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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay Hello everybody I am Roger world and or i'm professor of sociology and director of the UCLA Center for the study of international migration.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: I am delighted to welcome you to today's session, which is part of a year long series that we are organizing with our friends and colleagues at the Center for comparative immigration studies.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: at the University of California San Diego and before I introduce today's speaker, I just want to mention that this winter, we have been alternating between our book talks and.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: A series of emerging immigration scholars workshops, this week, obviously the book talk next week is the workshop and next week's.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: workshop will focus on immigrant incorporation will meet next Friday from 12 to two at the same place so without further ado i'm delighted to.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Introduce today's speaker Molina Bologna from the University of Antwerp, so let me particularly thank me Liliana for being willing to be with us at 9pm.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: And for time and Molina will present her book The big gamble migration of Eritreans to Europe, published in 2019 by the University of California press.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: We had originally been scheduled for a comment by kelsey Norman.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: At rice university but her Internet capacity has been knocked out by events in Texas so David Fitzgerald has kindly agreed to step in and will comment falling Malaysia and stocks on Molina will present.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: comment by David response by Molina and then we will open up for questions, please send me your questions, either in the chat or by raising your hand so without any further ado, Elena, the floor is yours.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Well, thank you so much, Roger and also David for inviting me today i'm really pleased and honored to be to be here with you today.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Let me share my presentation with you.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Okay.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Do you know when people tell you, you should not judge a book from its cover well, I hope that you will judge my book, partly from its cover at least, not only because.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The painting entitled said that exile by Ambassador will die is absolutely beautiful and, at least in my perspective, but also because it conveys an important message that I also tried to convey through to my book.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: These biblical images of an exodus are interpreted through the colors and the symbol of very, very tree and culture.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: show the challenges that hundreds of thousands of very trans face when they escape their country, you can see the pyramids, for instance at the bottom of the painting that become skyscrapers.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Like hinting at the kind of African metropolis where a lot of Eritrean refugees and have been stuck or the small grace close to the sun, for instance, that tell the story of all the people that died during the journey.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: But there is more, these images show also how migration as gained an eschatological value for many Eritreans What do I mean by eschatological.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Reaching the promised land somehow often a destination, that is imagined to be somewhere in the US, Canada or Northern Europe means not only safety for every trans but also prospects to study to work and to help their family members who have who have left behind.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: This is the social, moral and symbolic context of the big gamble of my book.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Based on two years of research across countries that poor countries, Eritrea it up to them, and it to me I I tried to reconstruct the aspiration yet and the expectations of Eritreans, who are ready to risk it all to reach their destination.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: But before delving into the core of the book, let me, let me tell you how everything started.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So it was 2008 and I was a 23 year old the anthropology student at the University of Ghana, due to the lack of asylum facilities in the country at the time, some.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Asylum seekers had been sent to touristic village not far away from the University of Ghana, this one in the picture that you see is exactly that touristic village that became a reception Center for for a few months in the winter.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: I started to go there to that reception Center to mystic village, together with a group of other students from the University of Santa to collect the stories of these asylum seekers and I have to say that I didn't get much of my homework done in that time but.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: But I became friends with with many of these asylum seekers, many of them were practically my age and they mostly came from Eritrea.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So, since then, I became involved in the life of this of this young man and.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And I was witnessing their attempts to leave Italy to try to reach other destinations in Europe.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Italy, Italy has provided them with with the legal protection is stable legal protection, but they felt that the countries like Switzerland Germany Norway could provide that their prospects for.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Labor market and in terms of integration, so, most of them tried over and over to reach.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And these these migration of density were, in my opinion, partly because the not understandable because.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: As you may know, in Europe there is a regulation that obliges item seekers to remain in the first country where they they have landed and their fingerprints are often taken and recorded in.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Now, in a biometric database and and because of that even the people who try to move onwards from Italy are often resent back so I became more and more interested to understand.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Why do they want to waste so much time, energy and I was even risk their lives, because if we think about the crossing, for instance, the UK, or even the crossing from Italy to to friends.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Why, why are they ready to to risk so much to reach the destination, which was likely to expel them again.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: I wanted to understand.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: That part of the journey but also the condition that led them to their country and the journey that they before them and and in the idea that these kind of.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Research would have helped me also to understand to why, after thousands of kilometres and years of journey they still had such a high motivation to onwards.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And I was unsatisfied mostly with.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The deterministic explanation of refugee movements and representation of refugees as victims devoid of choice, devoid of desires devoid of aspirations.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: and

