Migration in the Western Mediterranean ─ Space, Mobility and Borders

The upheavals of the Arab Spring grabbed the world’s immediate attention, and concern quickly grew over their potential aftermath, with the fear that a ‘tidal wave’ of immigrants and refugees would ‘flood’ their territory. The Arab Spring has highlighted the Mediterranean as a migration region, and new research is now required to also bring to light too often neglected mobility patterns and border practices that predate and outlast the tumultuous spring of 2011.

The edited volume Space, Mobility and Borders in the Western Mediterranean: Emerging and Enduring issues tackles these contemporary issues related to migration in the Mediterranean region. It brings together high-quality, original academic contributions from both empirical and theoretical points of view by scholars from diverse disciplines, who draw upon Anglophone, Francophone, Spanish and Italian research. The three central themes that structure this edited volume are borders as changing sites of control of the movement of people; migration control and the advent of the Arab Spring, structural aspects of border control and migrants’ agency; transit migration and new mobilities in question.

Offering an examination of the intricate interplay among the events of the Arab Spring, migration’s multiple types and actors, and the evolving relationship between migration control and borders in the region, this book is an essential resource for students and scholars of migration studies, European Union Studies and Mediterranean Studies.

Laure-Anne Bernes, Center for Ethnic and Migration Studies, University of Liege

Hassan Bousetta, Center for Ethnic and Migration Studies, University of Liege

Caroline Zickgraf, Center for Ethnic and Migration Studies, University of Liege