Books, Volumes, and Special Issues by Luigi Achilli
The ANNALS of the American academy of political and social science, 2024
Contemporary research shows that current migration policies and technologies produce criminality.... more Contemporary research shows that current migration policies and technologies produce criminality. It would be advantageous, then, to understand how migrants make sense of and respond to these criminalizing migration policies, technologies, and practices. This volume delves deeply into criminalization processes, focusing on how migrants perceive and react to the enactment and implementation of policy. The articles take a close look at the day-to-day experiences of criminalized migrants, advancing our understanding of some of the societal effects of migration policies and of the relationship between criminalization and migration. The collection of work presented in this volume seeks to inspire more critical scholarship, given that public narratives about migration tend to present narratives of tragedy and despair only. We argue that policy and public understanding of migration can improve if we understand more about how, exactly, migrants respond to their criminalization and how they manage to sustain their migratory projects and their lives.
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024
Migrant smuggling is now more entrenched than ever in many regions around the world, with efforts... more Migrant smuggling is now more entrenched than ever in many regions around the world, with efforts to combat it both largely unsuccessful and often counterproductive. This edited volume explores human smuggling in several nuanced forms across diverse regions, examining its deep historical, social, economic, and cultural roots as well as its broad political consequences. Spanning issues around the world, the essays in this collection cover topics such as global migrant smuggling networks, government responses, multinational initiatives against human trafficking for sexual exploitation, representations of human smuggling in mainstream narratives of migration, and more. With nineteen new contributors, the third edition of Global Human Smuggling represents the progress of human smuggling research on every continent and offers a rare research-based and conceptual framework for the study of this critical global issue.
CRITICAL INSIGHTS ON IRREGULAR MIGRATION FACILITATION: GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES, 2019
In this short collection of essays, a group of scholars and practitioners sheds light on the expe... more In this short collection of essays, a group of scholars and practitioners sheds light on the experiences of the men, women and children who around the world work in the facilitation of migrant’s journeys –a practice that has been legally and often narrowly termed migrant smuggling. Relying on ethnographic work, archival research, and conceptual analyses, authors challenge the monolithic perceptions of smuggling as merely exploitative, inherently criminal, violent and male, by documenting the experiences of the people whose actions facilitate migration into Europe and the United States, across Africa, the Americas and the Pacific, and shedding light on everyday practices and interactions of mobility and their criminalization by the state.
Read the full-text of this RSCAS Book edited by Gabriella Sanchez and Luigi Achilli within the framework of the Migrant Smuggling Observatory.
In this volume of The ANNALS, we present a collection of empirically based research projects on m... more In this volume of The ANNALS, we present a collection of empirically based research projects on migrant smuggling, seeking to create a more nuanced understanding of the topic that supersedes perspectives that are often found in mainstream narratives of unscrupulous and ruthless criminal gangs preying on vulnerable and desperate migrants.
The contributing authors rely on field data to reveal the complex and often symbiotic relationships between migrants and the people behind their journeys. Often misunderstood in juxtaposition to narratives of security and control, the lived experiences of migrants describe smuggling facilitators as relatives or close friends, acquaintances or distant operators—all members of a social net-
work of varying relational proximity. Vulnerability in migration grows as the travel distance and transit points increase and the density of one’s own community ties decreases. The procurement of smuggling services is always situated within the collective wisdom and lived experiences of the migrants and their communities, and the strategies to increase the odds of success and to reduce the hazards and uncertainty of traversing foreign terrains.