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: This is why I decided for.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Between 2011 and 2014 to dedicate the rest of the all of my time and in trying to understand.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: understand the journeys of this of this of these refugees so between these 2011 and 2014 I was in.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: I visited the family homes of the people that I had met in Italy, I was in a refugee camps in Ethiopia and I was living in a.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: neighborhood in Addis Ababa, where there is a high concentration of Italian refugees, and I was then leaving in cartoon with the young mother grandmother and her child and I suddenly bumped into some smuggling operation, while being there.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: This is just tell you the kind of stories that you will find in the book that kind of protagonist and the people that that that really are are at the heart of this book.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Why.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Why Eritrea is such a such an important case it's a significant a significant case study because.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: As most of the refugee producing countries today is a country that has been experiencing chronic crisis, what does it mean it means that people are not just escaping war.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: There is no war in orem there was no worry meditate at least when I did my where I did my research, but people are escaping structural violence, the likely with disruption poverty, and these are the kinds of.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Mixed factors political, economic and social that correct that is often the countries of origin of many refugees today, so it is an important context to understand how communities living in chronic crisis organize themselves and the role that migration place in them.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: As I show throughout the book telling the stories of those who want to leave but cannot forced migration acquires here all another meeting.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: In fact, in Eritrea, while young people are forced to serve the nation for limited salaries, without the possibility to become independent have a family or build a future that desire to leave and the the imaginary is a new life in Europe and the US becomes widespread.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Those who are immobile them are those who don't have a choice in this context, so it's rather the idea of forced immobility rather than forced migration that works that is suitable in in such context.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Those who remain immobile they do so because they they they don't have enough.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Financial resources because they don't have a family network in the diaspora that allows them that they that would be the journey or sometimes also because they don't have the physical strength to face a very challenging journey, like the one that.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: That that respect them.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Once they leave.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: i'm.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Also, the concept of force immobility applies to those refugees, whom I met in the camps in integration or at the people that i've met in Sudan, for instance.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: ambassador, who will die the painter of of the cover of the book, in fact, still sits today in the guy in a word, zone, after more than 10 years that is left editorial.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And again, the lack of choice applies somehow to too many of my friends those ones that I met in 2008 and wanted to leave Italy but were systematically returned again and again back to Italy.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: For all of them.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: In mobility in was not so much a physical status, but rather a social and an existential one as they remain dependent on family members abroad, and they are not often able to.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: To provide for their families, who are left behind and in such a way they remain in a kind of a state of perennial adolescence, and they don't reach that social recognition that has led them in the first place to.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: leave the country to leave any trail.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So policy social economic constraints that are crucial to understand why some people move and why some other people don't move, but aspirations are also crucial to understand why certain people are moving another don't.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And every trans aspiration for mobility are well rooted in a decade long history of integration and they're continuously reproduced the bi trans national flows of information, money and images that connects Eritrea Eritreans in different parts of the world.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: This bundle of geographic imaginary aspirations overlap with a shared morality, we could say.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: This shirt morality assign a very symbolic value, a strong value not simply to the fact of integrating like you know.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: concepts like cultural migration would.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Would would point to, but the value is specifically attached to certain destinations that's why drawing drawing on the studies of.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Migration machineries but also classic studies of.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The classic study of.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: obese a multi purity and exile and I talked about cosmologists of destination.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: cosmology of destinations I use the plural twilight that these are not by any means fixed set of representations our.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: aspirations, but the can change, according to the people, according to their background their gender, their age.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And this is partly what I tried to illustrate in Chapter two, when I talked about the specific case of the economic, ethnic group.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And while while most Eritreans that I met, who I was my research we're ready to to risk it all in order to move on words from.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Ethiopia from Sudan and from Italy, the cinemas instead had refused.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Resettlement opportunity to the US.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Because they perceived Eritrea, as their ultimate destination so very differently from other at trans and mostly belonging to the beginning and group.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The cinema wanted to their their final destination was was not I had in.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: In Europe, or in the US, but was instead back back home back in editorial.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So, again here was someone chooses to stay other chooses to move.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The kind of the paradox of choice and that that I eat that I wanted to to understand more while I while I started my journey was was coming back and back to me.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: People were obliged to be immobile and but some others also chose to be immobile some people were forced to flee, certainly, but also some other people chose to move on words, in spite of the risk.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Although the returns that I met in.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Ethiopia and in Sudan live in extremely constraints circumstances where the freedom to move, work and study was limited certainly the Allies were not at risk.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: At the time, and now all another story, considering the current war in Ethiopia.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So anyway, at the time that the question was why then would they embark into extremely dangerous journeys through the desert and the scene.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Where they not aware of the risks that they were facing.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So the answer to this question is clearly that, yes, we were aware of the risk.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Why do I say clearly is because most of the people that I met in camps or even in disobey by owning cartoon they had friends or family members that had died.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: during the journey and many others had suffered the consequences of a failed attempt themselves on their skin somewhere kidnapped in the in the CNI trying to reach Israel, and then they were during two camps.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: No matter these experiences they're still motivated to do move onwards and.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The, the idea is the idea that has often been put forth the in in migrations, that is, when talking about high risk migration is that.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: perception of risk is relative and.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: People may prefer risking to die than facing the certainty of a social death back home, so the idea that that exactly the to leave without a future to give without the possibility of acquire of of having any social recognition by your community by your family to become independent.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: But there is more to it, there is an aspect that is often not very much you can see that in in in the study of Irish migration, and that was very relevant when it came to the case of of Eritrean migration that that was studying, that is to say that these journeys are made of.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Sick the repeated and sequential attempts.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: In a in a way, people were trying over and over at different stages of the migration process to to move onwards and at different stages, there were different risk and investment and losses at stake.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: This is how I started to think, to what extent we could use a metaphor, like the one of the gamble to to understand the way in which refugees.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Face migration.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: or migrants not not not necessarily refugees and.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: What what does these things have in common, gambling and migration.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Well, in my in my perspective, both involves a chance that involves risk and the investment.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Individuals are willing to risk something in order to win, and then there is also a systematic tendency to repeat this.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: These attempts.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: While I use this metaphor for because it's it's useful, I think, to to delve more into into and understand more what what people go through, as I will explain to you also.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Right after this slide it's also very important to consider and to say that gambling and high risk migration have are also very different in the sense that.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: completely different priests are at stake gamblers thing was he bet their money and refugees, here they think the best their lives, if not have that one off of their families and their communities as their communities are very dependent on the remittances.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: However, this analogy is that is better for of gambling and high and high risk migration allow us to understand why people that.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: In a way, have a choice still felt compelled to move onwards and onwards so.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: In my in gambling is that is there is this notion notion of entrapment and this notion refers to the condition of gamblers who feel obliged to continue batting all into the perception that they've gone too far to give up.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: What does it mean it means that people feel.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: obliged to bet again and again, because they have already invested.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Too much money in the case of the gamblers but in the case of refugees, as we said is not just money is also energies time is stress is affection, is that the loss of home.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And, and it wouldn't make sense to have sacrificed all this things without being able actually to to win so without being able to get to the destination, to the place that which would allow them to.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Not only to reach their own safety but also to provide.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: To provide the resources for survival of the family that has been left that's be left behind in in editorial most of the time.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So and treatment, I think here is the key notion, not only to to describe a state of mind to describe.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: What people used to tell me this.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: This quote to get Richard nine trying, you may recognize it is that it's a song by 50 cents, but it was also.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: a sentence that was repeated to me by by people who were in this condition, who who were ready to risk it all in order to reach their their.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Their desired destination and and it gives a good a good idea of what they were ready to do in order to exactly to to reach the promised land where, as we said at the beginning to reach this the jackpot if we want to use instead of the gambling metaphor.