Nothing is more permanent than the temporary: understanding protracted displacement and people's own responses

Across the world, 16 million refugees and an unknown number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) experience long-lasting conditions of economic precarity, marginalisation, rightlessness and future uncertainty. They live under conditions of protracted displacement. Policy solutions often fail to recognise displaced people’s needs and limit rather than widen the range of available solutions. This report brings together the central findings of the TRAFIG project’s empirical study in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Tanzania, Jordan, Pakistan, Greece, Italy and Germany. We engaged with more than 3,120 people in our three-year project. Our analysis centres around five factors that shape conditions of protracted displacement: 1) governance regimes of aid and asylum, 2) social practices and livelihoods, 3) networks and movements, 4) intergroup relations between displaced people and hosts, and 5) development incentives and economic interactions. We present multiple findings on each of these themes. Moreover, this report addresses gender and classbased differences and mental health related challenges in constellations of protracted displacement as well as political dynamics that impact on people’s own responses to protracted displacement. Overall, our research shows that refugees, IDPs and other migrants by and large find protection, shelter, livelihood support, a sense of belonging and opportunities to migrate elsewhere through their personal networks. These networks often stretch across several places or even extend across multiple countries. While they are not a panacea for all challenges, people’s own connections are an essential resource for sustainable and long-term solutions to their precarious situation. They must not be ignored in policy responses to protracted displacement. Understanding the needs and the local, translocal and transnational ties of displaced people is the foundation for finding solutions that last

The camp and the city: Insights from a multistakeholder community consultation in the port of Lavrio in Attica (Greece)

TRAFIG - Transnational Figurations of DisplacementThe camp and the city: Insights from a multi-stakeholder community consultation in the port of Lavrio in Attica (Greece) | TR… https://trafig.eu/blog/the-camp-and-the-city-insights-from-a-multi-stakeholder-community-consultation-in-the-port-of-lavrio-in-attica-greec

Gérer la migration et le développement inégal : géographies économiques des camps de réfugiés

International audienceΑντικείμενο του εισήγησης είναι οι οικονομικές αλληλεπιδράσεις μεταξύ τοπικώνκοινωνιών, μετακινούμενων πληθυσμών και χωρικών διαστάσεων της διαχείρισης τηςμετανάστευσης. Επιχειρεί να ανιχνεύσει τις ποικίλες οικονομικές πρακτικές, συναλλαγές και σχέσεις που αναπτύσσονται γύρω από προσφυγικούς καταυλισμούς (camps). Στο επίκεντρο βρίσκονται βασικοί οικονομικοί δρώντες και οι επικαλυπτόμενες χωρικότητες στις οποίες δρουν. Υπάρχουν πολλοί τέτοιοι δρώντες, μεταξύ τους και αρκετοί που δραστηριοποιούνται σε τομείς οι οποίοι δεν έχουν προφανή σχέση με τη μετανάστευση: κρατικοί φορείς, ιδιωτικές επιχειρήσεις, ανθρωπιστικές οργανώσεις, άτυπες συλλογικότητες, κάτοικοι, εργαζόμενοι/ες, ιδιοκτήτες ακινήτων. Δεν έχουν όλοι ισότιμη θέση, ωστόσο διασταυρώνονται με διάφορους τρόπους και ενίοτε αλληλοεπιδρούν σε αλληλεπικαλυπτόμενα δίκτυα, κινητοποιώντας «αναπτυξιακές» διαδικασίες σε πολλαπλές κλίμακες

Inhabiting the permanently temporary: practices of space appropriation and mobility negotiations in "hospitality structures"

International audienc

Embodied geopolitics and negotiations of belongings from Turkey to Athens after 2016

International audienceThis article employs the notion of embodied geopolitics in order to re-ground geopolitical relations at the scale of everyday life. Specifically, it explores how geopolitical relations between Greece and Turkey that historically oscillate between enmity and friendship, mediate the everyday lives of Turkish citizens who moved to Athens after 2016, in a context of intertwined crises (i.e. the refugee, socioeconomic and pandemic-related health crisis). Drawing on in-depth interviews with Turkish citizens, we seek to understand how their diverse positionalities defined by gender, class, ethnicity and religion, become reconfigured as they negotiate their belongings in Athens. We are interested, in particular, in how this negotiation is shaped by the ever-present geopolitical past, as well as the experiences of displacement and precarity. Through an engagement with critical and feminist geopolitics, we argue that the historical and political relations between Greece and Turkey 'haunt' the lives of Turkish citizens, (re)producing stereotypes and othering processes. At the same time, we propose that their everyday relational geographies are constituted by 'sheltered' spaces, which enable them to reconfigure their positionalities as well as boundaries, constraints, and haunting histories. The article concludes with a discussion of the potential the negotiations of belonging that ensue by the haunting geopolitical relations and the everyday sheltered spaces have, to challenge and/or reproduce geopolitical relations on the ground

