Africa and Europe seem increasingly interconnected yet divided. Apart from the commonly mentioned factors of history and geographical proximity, both continents face a growing number and a broader variety of shared challenges, interests, and goals. As these cover various political domains from economy to security and from culture to mobility, relations can justifiably be regarded as of high strategic importance. However, the nature of this interconnectedness often remains more assumed than comprehensively analysed. The balance may not be even, but more importantly, it may not lead us in the direction a shared understanding of the past would lead us to believe. Acknowledging that the time had come to reassess the deep-seated belief that Africa remains dependent on European aid and offers little in return, the recently completed the Africa-EU relations, migration, development and integration (AEMDI) project brought into conversation leading academics, policy makers, political observers and practitioners from civil society to explore and examine alternatives for the relationship between the continents.
A collaboration between the University of Pretoria, the University of Zululand, and the University of Eastern Finland in implementing an action initiated under the Jean Monnet Activities within the Erasmus+ Programme Project Number – 587767-EPP-1-2017-1-ZA-EPPJMO-PROJECT arrived, through a series of events and academic confrontations, into a conclusion that the future of the continents is one of mutual dependence. The dynamics which simultaneously bind and separate the continents, however, remain understudied and deserve proper examination and reappraisal.
In seeking to contribute to that end, four book volumes were prepared based on the joint action:
This book challenges the common European notions about African migration to Europe and offers a holistic understanding of the current situation in Africa. It advocates a need to rethink Africa-Europe relations and view migration and borders as a resource rather than sources of a crisis.
Migrant movement from Africa is often misunderstood and misrepresented as invasion caused by displacement due to poverty, violent conflict and environmental stress. To control this movement and preserve national identities, the EU and its various member states resort to closing borders as a way of reinforcing their migration policies. This book aims to dismantle this stereotypical view of migration from Africa by sharing cutting-edge research from the leading scholars in Africa and Europe. It refutes the flawed narratives that position Africa as a threat to the European societies, their economies and security, and encourages a nuanced understanding of the root causes as well as the socioeconomic factors that guide the migrants’ decision-making. With chapters written in a concise style, this book brings together the migration and border studies in an innovative way to delve into the broader societal impacts of both. It also serves to de-silence the African voices in order to offer fresh insights on African migration – a discourse dominated hitherto by the European perspective.
Expanding Boundaries: Borders, Mobilities and the Future of Europe-Africa Relations (Routledge Border Regions Series): https://www.routledge.com/Expanding-Boundaries-Borders-Mobilities-and-the-Future-of-Europe-Africa/Laine-Moyo-Nshimbi/p/book/9780367539214
This book examines Africa-Europe relationships and intra-Africa relationships vis-à-vis migration. It analyses the African integration project that is being used to effectively manage migration within Africa and across its RECs, and harnessing it for development.
The book presents debates related to the EU’s hardening and securitisation of its external border against migrants from Africa. It shows that migration actually challenges Africa-European relations, which is discussed as an important theme in this book.
Authors in this book volume investigate several issues ranging from conundrums relating to migration between Africa and Europe to migration within Africa, but also in relation to borders and boundaries, its bearing on regional and continental integration and the significance of this in terms of relations between Africa and Europe. This book volume brings into conversation issues relating to the governance of migration for development, social cohesion and regional integration.
Migration Conundrums, Regional Integration and Development: Africa-Europe Relations in a Changing Global Order (Palgrave/Springer: Africa's Global Engagement: Perspectives from Emerging Countries): https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9789811524776
This book examines the enduring significance of borders in Southern Africa, covering encounters between people, ideas and matter, and the new spatialities and transformations they generate in their historical, social, economic and cultural contexts.
Situated within debates on borders, borderlands, sub- and regional integration, this volume examines local, grassroots and non-state actors and their cross-border economic and sociocultural encounters and contestations. Particular attention is also paid on the role they play in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region and its integration project in its multiplicity. The interdisciplinary chapters address the diverse human activities relating to cross-border economic and sociocultural encounters and contestations that are manifested through multiform and -scalar interactions between or among grassroots actors, involving engagements between grassroots actors and the state or its agencies, and/or to the broader arrangements that bear consequences of the first two upon regional integration. By bringing these different, at times contrasting, forms of interaction under a holistic analysis, this volume devises novel ways to understand the persistence and role of borders and their relation to new transnational and transcultural integrative phenomena at various levels, extending from the (nation-)state and the political to the cultural and social at the everyday level of border practices.
Borders, Sociocultural Encounters and Contestations: Southern African Experiences in Global View (Routledge Global Africa Series): https://www.routledge.com/Borders-Sociocultural-Encounters-and-Contestations-Southern-African-Experiences/Nshimbi-Moyo-Laine/p/book/9780367408466
This book discusses regional and continental integration in Africa by examining the management of migration across the continent. It examines borders and securitisation of migration and the challenges and opportunities that arise out of reconfigured continental demographics.
The book offers insights on intra-Africa migrations and highlights how intra-continental migration creates socio-economic and cultural borders. It explores how these borders, beyond the physical boundaries of states, including the Berlin Conference-constructed borders, create cultural divides, challenges for economic integration and cross-border security, and irregular migration patterns. While the movement of economic goods is valued for regional economic integration, the mobility of people is seen as a threat. This approach to migration contradicts the intentions of true integration and development, and triggers negative responses such as xenophobia that cannot be addressed by simply managing the physical border and allowing free movement. This book engages in a pivotal discussion of these issues, which are hitherto missing in African border studies, by demonstrating the ubiquity and overreaching influence of various kinds of borders on the African continent.
Intra-Africa Migrations: Reimaging Borders and Migration Management (Routledge Border Regions Series): https://www.routledge.com/Intra-Africa-Migrations-Reimaging-Borders-and-Migration-Management/Moyo-Laine-Nshimbi/p/book/9780367550462
For further information, please contact:
Dr Jussi P. Laine https://uefconnect.uef.fi/en/person/jussi.laine/
Dr Chris Changwe Nshimbi http://governanceinnovation.org/chris-nshimbi/