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And it's also interesting, I think, from a policy point of view, because it shows how why these migration attempts are so resilient to policy obstacles like.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Like the w regulation in Europe that I told you before that implies that people have to remain in the first country where they were the arrived in Europe and, instead, my in my friends in line for months kept trying again and again, sometimes with with success, actually.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So in conclusion, why.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: I think should.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: We would be interesting to read this book.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Well, first of all it's open access and so that's that's a good thing for.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: For allowing everyone who's interested to to read it, but I think it's the book tries to go beyond conventional explanation of forced migration.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And to try to explore what choice means for migrants that escaped from chronic crisis and protected displacement, a condition that as the United Nations that is interest the concerns more than 78% of the refugee population worldwide.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: It shows that.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Why While talking about forced migration is very important also to talk about this volitional let's say aspect of migration.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: is to say aspiration desires value and and to understand how these aspects do impact on them, migration, not only in the first, the first step, so when they leave their country but also how they keep motivating people while they're in the journey.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: I host the thing, there is a potential of for the gambling analogy to to to interpret.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: high risk migration, not only in the context of every day, but also for other migration flows.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And there is a number there, there are a number of there is a number of issues that I have not been able to cover in this presentation and, such as the complex relationship between smugglers and clients.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The role of families in secondary mobility in Europe, as well as the methodological challenges in conducting research in authoritarian settings.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: But I hope you will be able.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: To read this in the book, well, I thank you for your attention.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay terrific all right, so thank you so much Milena.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: And why don't we give the floor over to David.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): Yes, well thanks thanks very much Melinda and and Roger, first let me congratulate Molina because this book just this week one the honorable mention.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): From the ethnicity nationalism and migration study section of the international studies association.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): So it's also a book that i've shared with my own graduate students and seminar it's been getting a lot of attention for a good reason, so let me tell you why I think that's the case and also invite Molina to.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: elaborate some of the arguments here.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): You know most work on migration decision making look simply at one part of a migration trajectory a place of origin of transit destination.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): But to understand migrant decision making these samples really are sampling on the.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): Studies are sampling on the dependent variable of migrants who actually made that journey and then they tried to retrospectively recreate.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): Those decision making processes or less commonly you have studies that ask people in the place of origin.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): Why, they have stayed or why they intend to go, but here we have a multi sided project and it is looking at this entire part of a potential trajectory so we see that these push and pull factors are very much alive the dynamic.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): People are making decisions, not as a one time act, but rather as a very important sequence it's elaborated with a lot of ethnographic detail.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): There are a lot of studies and migration that are enamored of communication and transportation technologies that are started to change everything.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): Here the transportation technologies are unremarkable people are traveling across the Mediterranean and a motorized dinghy or they're traveling by land and a bus or truck sometimes even walking.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): But the book does show that communication technologies really are shaping migration and some important ways.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): Not simply by tying migrants to their places of origin and a way that the trends of nationalism literature emphasizes.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): But by channeling social pressure on migrants to continue their journey on to other countries.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): That communications are ways that members of social networks, try to influence and even control each other.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): migrants are constantly being reminded about their family obligations and back home, that there are greater opportunities further away that the opportunity cost of staying wherever they are, are too high.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): And so the ethnographic account here pulls together this vision of a migration system that's evolving in real time.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): The book highlights the importance of gift giving not just remittances but material gifts and and some heartbreaking scenes the expectations of gifts of the part of those who stayed.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): In Eritrea are often higher than what migrants are able to afford which pushes them to take even more risks to try to get to more attractive destinations.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): So this discussion of gift giving is really a welcome intervention and the sociological literature, which has not paid a lot of attention to material gifts, maybe, with the exception of the.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): About like buy in boxes, to the Philippines, the classical anthropological work which has been much more interested in gift giving.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): talks about it as a way to generate status and here this work is showing that sending gifts back home that are considered to be inadequate can actually reduce status there's there's a risk of reducing status.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): And that's important because the migrants understand that, and so, as we said they feel compelled to keep moving to generate higher earnings and send better quality gifts back.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): So one question I have is why don't migrants default on those gift giving obligations, given that gift giving itself is risky and it's competitive it's judged against the most economically successful migrants we've made it all the way to the most promise lands and in Canada or Sweden.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): And I wonder if part of that is if there are people who do default, but that the research method which.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): is trying to reach respondents at interviewees through social networks is unable to access those who have simply fallen out of the social network, so are there are there.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): Are people who are part of the disconnected population that maybe you can reach directly but whom you could learn about.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): by talking to other people in the broader Eritrean population.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): A key concept in the book is of this cosmology of destinations and it's not simply a ranking of global South versus global North and their rankings of different countries within Africa.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): And within Europe and North America, while Italy as much love by American tourists bologna's respondents rated it as a middling destination for achieving a dignified life as a racialized Eritrean asylum seeker compared to say, Canada, so those in Italy, want to keep moving.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): And it's this multiplicity of destinations within maybe not a universally but a widely shared ranking.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): I think could invite us to rethink the Economist Michael pure his notion of a dual frame of reference in which immigrants evaluate their jobs and their status with regard to where they are from.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): And that enables them to withstand all kinds of difficult working conditions and host country discrimination hostility.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): And, by contrast, the second generation that's born in that host country doesn't have a host.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): That doesn't have a frame of reference and the parents country of origin and therefore they're raising their socio economic expectations.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): So the situation that is described in this book it's much more variegated than in periods account, so my question here is what are the implications for understanding migrants willingness to withstand.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): A lack of prestige and work and discrimination and so forth, when they have these multiple points of reference, not just to and what are the frames of reference for Eritreans born and raised outside of Eritrea.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): Another major concept in the book, obviously, is the notion of taking a gamble gambling is a highly individualized individualistic metaphor.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): about taking a new risks, including the deadly crossings of the Sahara and the Mediterranean.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): And it seems to be in some tension with the implied household model in the book, which draws more at least implicitly from a new economics of Labor migration perspective.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): The book does explicitly point out that household send some Members abroad to help them support those who stayed behind it's a strategy to reduce the risk of having all of the households productive assets in one basket.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): If everyone were to choose to stay put so my question here is to what extent are the households explicit about reducing these risks by placing members and more than one location.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): In other words, and all of these ethnographic moments of living with families of talking with people.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): Often and extended situations are you able to actually see or hear people talk about this notion of collectively making these kinds of decisions and are the risks of mobility assessed collectively as well when taking into account the risks of immobility.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): I also wonder if any movements beyond Italy to say to northern Europe, are they really that risky since the refugee regime will return them to Italy, not resell them to Eritrea.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): that's something of a safety net for gamblers So yes, as we just heard your regular crossings are against state policy but they're also enabled by it, and I wonder if people would be willing to move beyond Italy, in the absence of that non retro mom net.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): last question is there is always a perennial question, and these discussions of whether.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): The people who are in an experience are refugees versus migrants I highly recommend to you the methodological dependence appendix.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): where she makes clears that she's a sociologist not a refugee status determination officer or a lawyer rejects for analytical purposes the refugee migrant distinction.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): I do wonder, though, if you could say something about the extent to which the interviewees see themselves or represent themselves as refugees and, if so, in what situations was there anything surprising about those self understandings and those representations in that regard.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): or close just by signaling for the readers the richness of a couple of other topics that we didn't get a chance to get into yet.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): One of the long discussions about how marriage effects marriage markets sorry how migration affects marriage markets back in Eritrea and the idea of business marriages in particular.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): The methods chapter really is excellent, I recommend it certainly to any graduate students but really to all of us working in this this field for it's very candid.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): reflections about a lot of the ethical quandary is as well as the methodological challenges of doing this kind of intensive multi sided fieldwork.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): And I will conclude just by underscoring what Milena said that this is an open access book it's available as part of the University of California presses luminato series.