Les camps de réfugiés palestiniens au Proche-Orient : un provisoire qui dure
Ce volume s’inscrit à la suite de plusieurs publications récentes de réflexions collectives qui o... more Ce volume s’inscrit à la suite de plusieurs publications récentes de réflexions collectives qui ont traité, en totalité ou en partie, des réfugiés palestiniens au Proche-Orient, en abordant également la question des camps. Nous proposons ainsi de poursuivre les débats, en réfléchissant explicitement à la question du temporaire qui se prolonge, et qui a tendance à se normaliser, et sur ses différents impacts politiques, socioéconomiques et urbains affectant les camps et les réfugiés palestiniens au cours de la période récente. Les articles de ce volume vont ainsi aborder plusieurs thèmes essentiels à cette compréhension : la cristallisation du provisoire dans les camps, et de ses effets, les questions de l’organisation politique et de la gouvernance dans les camps, du développement urbain, de l’habitat et des conditions de vie dans les camps et leurs alentours. Au final, les articles mettent en évidence que « le provisoire qui dure » ne fait pas des camps de réfugiés palestiniens au Proche-Orient des espaces d’exception figés, que ce soit au niveau de leur gouvernance ou organisation politique, de leurs caractéristiques urbaines, démographiques et socioéconomiques, ou encore au niveau de l’engagement politique de leurs habitants.
L’interesse nei confronti dell’etnografia è cresciuto in questi ultimi anni in maniera proporzion... more L’interesse nei confronti dell’etnografia è cresciuto in questi ultimi anni in maniera proporzionale all’importanza che essa ha assunto all’interno della ricerca sociale. Proponendo una serie di riflessioni sull’antropologia contemporanea, questo volume intende approfondire alcuni aspetti della disciplina, come il posizionamento assunto dallo studioso, la criticità dell’oggetto in analisi e la re-invenzione della ricerca in situazioni di violenza, di conflitto, ribadendo l’assunto critico della non neutralità dell’indagine etnografica. Le diverse testimonianze raccolte sottolineano le difficoltà epistemologiche e metodologiche che inevitabilmente segnano il “lavoro sul campo” nel tentativo di evocare la problematicità che caratterizza il discorso etnografico nel cosiddetto “mondo contemporaneo”.
Saggi di Alessandro Monsutti, Annamaria Rivera, Ugo Fabietti, Roberto Malighetti, Annalisa d’Orsi, Antonio De Lauri, Luigi Achilli, Carolyn Nordstrom, Fabio Dei, Amalia Rossi.
This book analyses the reproduction of national attachments in the context of protracted exile an... more This book analyses the reproduction of national attachments in the context of protracted exile and displacement among young men and adolescents living in al-Wihdat. What forms does Palestinian nationalism take in a country that has granted full citizenship rights to the majority of refugees? More generally, how does nationalism operate, and how do claims of national belonging articulate with other, apparently conflicting, national identities? How does a Palestinian national loyalty affect the relative assimilation of Palestinian refugees within the Jordanian socio-economic tissue anyway? Finally, how should we understand the great discomfort of refugees toward Palestinian political elites and political parties? The objectives of this book are to specify the fragmented experience of Palestinian people and the multiplicity of resources employed by them in the constitution and reproduction of Palestinian nationalism; to assess the significance of ‘the ordinary’ as analytical category in the process of political self-fashioning; and to explore the ambiguities and contradictions related to their nationalist allegiance, which refugees have to face when are called upon to confront the inconsistencies of daily life. Yet bringing the Palestinian example to the fore allows not only deepening this analysis but also exposes the limitations of an approach too reliant on resistance studies. Finally I demonstrate how a critical approach toward certain post-structuralist accounts of the political can create a more nuanced understanding of Palestinian refugees’ everyday life.
Articles and essays in books by Luigi Achilli
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2024
The article investigates the role of transnational criminal groups in migration governance. Altho... more The article investigates the role of transnational criminal groups in migration governance. Although this topic has attracted increasing global attention due to the intersection of migration management and crime, academic research remains limited. Most studies tend to view criminal groups merely as threats to migration governance or as peripheral actors. The article advocates for a significant paradigm shift in conventional debate on transnational governance. Rather than merely viewing criminal groups as global challenges for various actors to tackle, we should acknowledge them as pivotal actors influencing these challenges. Based on empirical research on migrant smuggling and human trafficking in the Greece and Libya, the article sheds more light on the complex relationships between these criminal actors, state actors and other key stakeholders in migration governance. It shows how criminal groups not only disrupt but also actively shape migration governance, and may even play a crucial role in the functioning and reproduction of its legal apparatus. In so doing, the article transcends both mainstream perspectives that view crime as a mere challenge to migration governance and critical studies that frame the role of crime in migration governance solely in terms of a state-driven process of ‘criminalization’.
