Forced migration and organized violence: A comparative study in Europe and the Americas (ForMOVe-I)

Understanding international migration and especially forced migration is of increasing importance in science and for societies at both national and global scales. While the nexus between migration and development has been studied extensively since the 1990s, organized violence emerged in the last two decades as another key factor interacting with forced migration. Organized violence is assumed to be a fuelling factor for mixed migration processes (e.g. organized criminal violence in Central America or civil wars in Middle East), but the current research reveals a gap of data concerning this nexus. This research project compares and contrasts forms of forced migration in its interrelation with organized violence by analysing biographies and trajectories. To do so, it takes into account local, national and global dimensions and analyse different levels of power relations that are both a cause for and a result of the forced migration-organized-violence-nexus. The project follows a transnational focus and comparison between the two transit countries Turkey and Mexico in order to:

• Analyse experiences and perceptions of forced migration and organized violence represented and reconstructed in actors’ migration trajectories and biographies.

• Produce original and primary data on the interrelation of organized violence and forced migration by implementing quantitative surveys, ethnographic fieldwork, narrative and semi-structured qualitative interviews, and document analysis.

• Establish a transnational research network of prestigious academic institutions working on the topic in a comparative perspective by organizing a series of international workshops, and document and disseminate the scientific research results.

The project gathers data at a micro (individuals and groups) and meso (organizations and local state actors) levels by applying techniques of standardized longitudinal survey, ethnographic visits to immigrant shelters and organizations, narrative biographical interviews with migrants, semi-structured expert interviews with representatives of organizations and politicians and document gathering as well as analysis of governance regimes. There is cooperation with partner institutions in countries of origin, transit and destination.