Different Colour, Same People: Meso-Phases in the West-African Migrant Trajectory to European Territory – the Atlantic and Saharan Corridors

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2022-07-18

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en

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When hearing about issues revolving around migration from Africa, most people would instantly think about the articles on yet another boat that has capsized in the Mediterranean Sea. One can easily forget that migrant people’s trajectories consist of multiple stops throughout a journey that involves many hardships and degrading experiences. Therefore, this thesis aims to voice these experiences whilst simultaneously introducing a new academic concept, called ‘Meso-Phases’. It focusses on the West-African migrant trajectory’s corridors, being the Atlantic and Saharan corridors towards northern Morocco. Through a detailed literature analysis it became apparent that research has focussed much on micro-level cases, in addition to a macro-analysis of the trajectory’s transit phase, whilst it has yet to focus on the gap in between. Therefore, this thesis aims to explore whether there are hubs/region’s that exhibit similar characteristics – have similar living conditions, economic opportunities, human rights violations, violence, policy/institutions, etc. – that therefore could be grouped together into ‘phases’. The results show there to be six meso-phases, being (1) the Origin Phase; (2) the Saharan Transit Hubs Phase; (3) the Large Opportunity Hubs Phase; (4) the Hard Border Regions Phase; (5) the European Border Regions Phase; (6) the Refoulement Phase.

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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen