UNIVERSITÄT ZU KÖLN International

In recent years, migration has often been declared in mass-mediated public discourse and the dominant political debate to be a “crisis” that needs to be controlled and often to be hindered through myriad tactics of bordering. Alongside the proliferation of migrant struggles and suffering in transit border zones across the planet, the Mediterranean Sea has incontestably earned the disgraceful distinction of being the epicenter of border crossings and a European death scape (De Genova 2017).

This first theme addresses topics related to the autonomy of migration (Moulier Boutang 2007) and the aspirations of migrants (De Genova 2017, de Haas 2021). It examines migrating infrastructures that are strategically used by migrants to reach their destinations. For instance, in times of securitization and criminalization of migration, aspiring migrants are forced to take irregular routes and to count on non-state actors and informal solidarity networks to reach their destinations. In contrast to common political and public narratives, non-state actors or facilitators encompass more than smugglers and human traffickers. Smugglers can include individuals seeking to migrate themselves (Belloni 2019), family members and friends (DeNicola 2013), or migration brokers (Alpes 2017). Moreover, in the context of the criminalization of migration, NGOs and activists rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean are sometimes accused of engaging in human. Hence, we will also discuss the humanitarian-security nexus from non-state actors’ perspective (Andersson 2017, Heller & Pezzani 2017). At the same time aspiring migrants, facilitators, and activists are constantly confronted with another crucial aspect of migrating infrastructures: the continuous adaptation of infrastructures of migration and control in the name of more efficient and more humanitarian regulation and control of the Mediterranean border.

The second theme explores the various ways in which religion influences migration across the Mediterranean, by considering both religious beliefs and infrastructures (material and immaterial), that influence the circulation of people, objects, and ideas between Europe and the MENA-Region. Drawing on conceptual approaches to religion and mobility, contemporary case studies will be discussed that shed light on religion as a crucial aspect affecting migration-related practices in the region. Examples of case studies to be discussed include the use and implementation of religious (infra)structures by migrants of different religious denominations, such as ancient pilgrimage routes (Christian or Muslim) that facilitate their journey to Europe, or the re-use of abandoned colonial Christian buildings for worship and protection (Berriane 2020). Such examples raise the question not only of how religion structures migration, but also of how migration creates new religious structures, both in terms of religious politics and belief practices. Religion is also deeply intertwined with the border regimes between the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean, where Islamophobia and an emphasis on a supposedly Judeo-Christian European heritage drive discriminatory policies. Beyond the conventional (and Eurocentric) focus in migration studies on south-north migration, we will also consider how religion influences north-south migration in the Mediterranean, such as former ‘guest workers’ returning to their roots for religious reasons, or European Muslims seeking refuge in Muslim countries in the Mediterranean, due to Islamophobia. We will also examine the many ways in which religious faith offers comfort and hope to migrants in times of danger and despair.

Under this theme, we explore different kinds of more-than-human (MTH) mobilities, such as drug trafficking, the trade and smuggling of goods and animals, pollution and invasive species, as well as the migration of spiritual beings. Following the DiaMiGo research academy’s overarching conceptual focus on infrastructuring and the materiality of migration, we are especially interested in how concrete forms of more-than-human mobilities are entangled with human migration frameworks. How do MTH and human migration frameworks resemble, complement, diverge, or even oppose each other? And to what extent are their entanglements determined by the legacies of colonialism to the present day? Drawing on specific ethnographic examples and case studies, we will highlight the need for situated (ethnographic) approaches and analysis of species-specific forms of migration. In doing so, we focus on the intersection of different border regimes with certain regulatory and legal infrastructures including classification systems, or disease and quarantine control and animal mobility management systems. These range from defining concepts of “natural habitat” to “invasive species” or “energy rights” and “resource politics”, which in turn form certain rationales to spatially locate places, humans and non-human-animals (Green 2022), thus also legitimizing or restricting certain forms of mobility over others. We also address the effects of these specific regulatory and legal infrastructures on facilitating or restricting the spatial movements of MTHs within national borders and across borders on (inter)regional scales.