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David FitzGerald (UCSD): That means that you can buy a hard copy, if you wish, but you can also download the entire book for free as a PDF file it's ideal for classroom adoption anywhere in the world, and I hope you learn from it as much as I did, thank you and I look forward to your comments.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay, thank you, David, that was a terrific comment okay Milena the floors back to you.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Yes, thank you so much for for it, this very deep and elaborated comments, so I will try my best to address all of them.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Well okay first.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Absolutely communication technology has an impact, not only in the way people organize their journeys, but also very much in terms of family pressures, so the fact that.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: family obligations are reminded through this.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Through social media like Facebook and other kinds of social networks.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Or the phone, even if I have to say that in Eritrea.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: There is no 3G or 4G and and so, except for let's say the main urban centers that people are somehow cut out of the Internet so phones remain the only way in which people can communicate and often the network is not so good so it's not so easy to be to be in touch, but even then.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Even then certainly phones and mobile phones and and social media to play a part in putting pressure.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: On migrants and then in, for that matter, migrants, also are ready to take even more risk to do onwards and.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Another thing that it should be said also is that until until recently, Ethiopia and Eritrea didn't have any communication, so it was not really possible to call if you were a refugee and you're good to go to call Eritrea.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: or the other way around, because of because of the war between the two country or the Northeast in a worse situation between the two countries, but what I wanted to say.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Is that interesting interesting enough, it was not only the presence of communication, but also the absence of communication with family that pushed refugees to move onwards, let me explain.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Because people felt ashamed be many of them have by research participants in Italy that were not in a good position with economic position and could not send money back home.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: felt too ashamed to call home and say how are you.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Because, as they don't have any times it's not only about keeping in touch, but we know that they are suffering and and we don't feel like just calling to say how are you and not being able actually to do anything for them.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So, actually, many people have cut ties with home and the fact of moving on words the words was also somehow penalized to trying to get in touch again with the family back home, because at that point once once they were more settled.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: In a country that would provide them with more Labor market prospects for instance or.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: or some salary or.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: They would have been able to get in touch again with their families and that's a bit like the path that I saw among many people.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: However, also, as you as you, as you pointed out, David, I think it makes sense that the people that that have are part of the network are more easily to to be researched the white people that have disconnected themselves because they didn't want to.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: comply with family, social obligations are some out cut out of the network and so less reachable so that that makes sense.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: At the same time, I mean during my experience, I met.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: I mean I I heard many stories of interactive.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Networks let's say people that for a while fell apart because the expectations of the family we're not we're not fulfilled by.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Even by the older generation of very TRAN migrants that arrived in Europe in the 70s, or the 80s, but then afterwards they were be connected and then again they started to contribute to.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Family survival back in the day, but also financing the migration of have nephews or nieces that were to leave the country, for instance.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So, to what extent are families involved in deciding where people and.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So here also it's a it's a it's it's much more.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Complex I would say that.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: That we could that what could see him from.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: From simply thinking that families get together and plan where where their stance, where the children and daughters also would go in terms of like also trying to to measure the opportunities and the prospects that this migration would lead to also for the family, because as.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: it's it's kind of strange in the sense that there is a play of silence and of things that should be sad and things that should not be sad, so there is a general pressure for people to to leave the country, and people and migrants are in a way.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: considered a positively considered and even.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah represented as heroes in the united way and not only not only by the public discourse, but also in families, through them, because they're, the ones who were helping families in times of needs.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So this is the general context, however, families would never push.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: their sons and daughters to leave the country because, because the because they are very aware that as much as immobility is a huge risk mobility is also a huge risk people.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: can end up in prison for many years if they're caught by by soldier crossing the border and people can die on the on the journey we know families know very well this things and.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So it's it's a it's a kind of it's complex it's it's not it's not easy in the sense of there is not a rational easy explanation how people planned that there is no direct planning done at least that's what I have what I have seen.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Unless in some specific cases in which families actually decided to leave all together, because they have some specific prospects, but most of the time, it is an individual decision that you can, in a context that encourages migration to some extent, but it's also very.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah very conservative and very respectful towards parents, not to worry them not to as as I mean actually is that is very relatable for all of us, I would think.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: and definitely I mean, as you as you were saying David the risks of migration, at the beginning of the journey are much higher than the ones at the end of the journey so for people that are in Italy and try to move on worse.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah the risks are not as high as and when they're crossing the Mediterranean or when they're crossing the desert, at the same time.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So they do, they do not perceive those risks as high as the ones they have faced certainly themselves, but in practice they are actually very high risks because people really waste years and years, and this often leaves them in in a condition of psychological stress or.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Ashley they it leaves them less resourceful than they were when they were in the in camps in Ethiopia, for instance, in terms of.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: A psychological resourcefulness so.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: As much as they do not perceive this risks has.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: On high risks, but these are very high risk of the end of the day, in the sense that they they're mining.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Much of their of their life afterwards, so people who were actually younger that also that there are the stories of people going mad but yeah it's it's.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: it's it's a bit like that, I mean there are a lot of there's a lot of psychological stress and related to actually being returned from from these northern European countries and and not being able actually to fulfill the mission for which you have left Eritrea.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And finally, the representation of How do people represent themselves as refugees and, yes, definitely every trends of.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: My research participants in general tend to represent themselves as as refugees as people who differently from voluntary migrants or economic migrants had a real political reason to leave to leave their country so.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And it was a very important.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: For instance, was the way in which they they present themselves when I was when I was in Council, and I was asking.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah why they were there, and it was very important, also in in Italy, when they were trying to claim some social rights in Italy, for instance, so the fact that.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The fact that the Italian Italian system would give them a legal protection, but that one but not then would not allow them to provide them with housing or social stipend.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: This was this was seen as as very unfair because differently from other.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Labor migrants are voluntary myron so economic migrants, they were refugees, and for that they weren't needed to they claimed kind of different protection than others, so this is a somehow.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The context in which I, I saw this the claim on being refugees being.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Stronger.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay, well, thank you so much million for the very complete reply right, as you can.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Imagine a quite a few questions from the audience, so why don't we all read them and then we can deal with them one by one, so.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: This first one question is from say fuller ohs court.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Thank you for this interesting and insightful presentation, you mentioned aspirations of migrants, what are the reasons to major incentives for migrants who keep taking risks to continue their journeys.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Secondly, isn't characterizing migrants as gamblers are talking about the compulsion from ability problematic.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Especially in terms of the implications of this policy like trying to prevent people from taking risks deemed unreasonable, which could be easily used to legitimize imposition of state interest on mobility.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Yes, thank you for the question actually, this is a question that comes to me.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Very often, in the sense that.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The analogy between refugees and gamblers is often felt as as problematic.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: By people.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Well, I think that.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: What first of all, as I said, it's an analogy, and, as I explained very clearly it's it's the way to understand better or certain approach to migration, a reason, the reason why people keep trying and and I do think that there are structural similarities between.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The way in which gamblers repeatedly take risk and invest.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: But as I said, there are also very essential and fundamental differences, as I explained in in my book, but I was also explaining other publications and the main differences, and I agree.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: With you safe law are the stakes, and that what what is at stake for for for these two groups of people, so, as I said, on the one hand, is mostly money and on the other hand, is is their life and.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And, and also the the condition at the outset of the best if we want to keep using these these metaphors so.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The the idea that refuges take this choice, already in a context of vulnerability so in a context in which.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The choices available are already extremely limited and constraints, while gamblers it could be the case, also gunderson as there are a lot of sociological studies about.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The fact that gambling is connected also to poverty, at the outset, for instance.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: But but it's not necessarily the case for for gamblers so it's it's very important let's say to.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: ya to keep this tool to keep the differences and the similarities in mind, but I do think that the, the idea is this analogy, and the idea of entrapment.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: allows to understand a lot in this kind of repeated and the sequential high risk migration.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay terrific now a question from natalie by.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: i'm very much looking forward to reading your.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Your book do I understand correctly that this book is a result of your PhD research and corresponding dissertation.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: If so, did you complete your PhD through publications or a monograph if a monograph is the book and the adaptation of your dissertation could you comment on the process of publishing your PhD researchers, a book.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: All right, yes and yes, it is the result of my PhD research and I completed my PhD through.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: monograph i've always had in mind that I wanted to write a book, since I was a child, so it was a bit of my my dream becoming true and.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And, well, it was a very long and painful process if you want me to comment on it now, I was there, it was long, in the sense that I finished my PhD in 2015 and.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The bookstore the live in 2019 so after.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Four years of research, I had other for using which I I which I spent trying to adapt book time to adapt the thesis into a book.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay terrific a question from Federico true how did you inform us perceive you are interact with you when you conducted research and Italy and contrast to when you were in East Africa.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: What would main pros and cons of conducting research in your home country and contrast to East Africa.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: As.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Well, I think it's not only about geographic location, but it was about my specific position with this group of people, since the start and, as I said, I was, I was their friend before being a researcher so.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: This allowed me into a network of people that I wouldn't have access to, otherwise I mean because, because I was known as a part of their young I was like.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: A trusted friend, then they they they give me contact today they hosted me at home they they give me the context of their families, even if the context of the families where.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Some people refuse to give the conduct of their families, because they because they were not in touch with the families, after several years, as I explained before, so it was more about my my specific position with this group of people, rather than the fact that I was in.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: That, I was in Italy or was in Eritrea.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: or in as you're you're in Sudan, because recently I mean I I keep doing research, and I also went back, for instance, to Rome to do research with with refugees but with refugees, but the people that my friends let's say you have mostly left the country so.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So now, I have a completely different position towards that, but the kind of access that I get to information is that is much more limited.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: I could go on and on about position ality and then.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: A question from gene beaman thanks so much for your talk, I look forward to reading your book, I was wondering if you could speak to the connections between your book and work on the black Mediterranean slash black Europe.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And maybe that's something that I will have to investigate in the future, I don't I have not, I have not investigated enough this the connection between between my work and and this and black monitoring and like you were.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay, the question from Elizabeth milliken.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: You mentioned quote popular images quite as part of what.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: hold on second part, as part of what creates the cosmology is of destination for migrants can you talk more about what you mean by popular images and the impact of media and the Internet and the conception of the value of certain destinations over others.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Well, also as we've discussed before.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Especially among urbanized the Youth in in Eritrea.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: images that are diffused through to Facebook and a lot of social media are an important part of how this imaginary is of life outside everything is so certainly.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah even even images of of modernity so skyscrapers and swimming pools and flashy cars are all ingredients of this kind of imagination.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: But as I, as I, as I have to, as I said before, also to David it's also yeah.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Not everyone has access to the Internet in in Eritrea and so many people are just cannot have it.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: But what is important is also that.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The kinds of media that are accessed in Eritrea, are very variety it's, also in terms of DVD, for instance.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: They have TV coming from Saudi Arabia from.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: From the me res.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: From from also from from Europe from the US, so it was quite impressive to see how how people were updated on the latest news actually more updated than.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The average Italian person, probably because they had such a wide wide range of access the wide wide range of media sources, and it was funny enough that people.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: When I arrived in the beginning, they were telling me we've heard that there is a very bad economic crisis in Italy, so how you doing how your how you're coping with it.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And so they were they were very aware and definitely these these images from the media have a very important role in.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: In shaping image, injuries and bharti also the cosmologist of destination, even if, as I try to explain in the book The cosmology of destination in my idea, at least in my elaboration is not only.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: it's not only an imaginary but it's also.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: it's also a morality so and it's made of norms that are rooted in history, and so they are not so easily they don't shoot it doesn't live let's say the cosmology of.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The several cosmologists of destination are affected by this kind of cultural diffusion mechanism through the media, but they also very much rooted in the in the past and the symbolic history of the country.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay, thank you a question from Ted copper like odyssey or i'm intrigued by the metaphor of gambling and the idea of entrapment or the sunk cost fallacy oftentimes gamblers continue to take big risks, even after winning the quote big one was this mentality present.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: In any of the Eritrean refugees who did ultimately make it to the UK or France or Canada, did they exhibit a stronger proclivity to take other risks in life as well.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: that's a very interesting question actually I.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: know I would say, know that the people that I know that have reached the candidate that is somehow the highest possible destination in in their imaginary.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: have somehow stayed there.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: But there are studies, for instance of.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: of Somali migrants that that reaches the north Northern Europe us or Denmark or Sweden and Norway, and then they shift again to the UK.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Because of the family networks or because I mean some scholars also argue that there is a kind of cultural migration again that influences, they are ongoing desire to be to be on the move.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: But yeah it would be, it would be very interesting to actually pursue this this question further, so thank you that for for asking.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay, a question from mizner Akbar considering the current the international asylum system is designed in a way that ultimately disregards the Agency and aspirations of migrants in choosing the final destination.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: What do you hope for with respect to policy.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Policy reform or in your opinion is silent policy reform unlikely to shift the response and behavior of migrants from Eritrea, considering the overarching power of imaginary is and aspirations.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah Thank you music, for it is very important question.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: I, what do I hope for well I.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: I certainly hope for a system that does take into account the people's that aspiration and people social network because.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Because while doubling regulation at least that one mean I don't know midnight if you're if you are aware of this regulation is certainly.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: a regulation that had doesn't have.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: has not been let's say successfully.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: did not lead to much success, not in terms of implementation in the sense that that people can.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Keep being sent back to the first country of arrival in Europe, but they also keep moving back to the country where they may want to go, so in this way, like it's a waste of resources, even from a policy making point of view.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And also because it has very high human costs on the people as we, as I said before, as much as Italy or Greece or Spain or they're they're not.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: they're not comparable with with with our countries where where people are not safe but but still it implies a lot of stress to be to be Center to be sent back over and over.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So I do hope for for a reform of this dominant regulation that would take into account the fact that people have contacts and that resource social resources.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And they can count on these resources, also in terms of integration, so they can count on uncles so they can count on the cousins that are already settled in.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: In in other countries in order to facilitate their their adaptation into the new environment and I, and I think that just sticking to the idea of keeping people in the first country where they arrive is is not is not successful so nor for refugees, nor for for policy.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay, I would like to actually build on that question I have and the question comes in two variants I mean one thing that strikes me and listening to your presentation is that.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: The cosmology is of destinations as understood by your respondents seem to be very different from those of the Italians, I mean after all the the.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: GDP per capita in Italy is much lower than Sweden or Germany or Canada, so all of the Italians should be migrating if they if they held the same cosmology of destination, so why is it that the.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: nutrients have a cosmology of destination, that is so much more ambitious than those of the Italians now.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: or, for that the Spaniards of the Greeks, I mean those countries should be emptying out and all of those people can go but they're staying in place So how should we understand the disparity remember related question is, I mean if you think about what would be a meaningful reform.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: To European asylum policy well.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Certainly, part of the answer has got to be.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: acceptance and resettlement all through the EU that means, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, all of those countries have to accept refugees everybody cannot go to Sweden.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: But if that's true, I mean I can't imagine what could be another meaningful sustainable asylum policy, but if that's true.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: doesn't that imply a significant tension between what is what is fair, obviously in unjust world on justice and, but what is a fear response to asylum seekers search for safety and asylum seekers own individual desire to find the best life that they can.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: It seems to me that the the former has to be has to override the ladder that asylum seekers are not they're not entitled to life in Sweden, they were entitled to life in a better shape or place than where they currently are but not to life in Sweden.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: as well, first, I have to say that i'm an amateur so tonight.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Italians are immigrating less than a quote should.