On not staying put where they have put you: mobilities disrupting the socio-spatial figurations of displacement in Greece

International audienceThe reception and protection system in Greece in the aftermath of the so-called refugee crisis produces a geography of specific mobility restrictions and accommodation types for migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees. These restrictions create a multilayered landscape of displacement, dominated by three sociospatial figurations: the forced containment of displaced people in 'hotspots' on eastern Aegean islands; staying in isolated and segregated camps in the mainland; and the accommodation of the most vulnerable in urban centres. At the same time, the mobility practices of displaced people often disrupt the above figurations, stemming from their survival practices and life aspirations, and largely relating to their translocal social connections. These mobilities include, but are not limited to, unregistered movements from hotspots to the mainland, mobilities from camp to camp, mobility negotiations between camp and city. This paper explores the figurations of displacement related to the impact of governance regimes on the livelihoods and mobility of displaced people in Greece. Within this frame, it focuses on the ways through which migrants and asylum-seekers negotiate, resist or transcend the geography of multiple restrictions, through translocal mobility practices that intervene and therefore reshape dominant socio-spatial figurations

Figurations of Displacement in Southern Europe - Empirical findings and reflections on protracted displacement and translocal networks of forced migrants in Greece and Italy

This working paper is based on empirical research on the Translocal Figurations of Displacement in Greece and Italy. The authors aim to compare protracted displacement in Greece and Italy, looking at the structural forces shaping it and their interactions with migrants' mobility and connectivity. This comparison is based on the analysis of the relations between two contextual variables (governance regimes and host population) and three key variables (mobility, connectivity and marginalisation). In this paper, they present findings from three study sites in Greece and four research locations in Italy. Findings show that protracted legal and socio-economic marginalisation is a key feature characterising the lives of displaced people in southern European countries. It confirms the hypothesis that protracted displacement does not end when forced migrants reach Greece or Italy. Restrictive governance regimes at the national and EU level severely limit mobility opportunities within Greece and Italy and across the European Union (EU). To cope with and resist marginalising and immobilising policies, displaced migrants in Italy and Greece put in place several strategies, ranging from adapting to governance regimes and taking the most out of them to resisting them and finding ways to avoid, bypass or overcome such regimes. In this framework, mobility and connectivity emerge as a resource and a trap for displaced migrants in southern Europe. On the one hand, migrants' strategies of intra-national and intra-EU mobility may help them out of protracted displacement, while on the other, certain types of mobility (hyper-, circular, paradoxical) can entrap, rather than free them. Similarly, local, translocal and transnational networks emerge as a crucial resource for displaced people in Greece and Italy. At the same time, family and co-ethnic networks may also be experienced as disabling, hampering one's aspirations to get out of protracted displacement. Fieldwork in both countries highlighted common factors shaping the relationships between displaced migrants and host communities. We also observed different facets of intergroup relations, ranging from indifference to friendship. The paper concludes by highlighting similarities and differences on the findings from both countries, based on qualitative and quantitative data

Nothing is more permanent than the temporary: Understanding protracted displacement and people's own responses TRAFIG Synthesis Report

Across the world, 16 million refugees and an unknown number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) experience long-lasting conditions of economic precarity, marginalisation, rightlessness and future uncertainty. They live under conditions of protracted displacement. Policy solutions often fail to recognise displaced people’s needs and limit rather than widen the range of available solutions. This report brings together the central findings of the TRAFIG project’s empirical study in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Tanzania, Jordan,Pakistan, Greece, Italy and Germany. We engaged with more than 3,120 people in our three-year project. Our analysis centres around five factors that shape conditions of protracted displacement: 1) governance regimes of aid and asylum, 2) social practices and livelihoods, 3) networks and movements, 4) intergroup relations between displaced people and hosts, and 5) development incentives and economic interactions.We present multiple findings on each of these themes. Moreover, this report addresses gender and classbased differences and mental health related challenges in constellations of protracted displacement as well as political dynamics that impact on people’s own responses to protracted displacement. Overall, our research shows that refugees, IDPs and other migrants by and large find protection, shelter, livelihood support, a sense of belonging and opportunities to migrate elsewhere through their personal networks. These networks often stretch across severalplaces or even extend across multiple countries. While they are not a panacea for all challenges, people’s own connections are an essential resource for sustainable and long-term solutions to their precarious situation. They must not be ignored in policy responses to protracted displacement. Understanding the needs and the local, translocal and transnational ties of displaced people is the foundation for finding solutions that last