African Migrants, European Borders, and the Problem with Humanitarianism presents a probing examination of the contemporary migrant “crisis” in the Mediterranean Basin. By centering our analysis on how racial slavery has shaped European democratic culture, its abolitionist traditions, and the global structures of capital accumulation, P. Khalil Saucier and Tryon P. Woods reveal and confront how contemporary discourse on the migrant “crisis” displaces Black sovereign mobility. Their inquiry into the modern world’s culture of politics investigates “freedom of movement” discourse’s ostensible confrontation with border policing, the memorializing of Black migrant deaths by artists and advocates, and the visual imagery of a cosmopolitan and multicultural Europe as conceived by filmmakers in response to the migrant “crisis” as variants of a slaveholding culture instantiated in the early Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds. This analysis allows the authors to formulate a new critical framework for analysis of both the problems of contemporary migration and borders and the leading prescriptions on offer from analysts, advocates, and policy makers in order to develop alternate ways of conceptualizing global society.

At a time of escalating conflict between states and NGOs engaged in migrant search and rescue operations across the Mediterranean, this book explores the emerging trend of citizen-led forms of helping others at the borders of Europe. In recent years, Europe’s borders have become new sites of intervention for traditional humanitarian actors and governmental agencies, but also, increasingly, for volunteer and activist initiatives led by "ordinary" citizens. This book sets out to interrogate the shifting relationship between humanitarianism, the securitization of border and migration regimes, and citizenship. Critically examining the "do it yourself" character of refugee aid practices performed by non-professionals coming together to help in informal and spontaneous manners, the volume considers the extent to which these new humanitarian practices challenge established conceptualisations of membership, belonging, and active citizenship. Drawing on case studies from countries around Europe including Greece, Turkey, Italy, France and Russia, this collection constitutes an innovative and theoretically engaged attempt to bring the field of humanitarian studies into dialogue with studies of grassroots refugee aid and, more explicitly, with political forms of solidarity with migrants and refugees which fall between aid and activism. This book is key reading for advanced students and researchers of humanitarian aid, European migration and refugees, and citizen-led activism.

This book discusses African migration and the refugee crisis. Economic, political and social tension in the Middle East and in many parts of the Global South has induced historic mass migration across national and international borders. The situation is especially dire in Africa, where a sizable number of Africans have chosen or have been forced to leave their countries of origin for Europe and North America. Written by an international team of scholars, this edited book traces the refugee crisis around the world, telling the necessary story of forced migration, intentional exclusion, and human insecurity from an Afrocentric lens. The volume is divided into three sections. Section I places African migration within the broader contexts of international history, law, economics, and policy. Section II discusses cases of African migration to Europe, Latin America, and the Mediterranean. Section III considers negative consequences of mass African migration, including the restriction and criminalization of migration, post-traumatic stress disorder, and gender-based violence. A compelling account of risk, resilience, and global power dynamics, this volume will be useful to students and researchers interested in African studies, migration, peace and conflict studies, and policy as well as professionals, practitioners, NGOs, IGOs, governmental and humanitarian organizations.

This book discusses African migration and the refugee crisis. Economic, political and social tension in the Middle East and in many parts of the Global South has induced historic mass migration across national and international borders. The situation is especially dire in Africa, where a sizable number of Africans have chosen or have been forced to leave their countries of origin for Europe and North America. Written by an international team of scholars, this edited book traces the refugee crisis around the world, telling the necessary story of forced migration, intentional exclusion, and human insecurity from an Afrocentric lens. The volume is divided into three sections. Section I places African migration within the broader contexts of international history, law, economics, and policy. Section II discusses cases of African migration to Europe, Latin America, and the Mediterranean. Section III considers negative consequences of mass African migration, including the restriction and criminalization of migration, post-traumatic stress disorder, and gender-based violence. A compelling account of risk, resilience, and global power dynamics, this volume will be useful to students and researchers interested in African studies, migration, peace and conflict studies, and policy as well as professionals, practitioners, NGOs, IGOs, governmental and humanitarian organizations.

Despite enacting numerous legislations, policies and practices accommodating third country nationals, Europe continues to erect a fortress against foreigners. The recent migration crisis on the shores of the Mediterranean seem to validate this view. As Europe searches for optimal solutions to the migration crisis, recent media and humanitarian organisation reports of surging African and Middle Eastern refugees and migrants bring into sharp focus and test these immigration measures. For this cause, the purpose of this paper is to interrogate European Union (EU)-Africa relationships on international migration issues.Located in the evolving field of border studies, the paper employs the concepts of displacement and humanitarianism in an effort to frame the EU-Africa relations on migration in the context of borders, boundaries and frontiers. A thorough review and critical analysis of relevant legislations, literature and media reports on the Africa-Europe migration interface is also conducted.The militarisation, securitisation, restrictive and, sometimes, draconian immigration regimes do not provide sustainable solutions to the migration crisis facing Europe. A rethinking around the integration and inclusion of immigrants into Europe's socioeconomic fabric, and addressing fundamental and structural weaknesses in EU-Africa relationships and respective economies is essential.Theoretically, the paper attempts to understand better, the way the EU and Africa engage each other on international migration issues, in the context of border studies. Empirically, the paper positions itself in policy engagements and the quest for practical solutions by the two continents in view of the migration crisis currently facing Europe.

*Winner of the International Political Sociology book award for 2023* What does it mean when humanitarianism is the response to death, injury and suffering at the border? This book interrogates the politics of humanitarian responses to border violence and unequal mobility, arguing that such responses mask underlying injustices, depoliticise violent borders and bolster liberal and paternalist approaches to suffering. Focusing on the diversity of actors involved in humanitarian assistance alongside the times and spaces of action, the book draws a direct line between privileges of movement and global inequalities of race, class, gender and disability rooted in colonial histories and white supremacy and humanitarian efforts that save lives while entrenching such inequalities. Based on eight years of research with border police, European Union officials, professional humanitarians, and grassroots activists in Europe's borderlands, including Italy and Greece, the book argues that this kind of saving lives builds, expands and deepens already restrictive borders and exclusive and exceptional identities through what the book calls humanitarian borderwork.

Disavowing Asylum presents the for-profit Direct Provision asylum regime in the Republic of Ireland, describing and theorizing the remote asylum centres throughout the country as a disavowed regime of racialized incarceration, operated by private companies and hidden from public view. The authors combine a historical and geographical analysis of Direct Provision with a theoretical analysis of the disavowal of the system by state and society and with a visual autoethnography via one of the authors’ Asylum Archive and Direct Provision diary, constituting a first-person narrative of the experience of living in Direct Provision. This book argues that asylum seekers, far from being mere victims of racialization and of their experiences in Direct Provision, are active agents of change and resistance, and theorizes the Asylum Archive project as an archive of silenced lives that brings into public view the hidden experiences of asylum seekers in Ireland's Direct Provision regime.