Anja Simonsen publishes new article on how EU governance shapes migrant journeys in the Mediterranean
CGC researcher Anja Simonsen has contributed the article "Risk, Improvisation, and Emergency Governance on the Mediterranean Sea" to a special issue of the journal Migration and Society edited by Tricia Redeker Hepner and Magnus Treiber. In the article Simonsen explores how the framing of migration as an emergency shapes EU governance and contributes to fatal encounters between migrants and authorities in Libya and the Mediterranean.
Simonsen’s article is based on fieldwork among European journalists and staff working with private search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean. It investigates the human consequences of the Anti-Refugee Machine (ARM), a term used to describe the ideological and material emergency measures employed by the European Union to curb irregular migration (Hepner & Treiber 2025).
While Somali migrants often view migration as a necessary response to the deteriorating situation in their country of origin, EU migration governance frames irregular migration as an emergency and a security threat. This framing, Simonsen argues, obscures the historical context and the lived realities of migrants.
Read the article on Berghahn Journals’ website.