Luigi Achilli

European University Institute, Global Governance Program, Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies (RSCAS), Marie Curie Research Fellow

European University Institute, Migration Policy Centre, Research Associate

San Diego State University, Sociology, Visiting scholar

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I am a social researcher with a keen interest in socio-political and cultural transformations in the Middle East and the Mediterranean area. My research interests focus on irregular migration and smuggling networks, everyday forms of political engagement and disengagements, political identity, nationalism, Palestinian issue, refugees and refugee camp, and the politics of space.

I hold an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). My research and writing are based on extensive fieldwork conducted primarily in Jordan. Ethnographic in approach, my work has led me to spend long time living and working in the urban Palestinian refugee camps of Amman. My last research project has culminated with the publication of a book about the significance of the “ordinary” in the process of political self-fashioning in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, Palestinian Refugees and Identity: Nationalism, Politics and the Everyday (I.B. Tauris, 2015).

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Introduction – migration, smuggling and the illicit global economy

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Feldman, Gregory . The gray zone: sovereignty, human smuggling, and undercover police investigation in Europe. xxii, 214 pp., bibliogr. Stanford: Univ. Press, 2019. £21.99 (paper)

Waiting for the Smuggler: Tales Across the Border

Public Anthropologist

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.

COVID-19 in Gaza: Community Perspectives on the Pandemic

by Jason Hart, Mohammed Alruzzi, and Luigi Achilli

This research study is funded by Elrha's Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (R2HC) Progra... more This research study is funded by Elrha's Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (R2HC) Programme, which aims to improve health outcomes by strengthening the evidence base for public health interventions in humanitarian crises. R2HC is funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Wellcome, and the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The team would like to express our thanks to all the individuals who took part in data collection and shared their experiences and perspectives during the course of this study. We are also immensely grateful to a number of individuals who supported remote data collection throughout this project. Special thanks go to Ebtihal Mahadeen; Tamara Aburamadan, Mohamad Al Ashmar and Youssef Mnaili; Marie Bashee; Mohammad Zaqooq and colleagues at the Tamer Institute in Gaza City; and to key community members throughout Gaza who connected the team to the wider community through their work with civil society associations. Our particular thanks to Mohammed Zaanoon for his photography which is presented throughout this report. We are also thankful for comments received on aspects of the study from Medical Aid for Palestinians. Lastly, we would like to thank ELRHA for their support throughout this research.

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The Human Smuggling Industry: Nuances and Complexities

Despite the popular depiction as immoral and deceitful villain who do not hesitate to toss human ... more Despite the popular depiction as immoral and deceitful villain who do not hesitate to toss human beings in the sea or abandon them under the scorching desert sun, human smugglers’ services seem to be in high demand lately. Little is known about how human smugglers operate and the reasons that push millions to rely on their services. Scholarly and mainstream understanding of human smuggling is often plagued with fragmented perspectives on the socio-cultural dynamics of the migratory journey, the facilitator-traveler relationship and their community dimensions. A truly effective answer to human smuggling requires a better understanding of the phenomenon. Based on data collected during extensive ethnographic research conducted in the Eastern Mediterranean route and the Central American corridor, this paper aims to provide a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of human smuggling and the actors involved.

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Methodological approaches in human smuggling research: Documenting irregular migration facilitation in the Americas and the Middle East

by GE Sanchez and Luigi Achilli

Most counter-smuggling efforts have relied on law enforcement, policymakers, and journalistic doc... more Most counter-smuggling efforts have relied on law enforcement, policymakers, and journalistic documentation and analysis of the experiences of migrants who endured negative, tragic experiences along their journeys. While fundamental at understanding smuggling operations, these perspectives only constitute a piece of the puzzle. In this contribution, we argue that in order to identify abusive, unethical and dangerous practices in human smuggling, we need to question the dominant assumptions surrounding the practice through empirical research. Rather than investigating human smuggling from a criminal perspective that defines the practice as an underground, hidden activity, we must also identify its everyday social and public dimensions. Furthermore, we argue that improved understanding of human smuggling must reevaluate the notion that smugglers obey only a business-oriented logic (another dominant angle in smuggling analyses). In what follows, we narrate our experiences conducting ethnographic work in the Mediterranean and the Mexico–United States migration corridors alongside smuggling facilitators and their communities, and share some of our common findings. We argue that improved understanding into the facilitation of irregular migration come from building research relationships to the inside of migrant communities, and can benefit from the inclusion of a largely ostracized interlocutor: the smuggling facilitator.

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Luigi Achilli

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