Making Routes: Mobility and Politics of Migration in the Global South

A rich interdisciplinary study of the diversity and dynamics of the migrations of displaced peoples across the Global South

By the end of 2022, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide had reached a record high of 100 million, the highest figure since the Second World War. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Taliban political takeover in Afghanistan exacerbated an already protracted global refugee situation, but climate-related events also played a part in forcing millions of people to leave their homes in search of more habitable living areas.

Making Routes: Mobility and Politics of Migrant in the Global South provides fresh understandings of mobility flows, transnational linkages, and the politics of migration across the Global South, in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Moving away from North-South, East-West binaries and challenging the conception that migratory movements are primarily unidirectional--from South to North--it explores how state policies, migrants’ trajectories, nationalism and discrimination, and art and knowledge production unfold in places as widespread as Egypt, Turkey, Myanmar, Nicaragua, and Haiti.

Seventeen academics, activists, and artists from a range of backgrounds and disciplines, including anthropology, cultural studies, ethnomusicology, and international relations reveal the diverse narratives, migration patterns, forms of agency, and laws that make up the complex reality of South-South migration, offering vital new pathways for research in migration studies today.

Contributors:
- Chowdhury R. Abrar, Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU), Dhaka, Bangladesh
- David Bolanos, Independent photographer, Costa Rica
- Danyel M. Ferrari, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, United States
- Leander Kandilige, University of Ghana, Accra
- Mélanie V. Léger-Montinard, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Duduzile S. Ndlovu, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
- Evrim Hikmet Öğüt, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul, Turkey
- Sara Sadek, The American University in Cairo, Egypt
- Tasneem Siddiqui, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
- Sally Souraya, Independent artist, London United Kingdom
- Allison B. Wolf, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia
- Kudakwashe Vanyoro, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
- Thomas Yeboah, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

Gerda Heck is assistant professor of sociology at the Department of Sociology, Egyptology, and Anthropology, and at the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo.

Eda Sevinin is an independent researcher. She received her PhD in 2022 from Central European University, Department of International Relations.

Elena Habersky is a research manager at the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo.

Carlos Sandoval-García is a professor of cultural studies at the University of Costa Rica, Costa Rica.

Ibrahim Awad is director of the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo.