Pro- and Anti-Migrant Mobilization in Mediterranean Refugee Reception Sites

"Contesting Migration" tackles a crucial social and humanitarian contemporary challenge, that of forced displacement, affecting 80 million people. The crossing of international borders by refugees who flee has, in the last decade, become more intense, more difficult, more organised, and more deadly and has spurred wholesale policy changes globally and in Europe in the forms of the Global Compact on Refugees and the European Migration Pact. These grand policy shifts have largely been elicited by emergencies in specific refugee reception sites. In the Mediterranean, Lesvos, Ceuta and Lampedusa have attracted much attention during this time. These sites distil but also magnify the broader socio-political dynamics that refugee flows set in motion, primarily between pro- and anti-refugee actors. The project studies the governance of migration through the lens of refugee reception sites with a focus on political contestation.

We focus on the following four questions:
RQ1: What pro- and anti-migrant campaigns are mobilized at reception sites, how do they unfold and how do they influence each other? We have selected three well known locations, which have received significant media and research attention, and three lesser-researched reception sites, in each of three Mediterranean countries: respectively, Ceuta and Melilla in Spain, Lampedusa and Trieste in Italy, and Lesvos and Evros in Greece.
RQ2: In what ways are these contestations amplified in public debate and local governance across the different sites?
RQ3: How do mobilization dynamics relate to wider migration politics?
RQ4: What does the cross-disciplinary combination of ethnographic depth and comparative rigor offer to the analysis of pro- and anti-migrant actors?

Three forms of action are of particular concern to the project (WP2):
(i) conventional, comprising initiatives like activist litigation and electoral mobilization;
(ii) contentious, comprising a spectrum of activities from search and rescue operations, counter-forensics, beach patrols, and protests;
(iii) cultural-artistic, comprising exhibitions, performances, staged events, and use of heritage materials.
We examine these three forms in both their distinctiveness and interrelation, taking into account cross-cutting issues like gender. Our focus is on the political processes that unfold across themes and categories to amplify the effect of actions and determine the success of mobilization.

The case studies are compared (WP3) in terms of:
(a) institutional environment (e.g. European migration apparatuses, policing practices, location on migration routes);
(b) profile of pro- and anti-migrant actors present (e.g. link to state and other institutional actors and place in local society);
(c) social context (e.g. historical and political relevance of migration, the role of borders in daily life, and existing forms of diversity).

Towards these comparisons, we employ participant and non-participant observations, a range of semi-structured interviews, and onsite collection and analysis of documents relating to policy, law, media and art.

We also adopt a collaborative approach on field engagement through partnerships with institutions, and on the production of public outputs. We work with universities and experts at the sites through field research activities and exchange field visits. We also collaborate in designing and organising engagement activities, selecting actors and stakeholders who can offer input and reflection regarding the project's policy and public outputs. "Contesting Migration" will produce a policy report and a film, alongside academic outputs. These will be prepared following group discussions with actors in the field and virtually.

The rigorous comparative methodology we adopt allows us to piece together the multiple micro-stories that illuminate the often abstract view of migration dynamics and the complex political processes they entail in a meaningfully impactful way.