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economically.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Like a lot of young people are but I I get your point and.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Well, there are two things.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Well, definitely safety is the first, that is, the first thing that has to be guaranteed.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: To to asylum seeker to refugees.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: But then there is also another point, I think that, generally in in discourses on on asylum.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Refugees are always seen as a burden, so we think that Sweden cannot take all the refugees, because because they're a burden to the welfare state, or the burden to society or there a burden to.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah to social equation, but if we don't look at asylum seekers in this way, but we look at them as opportunities we look at them as the young people that are ready to invest and.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Their lives, their energy into the Labor market and.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Then, these kind of the scores has less it's less lose a bit of significance and.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And also, in my idea too much probably have.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: A silent reception is.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Based on state reception what i'm saying is if people were allowed us sanam seekers were allowed to build on their social capital and in the case of any trends, they have.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Quite a strong social capital in the sense that they're well connected throughout Europe as well, the words.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: They have strong family network and they like a bit like the sponsorship program that.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: That is present in Canada and some family members, or rather friends or no matter who sponsor take over some of the.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: job of the state in receiving asylum asylum seekers receiving refugees, then also part of this idea of.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: You know, Sweden cannot receive too many, many asylum seekers is also is also maybe not so important anymore, maybe afterwards we can discuss about the problems that would would lead to have too many people from from one country in.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: More cultural reasons for which asylum seekers wouldn't wouldn't be ideal to have too many asylum seekers too many Eritreans going to go to Sweden, but.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah but also it's not only Sweden, I mean we're quite distributed across Europe and the word I have to say.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: But but yes, I mean, I think this is a I mean if I if I had some.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Some some power, probably, I would suggest that sponsorship programs to and allowing for family reunification to be a bit wider and more expanded good to resolve a lot of problems in terms of asylum reception and also integration facilitation purposes.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay, thank you very much, so we have further questions from katinka the retrained government maintains that there are no refugee related.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Reasons for Eritreans to flee from the country, are you concerned that your gambler analogy plays into the hands of both the year between government.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: And into the hands of European asylum countries who do not necessarily wish to continue to host Eritrean refugee populations and who may want to.

