position au niveau bilatéral et international et la survie de l’État face à une situation économique et politique fragile.

How Migration Really Works

Global migration is not at an all-time high. Climate change will not lead to mass migration. Immigration mainly benefits the wealthy, not workers. Border restrictions have paradoxically produced more migration. These statements might sound counter-intuitive or just outright wrong - but the facts behind the headlines reveal a completely different story to the ones we're told about migration. In this ground-breaking and revelatory book, based on more than three decades of research, leading expert Professor Hein de Haas explodes myths espoused by both left and right that politicians, interest groups and media regularly spread about migration. Comparing trends and perspectives from Western 'destination countries' (UK, US and Europe) as well as 'origin countries' in Asia, Africa and Latin America, de Haas equips readers with essential knowledge on migration based on the best evidence and data, showing migration not as a problem to be solved, nor as a solution to a problem, but as it really is. Above all, How Migration Really Works offers a new vision of migration based on facts rather than fears, and a paradigm-altering understanding of this perennially important subject.

Migration transforms the conditions for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals

Post-2008 multi-sited household practices: between Morocco, Spain and Norway

The recent outmigration patterns from Southern Europe since the outbreak of the global economic crisis have interested many migration researchers. Despite their long migration history towards Europe, little is known about the onward migration of the Moroccan-born, yet this group was one of the most affected by the recession. Furthermore, studies on onward migration tend to focus on the individual perspective and overlook the non-economic factors that shape migration decisions. This article focuses on Moroccan-born migrants who, after several years in Spain, migrated to Norway after 2008. Through analysis of ten semi-structured interviews and fieldwork observations, onward migration practices are studied from the perspective of broader dynamics at the household level, which combine different types of migration and non-migration. Looking beyond the economic factors that triggered remigration, the article contributes to the discussion on onward migration, stressing its non-linear character and inserting it in wider multi-sited household projects in constant change.

Welfare Considerations in Migration Decision-Making through a Life-Course Approach: A Qualitative Study of Spanish EU-Movers

The welfare aspects of intra-European migration remain an important and controversial topic of academic and political debates. These discussions touch upon the classical ‘welfare magnet’ or ‘welfare tourism’ hypothesis. Transcending the politicised concept of ‘benefit tourism’, our paper examines how welfare-state considerations in relation to migration decisions vary across the life course. Relying on micro-level qualitative research focusing on Spanish intra-EU movers, the paper probes deeper into how individuals perceive welfare systems, analysing the subtle and nuanced meanings of different aspects of the welfare for their migration decisions. We focus more specifically on welfare provisions in terms of health care, compulsory education, child support and other care responsibilities, unemployment and pensions and retirement. Our research indicates that, in studies on the migration–welfare nexus, it is necessary to move beyond the current narrow focus on the welfare magnet hypothesis and to examine how diverse welfare arrangements continuously and dynamically set the context for migration decisions at various stages of an individual’s life. The results of our research show how features of the Spanish welfare system, in comparison to those of potential destination countries, might act as both a trigger and/or a barrier to migration. As such, we get a ‘thicker description’ of the role which welfare might play in shaping individuals’ eventual migratory aspirations and decisions.

The dynamic welfare habitus and its impact on Brazilian migration to Lisbon and Barcelona

Little is known on how people’s way of thinking and doing around welfare provision – what we call the welfare habitus – plays a role in migration and how such cultural references change over the migration process. Through an empirical case study on Brazilian migration to Southern Europe, this article explores the dynamism of the welfare habitus focusing on three elements. First, the welfare-related resource environment in the countries of origin and destination. Second, the role of the welfare habitus in shaping migration aspirations. Third, the transformative learning process taking place during the life course and the migration experience. The article draws on a literature review, the analysis of secondary quantitative data and 24 in-depth semi-structured qualitative interviews collected in 2016 in Lisbon and Barcelona among men and women born in Brazil selected at different stages of the life course –young people without children, parents of school-aged children and people aged 55 or more. Drawing on practice theory the paper looks at the interaction between external structures, habitus and everyday actions around welfare provision in contexts of migration. Doing so, the paper contributes to a better understanding of the effect of welfare provisions in the country of origin on migration focusing on the temporal perspective.

The migration-sustainability paradox: Transformations in mobile worlds

Migration represents a major transformation of the lives of those involved and has been transformative of societies and economies globally. Yet models of sustainability transformations do not effectively incorporate the movement of populations. There is an apparent migration-sustainability paradox: migration plays a role as a driver of unsustainability as part of economic globalisation, yet simultaneously represents a transformative phenomenon and potential force for sustainable development. We propose criteria by which migration represents an opportunity for sustainable development: increasing aggregate well-being; reduced inequality leading to diverse social benefits; and reduced aggregate environmental burden. We detail the dimensions of the transformative potential of migration and develop a generic framework for migration-sustainability linkages based on environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainability, highlighting identity and social transformation dimensions of migration. Such a model overcomes the apparent paradox by explaining the role of societal mobility in achieving sustainable outcomes.