Anti-trafficking review, 2024
This paper investigates the experiences of children associated with Boko Haram in Northeast Niger... more This paper investigates the experiences of children associated with Boko Haram in Northeast Nigeria. The central argument posits that, within highly coercive environments, exploitation and agency are mutually constitutive. While acknowledging the prevalent exploitation of these children, it is crucial to recognise how such exploitation is intimately connected to their agency. As economic, social, and political pressures mount, children may perceive participation in Boko Haram (and self-exploitation) as the only viable means to achieve various goals-from protecting their families and communities to seeking self-significance. Consequently, exploitation-whether orchestrated by group leaders or members-may be consciously embraced by children as a means to create new horizons of possibilities. Simultaneously, by engaging in Boko Haram's activities, children reproduce a system aimed to their own exploitation and vilification. Neglecting the complexities inherent in children's associations with Boko Haram has potential implications for their reintegration and community healing processes.
The American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2024
A widespread narrative in policy and media circles is that criminal organizations’ exploitation o... more A widespread narrative in policy and media circles is that criminal organizations’ exploitation of migrants amounts to “modern slavery.” The research presented here argues for a different understanding that includes migrant agency. I examine the interactions of migrants—specifically Syrian unaccompanied minors—within illicit economies in Lebanon. I use the notion of “markets of dispossession” to explain the intricate relationship binding migration policy, migrant agency, and crime formation. The term shows how, rather than stemming from extensive criminal enterprises, the “crime” associated with these economies often emerges from myriad micro-interactions, decisions, and acts of resilience by disenfranchised individuals, like unaccompanied minors, navigating restrictive policies and their subsequent criminalization. I go on to argue that acknowledging the agency of the minor migrants in criminalized systems underscores the importance of addressing the poverty, inequality, and social instability that compel their participation in these markets of dispossession.
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023
The study focuses on the visual depiction of smugglers in the two main Italian newspapers between... more The study focuses on the visual depiction of smugglers in the two main Italian newspapers between 2015 and 2016 – a key destination and transit country during the so-called migrant crisis”. What they show is that against a general hysteria about the smuggler in narratives on human and national security, the subject is rather absent at the visual level. The divergence between the narrative overrepresentation of the smugglers and their concomitant visual absence in mainstream channels of communication – the authors argue – ultimately fuels increasingly punitive migration regimes in Italy and, at large, the European Union.
Narrative: Markets of displacement
Elgar Handbooks in Migration, 2023
This chapter sheds light on the displacement of violence-torn communities across the Eastern Medi... more This chapter sheds light on the displacement of violence-torn communities across the Eastern Mediterranean and Central American routes. Global trends of insecurity and the shrinking of legal channels of migration along both routes have fundamentally shaped the everyday lives of migrants, prompting irregular journeys that have significantly increased people’s dependence on mechanisms of exploitation. At the crossroads of transnational flows and global connections, cities like Tijuana (Mexico) and Izmir (Turkey) have become “precarious transit zones” where migrants are often caught up in what scholars have called “regimes of mobility”, produced at the nexus of exclusionary state policies and increased circulation around the globe. Here, they live in a liminal state of transit for weeks, months, or even years as they attempt to cross borders, earn enough to live on, secure food and shelter, and find protection. This liminality and disconnection from core familial, spatial, and social networks opens the door not only to new types of exploitation but also novel avenues for agency. This is most immediately evident in the involvement of migrants in illicit markets – human smuggling, human trafficking and the drug trade – as a consequence of their protracted condition of immobility and vulnerability. It is in this context of protracted precarity and shrinking possibilities of legal, safe mobility that the boundaries between victims/exploiters, refugees/migrants, and pull/push factors blur. Not only do migrants’ journeys illustrate migrants’ limited capacity to navigate changing border-control scenarios but, more importantly, also problematize simplistic categorizations functional to the security apparatus.
