Afghan Europeans. The invention of a mobility regime – AMORE

Asylum seekers and refugees are highly mobile across Europe before, during and after their asylum application. This project analyzes the internal functioning and the evolution of the Afghan mobility regime within the European Union. “Mobility regime” refers to a prevailing migratory pattern and the set of multi-layered, interdependent relations that underpins it. Afghans have been chosen for their demographic weight and the historical depth of their infra-EU circulations. Besides making a significant contribution to migration governance theory, that still struggles to make sense of mobility regimes, the project asks whether Afghans - given their mobility, their transnational networks, their command of European languages and their familiarity with several European countries – can be considered more European than many EU citizens. A theoretical approach that builds 1) on the theories of practice of P. Bourdieu and M. de Certeau, 2) on street-level approaches to migration governance, and 3) on recent theoretical works in political anthropology that look at how heterogeneous political agencies articulate, will allow developing a conceptual framework that 1) brings into a single framework the thick and multi-scalar assemblage of actors involved in the mobility regime (including refugees), and 2) holds a transnational approach capable of understanding of the interrelations between local arenas. A bottom-up approach that explores street-level interaction will be applied in three distinct local arenas: Friuli (Italy), Hauts-de-France (France) and Skäne (Sweden). Once the local arenas decoded, data crossing will enable analysis of how the three arenas articulate. The project will be carried out by an interdisciplinary team that cumulates a very strong expertise on Afghan refugees, international asylum policies, the management of the internal borders of the Schengen Areas, and the mobility of asylum seekers across Europe.