Five misconceptions about migrant smuggling

Migrant smugglers occupy a special place in the European ‘migration crisis’ discourse. They are depicted as the facilitators of irregular migrants’ journeys, and as criminals who take advantage of people’s vulnerability and naïveté. Stories of ruthless smugglers who abuse, abandon or even murder those who rely on their services are common in popular media, as well as in mainstream academic, policy and law enforcement narratives of migration.

To Other and Vilify: Manufacturing Migration as Crime

This special issue of the European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research brings together empirical analyses into the criminalisation of practices related to migration and its implications on human rights. Drawing from the experiences of male and female migrants, civil society, ordinary citizens, brokers and smuggling facilitators and their encounters with law enforcement, this collection reduces this gap and raises questions concerning the way criminal law and policy around the world shapes migrant people’s access to justice.

Irregular migration in the time of counter-smuggling

This special issue of Trends in Organized Crime brings together recent empirical research on migrant smuggling. Challenging the overemphasis on ‘organized crime’ and criminal networks that has long characterized mainstream discussions on smuggling, the contributions refocus our attention towards critical but underexamined dynamics present in the facilitation of irregular migration in a variety of geographic contexts, and shed light on the roles lesser examined elements in smuggling like race, ethnicity, gender, sex and intimacy play in irregular migration.

The EU’s new counter-smuggling directive proposal : persisting challenges and recommendations towards implementation

The present brief examines the Proposal for a directive to prevent and counter the facilitation of unauthorised entry, transit and stay (hereafter the Facilitation Proposal), presented by the European Commission on 28 November 2023, in the context of an international conference to announce the launch of a Global Alliance to counter Migrant Smuggling. The Facilitation Proposal replaced Council Directive 2002/90/EC and Council Framework Decision 2002/946/JHA –the so-called “Facilitators’ Package”–both in place since 2002. While the Facilitation Proposal addresses critical gaps present in the Facilitators’ Package –namely the financial or material benefit component– this brief identifies some potential solutions to persisting challenges. First, it strongly calls for the incorporation of the growing body of empirical evidence concerning the impacts of counter-smuggling, aiming to minimise their adverse effects on vulnerable groups. Second, it calls for clearer, more explicit commitments to eliminate the criminalisation of people on the move who facilitate their own journeys or those of others in order to save their lives. Lastly, it supports the implementation and strengthening of efforts to collect data concerning counter-smuggling activities across EU member states, with the expectation these figures and the methodologies behind their compilation will be fully accessible by the public. A commitment to fairness and transparency on the part of EU agencies involved in enforcing migration controls can in fact improve support for effective counter-smuggling efforts within the Union and its neighbourhoods.

Trafficking as the moral filter of migration control

The fight against ‘human trafficking’ has, since the 1990s, become a cause célèbre of modern politics. It is a bipartisan issue that everybody can be safely for and that nobody wants to be against (Quirk and Bunting 2014). It has been championed by high profile political figures as diverse as Theresa May, George Bush, Robert Mugabe and Ivanka Trump, and many thousands of NGOs around the world are working right now to eradicate it (ibid.). But, popular as the cause is, it is not without its critics. Today there are two broad camps within anti-trafficking work with academics, practitioners, policymakers and activists on both sides. One side views human trafficking first and foremost as a crime, perpetrated by individuals upon other individuals, which can be stopped through sufficient enforcement and prevention. The other side views trafficking as the far end of a spectrum of exploitation brought about by the regularly functioning, structural mechanisms of modern-day capitalism. Furthermore, it highlights the problematic governance effects of the trafficking frame. Firmly grounded in this second perspective, we argue in this chapter that the traction afforded to the discourse of human trafficking has made it a unique and powerful tool of migration governance. It operates primarily by creating a zone of exception within the broader landscape of labour migration. Inside this zone, we are told by anti-trafficking advocates, criminals move people forcibly or through deception in order to exploit them. This movement is said to constitute an egregious abuse of vulnerability, a violation of human rights, and a crime, and governments thus have a duty to prevent it.

The violent, hopeful world of children who smuggle people

Children on both sides of the US-Mexico border help smuggle people and drugs into the United States. When asked why, they usually say they need money yet lack opportunities to earn it. They know that smuggling is illegal, but on the border it is one of the few ways that young, marginalised people can effectively convert their knowledge into profit. Their earnings, while limited, benefit them and their families, so for them smuggling is a legitimate, albeit criminalised, form of labour. The testimonies in this series revolve around a central moment of violence: the murder of a young man who crossed people into the US. We learn what happened, why, and what the consequences of his death were from those who were closest to him. The stories told by his family and friends not only describe this death but also place it in context. They throw light on the crude mechanics of smuggling, the social and economic pressures of this community, and the burdens and aspirations of its inhabitants. Together these testimonies paint a fractured yet detailed picture of how lives unfold in the shadow of the border wall. They foreground the people, not the crime, and they communicate the complexities faced by a specific group of young people in a city like Juárez. These stories show the often devastating consequences of young people’s choices amid youth criminalisation, border militarisation and migration control, but also the love and determination of a community seeking to achieve change.