Suchergebnisse

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and in particular the eastern part of the country, is characterized by a protracted conflict situation and is home to some of the world's most horrific documented cases of sexual violence against women. For many years now Congolese women in the diaspora have been engaged in initiatives to raise awareness of the sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) of Congolese women back home, addressing the root causes of the conflict and promoting specific peace and conflict resolutions. This article examines ways of protesting using art as a political tool in addressing SGBV in the DRC. In doing so, it highlights two politico-artistic projects by Congolese women activists living in Belgium: Hearth of a mother, a theatre piece and Stand up my mother, a photographic exhibition. This article aims to analyse these particular projects in terms of Tilly's 'repertoires of contention' (2006) as used by activists of the Congolese diaspora in order to make their voices heard.

This article examines the intersections between migrants' trajectories and digital technologies by analysing the role of mobile digital devices in the everyday lives of migrants in transit. We introduce the novel concept of techno-borderscapes to rethink transit zones as sites of embodied and virtual encounters among various state and non-state actors and to unravel the intersections between digital securitisation, humanitarianism and activism. Based on narrative, participatory and ethnographic research with migrants in transit at the France–UK border and ongoing transnational collaborations with a sub-group of former camp residents, our research shows that digital devices shape migrants' experiences of transit, their migratory trajectories and their transnational encounters. Confronted with increased border securitisation, migrants use mobile technologies to bypass borders, create new forms of migrant-to-migrant protection and assistance, and articulate their political voice. Moving away from the general representation of transit spaces as singular points in a unidirectional migratory trajectory, our findings show that these spaces are sites of confluence of multi-directional mobilities. Transit zones are not just 'in-between' spaces but rather transformative and transforming spaces in which mobile digital technologies play a significant role.

The welfare aspects of intra-European migration remain an important and controversial topic of academic and political debates. These discussions touch upon the classical 'welfare magnet' or 'welfare tourism' hypothesis. Transcending the politicised concept of 'benefit tourism', our paper examines how welfare-state considerations in relation to migration decisions vary across the life course. Relying on micro-level qualitative research focusing on Spanish intra-EU movers, the paper probes deeper into how individuals perceive welfare systems, analysing the subtle and nuanced meanings of different aspects of the welfare for their migration decisions. We focus more specifically on welfare provisions in terms of health care, compulsory education, child support and other care responsibilities, unemployment and pensions and retirement. Our research indicates that, in studies on the migration–welfare nexus, it is necessary to move beyond the current narrow focus on the welfare magnet hypothesis and to examine how diverse welfare arrangements continuously and dynamically set the context for migration decisions at various stages of an individual's life. The results of our research show how features of the Spanish welfare system, in comparison to those of potential destination countries, might act as both a trigger and/or a barrier to migration. As such, we get a 'thicker description' of the role which welfare might play in shaping individuals' eventual migratory aspirations and decisions.