The Evolution of Illicit Flows: Displacement and Convergence among Transnational Crime, edited by Ernesto U. Savona, Rob T. Guerette, and Alberto Aziani. Springer, 2022
By building on a mixed-methods approach that combines the use of secondary sources with ethnograp... more By building on a mixed-methods approach that combines the use of secondary sources with ethnographic research, this paper compares two separate smuggling contexts-the Eastern Mediterranean route via Turkey and the Central Mediterranean corridor via Libya. While the analysis provides an overview of the phenomenon since its inception in the early 1990s, primarily it focuses on its evolution over the last five years. Comparing these two smuggling routes allows for a broader consideration of the nature of human smuggling and border controls, insofar as these two routes constitute the most important smuggling hubs in the world. Furthermore, European Union Member States' responses to human smuggling have hitherto been fairly homogenous-criminalizing clandestine migration, while, simultaneously, militarizing border control. However, human smuggling has been in a continual state of evolution within both these contexts, with smugglers employing a wide range of techniques along the Eastern Mediterranean route and across the Central Mediterranean corridor, respectively. This chapter identifies the similarities and differences in the organizational structures of these respective smuggling networks, provides profiles of human smugglers, and sheds light on the smuggler-migrant relationship. In so doing, the analysis presented in this chapter attempts to provide a nuanced and comprehensive understanding of how enforcement and policy interventions are primarily responsible for the convergence and displacement of smuggling activities within the region.
JEMS, 2022
Child migration has generated shock, the global public appalled by photos of corpses of children ... more Child migration has generated shock, the global public appalled by photos of corpses of children washed ashore or abandoned in deserts. However, despite the growing visibility of child migration there has been scant research into the practices and interactions often associated with the smuggling of minors. We still lack a clear understanding of the interactions between minors and smugglers that go beyond a stereotypical predator/victim frame. This paper is grounded in the conviction that any understanding of the complex interactions between minors and migrant smugglers requires an epistemic reversal in conventional learning and debate. Instead of investigating the systematic exploitation of vulnerable migrants at the hands of criminal rings, we need to focus on the capacity of minors to exert agency and craft new spheres of possibility in situations characterized (also) by exploitation and extreme dependence. The article does so by investigating the day-today interactions between facilitators and Syrian minors who left their country following the outbreak of the civil war in 2011. What will be shown is that minors' interactions with human smuggling provide them with new forms of action, while contending with exploitation, constraints or dependency.
Forum on Crime and Society, 2021
According to much contemporary literature on the illicit global economy, there is a convergence b... more According to much contemporary literature on the illicit global economy, there is a convergence between different groups involved in transnational organized crimes such as drug trafficking, smuggling of migrants and trafficking in persons, as well as terrorism. This has increased the urgency of countries’ efforts to stem irregular migration, and some countries have militarized their border controls. However, a closer look at two prominent groups, the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), shows that neither group has consistently used smuggling of migrants as a source of revenue. Moreover, the organization and aims of these two groups are geared towards the acquisition of territorial control, which does not match the short timescales and operational nimbleness required of migrant-smuggling groups. The authors thus argue that the oftalleged link between organized crime, terrorism and human smuggling is largely artificial.
