Forced migration trajectories: an analysis of journey- and decision-making among Eritrean and Syrian arrivals to Europe

Abstract

In 2015, Europe’s so-called ‘migration crisis’ hit the headlines. In one of the first pieces of research-based examination into the journeys of refugee arrivals around that time, this article explores the decision-making processes of (mainly) Syrians and Eritreans recently arrived in Germany, Spain and the UK. We investigate the dynamics underpinning trajectories towards Europe, placing particular emphasis on the factors that shape the ‘where’ and ‘how’ of journeys. A number of factors, already established within the broader literature, feature strongly in the decisions made by refugees: financial capital, social networks and the role of smugglers. But so too do refugees’ and other migrants’ own perceptions and feelings about where to go, when to do it, and how. Ultimately – and for our sample – we find that refugees’ journeys are on the one hand the product of a profoundly contextual and subjective decision-making process, and on the other deeply transformative phenomena, guiding as they do perceptions and choices regarding destination and trajectories.

Keywords:

• Migrant decision-making
• migration journeys
• migration trajectories
• forced migration

Notes

1. We use the term migrant decision-making to refer to decisions made by refugees and other migrants. Further, we use ‘refugees and other migrants’ in this article to reflect the nature of ‘mixed flows’ across the Mediterranean and the fact that motivations, journeys and outcomes are often overlapping. This phrase, coined by Carling (2017), makes it clear that refugees are also migrants and the tendency to privilege the former over the latter.

2. We acknowledge the normative ideas and assumptions built into the ‘European migration crisis’ phrasing, as well as the problematic imagery it conjures. We simply use it here as a form of shorthand.

3. For a more detailed analysis of the role that migration policies played (or not) in the decision-making processes of our study’s interviewees, see Mallett and Hagen-Zanker (forthcoming).