Documenting the Humanitarian Migration Crisis in the Mediterranean

Since the beginning of 2015 nearly 2,000 people have lost their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea. Yet, this figure captures only a fraction of the migration crisis, which stretches across all sides of the Mediterranean and across Europe. This crisis has been high on the EU agenda in the past year, and in May 2015 the EU Commission announced a European Agenda on Migration, intended both as an immediate response to the crisis and as a broader and longer term proposal for migration management. The Agenda combines proposals to better manage migration with a humanitarian incentive to save lives through stronger search and rescue activities and the resettlement of refugees.

Despite the urgency of the problem and the attention it has received from politicians, policy makers, media and academics, we know little about the experiences and journeys of migrants, especially in light of migration management strategies. For instance, various governmental and migration agencies hold quantitative records on migrant arrivals in Italy, yet these datasets are held in different places and formats. No database exists that offers a comprehensive picture. Qualitative data on migrant experiences often focuses on individual narratives of journeys across the Mediterranean. Consequently, we lack a thorough understanding of key questions such as: who are the migrants?; how do they make their journeys?; where do they seek to go?; what family connections do they have?; how are they governed along the way?

Our research will change this. By finding the answers to these questions, it will untangle the category of 'mixed migration' flows - the prevailing means to describe the varied and transitory sets of experiences and governmental practices associated with migrant journeys across the Mediterranean and into Europe. Gaining this knowledge is of crucial significance for the development of an effective and humanitarian response to the crisis as part of the European Agenda on Migration. In the EU Council held on 25-26 June, EU leaders agreed to relocate and resettle 60,000 refugees on the basis of a distribution key that is informed by quantitative factors such as the member state's GDP and population size. However, this distribution key can only offer a durable solution if it also includes a 'humanitarian' dimension based on insights into the experiences of migrants.

Our research will develop this knowledge by building a database that offers a comprehensive quantitative and qualitative picture of migrants and the ways in which they are governed en route. The quantitative aspect of the research consists of integrating existing datasets into a standardised database or "map" of the migration crisis along the migration trajectory from the Mediterranean to the UK. This will be complemented by qualitative data obtained through 100 semi-structured interviews with migrants, migration civil society organisations and governmental actors in order to build a "thicker" qualitative mapping of migrant journeys and experiences.

Our research will benefit academic and non-academic audiences. The database will give EU policy makers a better understanding of the diverse and transitory character of migration into and across Europe, as well as the effects of migration management, which will be of key significance for further developing the European Agenda on Migration. Insights from the database will also help migration civil society organisations to better assist the most vulnerable migrants and to develop campaigns for more humanitarian policy responses. It will also help produce a more sophisticated discussion on migration in the media and the wider public. Scholars will benefit from access to the database and from the methodologies developed to produce it.

This research will benefit a number of stakeholders, both academic and non-academic. Non-academic beneficiaries include: (1) European Union policy makers involved in the development of the European Agenda on Migration; (2) migrant civil society organisations in Italy, France and the UK; (3) media who report on migration in Europe, and especially those covering Italy, France and the UK; (4) the wider public in the EU, and especially in Italy, France and the UK.

EU policy makers will gain access to a reliable quantitative and qualitative picture of the dynamics of migration flows from the Mediterranean to the UK through Italy. They will not only be able to gain a better understanding of the numbers of migrants, but also about their experiences and plans. In addition, the qualitative data produced by the research will offer policy makers deeper insight into the effects on migrants, and the implications for their journeys, of EU migration management policies. It will also offer insight into the ways in which these policies are implemented in different places. Gaining these insights will be of key significance for the further development, streamlining and implementation of the European Agenda on Migration. In particular, the database will offer the knowledge required to develop more humanitarian policies for the relocation and resettlement of refugees.

Migrant civil society organisations will also benefit from the knowledge contained in the database. Insight into migrant identities and journey experiences will enable to better identify and assist the most vulnerable migrants. In addition, it will offer extremely useful insights for the development of joint campaigns for more humanitarian policy responses, both on behalf of national governments and the EU. Different organisations will benefit from different aspects of the database: migrant organisations in Sicily will gain an understanding of what happens to migrants who seek to leave Italy and travel towards the UK; migrant organisations in Calais and London will gain a better insight into the journeys, family connections and migration plans of migrants who seek to travel to, or arrive in, London. Moreover, the sharing of data will offer a platform for collaboration for the migrant organisations in Italy, France and the UK affiliated with the project. In addition, we will work towards the co-production of knowledge by including several migrant organisations - Borderline Sicily, L'Altro Diritto (Italy); Migreurop (France); AIRE Centre (UK) - into the design, development and implementation stages of the project. These organisations will thus directly benefit from the insights gained through fieldwork in Italy, France and the UK. In turn, the research will benefit from integrating these organisations' expertise into the different stages of research.

The media and the wider public will also benefit from this research by being better informed about the human and humanitarian side of the migration crisis. Access to hard data rather than relying on presumptions about who the migrants are that arrive in Italy, are held up in Calais, and arrive in the UK will help produce a more sophisticated and nuanced narrative on migration in the media and the wider public, especially in the UK. For instance it will help to debunk the problematic depiction, frequently repeated in the British media, of all migrants as 'welfare scroungers' and as coming to the UK to 'steal our jobs'. Through the development of an overall picture of the diversity of migrants and of their aims and experiences, as well as individual stories that illustrate this, the research will enable the development of a more nuanced public debate on migration and thus a more welcoming environment to migrants in need of protection. It will also allow for a shift of focus in media representations from a depiction of the issue in generalising terms of "crisis" to drawing attention to policy solutions.