Debunking the Smuggler-Terrorist Nexus, 2019
Amid increasing terrorist violence in and beyond European countries, concerns have been raised ab... more Amid increasing terrorist violence in and beyond European countries, concerns have been raised about connections between illegal migration and terrorism. Regional armed conflicts in the Middle East have led to the massive migration of people in search of safe heavens and better livelihoods, pressing upon frontline countries in the Mediterranean and throughout the EU. Multiple government and intelligence agencies report that human smuggling networks have been identified as providing a readily available conduit through which terrorist groups such as the Islamic State and Al-Qaida can enter Europe and the U.S. These criminal travel networks are said to rely on highly effective transnational alliances involving service providers within source, transit and destination countries. There is also widespread consensus in the intelligence circles that terrorist groups rely on the practice of smuggling for financing of terrorist activity. Nonetheless, despite the region’s geopolitical significance and its demonstrated potential for spillover effects, scant systematic field research has been conducted by independent researchers to understand the purported nexus between terrorism and human smugglers within the Middle East into the Mediterranean. This constitutes a severe gap in knowledge which our study will address. In this paper, we debunk the nexus human smuggling-terrorism by comparing the Islamic State’s logistics with human smuggling networks’ modus operandi and organizational structures. Based on a mixed research approach that combines the analysis of a unique date-set (U.S. Special Forces) and an empirical research carried out among smugglers and migrants in the Middle East and across the Eastern Mediterranean route over the past two years, this paper will tackle the alleged connection between human smuggling and terrorist groups. What will be argued is that smuggling networks and terrorist networks have fundamental operational and structural differences. These operational and structural differences need to be taken into account in order to deconstruct harmful stereotypes on irregular migration and, consequently, develop adequate responses to analytically distinct phenomena.
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2019
Contemporary studies on human smuggling and irregular migration have often overlooked the importa... more Contemporary studies on human smuggling and irregular migration have often overlooked the importance of national ties in the formation of transnational networks able to support refugees throughout their journey and settlement in the country of arrival. Nonetheless, the ability to support and help people through informal networks is something that has increasingly characterised the flow of refugees from areas of conflict. This paper focuses on the experience of Palestinian refugees from the Yarmouk camp – a refugee camp established in the outskirts of Damascus that fell under the control of the Islamic State (IS) and other fighting forces after the outbreak of the Syrian conflict in 2011. Our research provides an anthropological investigation into the social and political roots of networks of solidarity established by Palestinian youth from Syria across the Middle East. In so doing, the paper strives to accomplish two goals. First, it aims at analysing the importance of informal networks in irregular migration, beyond the narrow framework of exploitation and criminality. Secondly, it seeks to move beyond the discussion of whether migration flows are best defined in terms of legality or illegality and to examine how these aspects are ultimately interconnected.
Public Anthropologist , 2019
According to mainstream media and political discourse, human smugglers are among the cruellest fi... more According to mainstream media and political discourse, human smugglers are among the cruellest figures of our time, individuals who prey on migrants’ need for assistance. Motivated by the circulation of this pejorative view in media and political discourse, I carried out ethnographic research with Syrian refugees and smugglers in Turkey, Greece, Jordan, and Lebanon with the ultimate goal of documenting what being a smuggler entails for the very actors of this unfolding drama. Fieldwork showed me how human smuggling was rooted in patterns of cooperation and support. And yet, most if not all my interlocutors, including the “smugglers” themselves, spoke of smuggling in negative terms. What I argue in this paper is that the smuggler, a category functional to the security apparatus, is not only manufactured within law enforcement circles and mainstream media, but even by those very people who are discriminated or targeted by states’ migration policies.
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Books, Volumes, and Special Issues by Luigi Achilli
Read the full-text of this RSCAS Book edited by Gabriella Sanchez and Luigi Achilli within the framework of the Migrant Smuggling Observatory.
The contributing authors rely on field data to reveal the complex and often symbiotic relationships between migrants and the people behind their journeys. Often misunderstood in juxtaposition to narratives of security and control, the lived experiences of migrants describe smuggling facilitators as relatives or close friends, acquaintances or distant operators—all members of a social net-
work of varying relational proximity. Vulnerability in migration grows as the travel distance and transit points increase and the density of one’s own community ties decreases. The procurement of smuggling services is always situated within the collective wisdom and lived experiences of the migrants and their communities, and the strategies to increase the odds of success and to reduce the hazards and uncertainty of traversing foreign terrains.
Saggi di Alessandro Monsutti, Annamaria Rivera, Ugo Fabietti, Roberto Malighetti, Annalisa d’Orsi, Antonio De Lauri, Luigi Achilli, Carolyn Nordstrom, Fabio Dei, Amalia Rossi.
Articles and essays in books by Luigi Achilli