Beyond External Borders: Multi-level analysis and comparative perspectives on migration governance

Participants of the workshop(from left)): Richard Staring, Aysen Üstübici, Beste Isleyen, Soledad Alvarez Velasco, Susanne Schultz, Thomas Faist, Sibel Karadag, Inka Stock, Lena Laube. Photo by Thomas Abel

On 16 and 17 March 2017, an international workshop on Beyond External Borders: Multi-Level Analysis and Comparative Perspectives on Migration Governance took place at the BGHS. The focus of the event was on the effects of the externalization policies of migration (in particular by the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (USA)). Particular attention was paid to the outsourcing and differentiation of border controls and the management of migration in countries of the global South.

The workshop attracted young, above all female, scientists from Turkey, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Germany: Soledad Alvarez Velasco (Kings College London, United Kingdom), Best Isleyen (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Sibel Karadag (Koc University, Turkey), Lena Laube, (University of Bonn, Germany), Richard Staring (University of Rotterdam, The Netherlands). Invited speaker was Thomas Faist (Bielefeld University). The workshop was organized by Yaatsil Guevara- Gonzalez, Susanne Schultz and Inka Stock (all Bielefeld University) as well as Aysen Üstübici (Koc University, Turkey).

After an introductory speech by Prof. Dr. Thomas Faist on Mechanisms of Externalization, two central questions were focused in a brainstorming: What exactly do we mean by externalization? and What are the effects of externalization?. An affinity mapping served the participants of the workshop to arrange various aspects of externalization: the perspectives of the countries of destination of migration, of origin and transit as well as the perspectives of different groups of actors (migrants, nation states and market-relevant actors, e.g. "smugglers").

The second workshop day was devoted to the presentation and discussion of various article abstracts from the workshop participants. Here, the contexts, mechanisms, instruments, actors and areas of externalization, which were developed together on the preceding day, played an important role.

With the workshop, another important step on the way to a planned special issue on the topic of externalization in a high-ranking academic journal has been made, which is to appear in the near future. Besides the questions concerning the definition and conceptualization of externalization, different research projects on migration policies and their effects, above all in the Global South, will be at the center.