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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Use your book to argue that Eritreans are not in fact refugees but migrants.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Well let's say that I cannot control people who do not read my book to use my book for their purposes, but if people read my book it's very clear why people escape from Eritrea and the fact there are.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Structural political, economic, social reasons for which life becomes unbearable there for.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: For many people, and especially for the young generation, so I am not worried that my book, will contribute to this in any way if people read it, if people don't read it, then there might be a problem, but if people read it, I think it's it's very clear and.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And I don't think the gambling analogy is any way related to.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Yes, maybe Sophia wants to.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: wants to answer anyway.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah I don't think that the gambling analogy is so much related with the factors that push people to to to migrate the gambling analogy tries to explain why people keep migrating.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: No matter, the risks so actually it says look they have such a high risks to do to migrate by still that they want to, they want to move on words.

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Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: It doesn't say anything about why people want to migrate, in the first place, so I I don't think that that should be.

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01:12:22.230 --> 01:12:24.810

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: A worried that say if people read the book again.

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01:12:26.100 --> 01:12:40.440

Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay, a question from Jacob Thomas, I understand why you would not want to generate a quantitative measure of risk aversion but since chance and probability are obviously a play I was wondering whether you found qualitatively.

408

01:12:41.760 --> 01:12:51.690

Roger Waldinger, UCLA: In terms of heterogeneity amongst the migrants, how much risk they were willing to take in their venture and how that might be related to their past life experiences.

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01:12:53.610 --> 01:12:57.480

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah, this is a Certainly, this is a very good point I mean.

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01:13:00.750 --> 01:13:13.110

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Many people were willing to to to risk but also many people that i've met were not willing to risk and sometimes it depended on their.

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01:13:14.700 --> 01:13:15.240

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: On.

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01:13:17.880 --> 01:13:22.980

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: It depended on the age, for instance, so certainly younger people tend to be more.

413

01:13:24.900 --> 01:13:38.910

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: More ready to take risks and people who had just arrived and the were stealing the flow of arriving to the camps and moving on words the where we're we're more parts of this of this.

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01:13:40.230 --> 01:13:42.330

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: flow of people who would risk.

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01:13:43.800 --> 01:13:50.700

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And then definitely you can you can also consider that some people, many people actually among Eritreans had.

416

01:13:51.810 --> 01:14:00.030

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: A military background so let's say that the culture of tolerance of risk tolerance was already high and.

417

01:14:01.500 --> 01:14:03.330

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Among these people and even.

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01:14:04.890 --> 01:14:10.590

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And even, as I explained the book life itself in Eritrea, for those who do not comply with.

419

01:14:12.210 --> 01:14:28.410

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: With the national service with the with the duty towards towards the state can can become is a continuous risk in the sense that people leave on the run and you're always worried have been caught by by soldiers and be sent to prison so even then.

420

01:14:29.790 --> 01:14:37.230

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah there is let's say a past or an normalization of what risk is so.

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01:14:38.670 --> 01:14:55.740

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: But yeah within within this kind of context in which risk as as become certainly very normalized there are people that tend to risk more than others, and probably that's also depending on on age and background yeah.

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01:14:56.310 --> 01:15:05.970

Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay, a question from Joe vendor spec Hello from Amsterdam diem ilana sheds some light on the ways refugees organize their journey is just an in.

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01:15:06.810 --> 01:15:16.620

Roger Waldinger, UCLA: An individual endeavor a family or clan thing, or are they usually totally dependent on the good or bad will of the people they encounter on their way.

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01:15:18.180 --> 01:15:29.100

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Is your, this is actually very interesting, in the sense that so partly as I, as I explained before.

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01:15:30.120 --> 01:15:32.460

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Trying to address david's comment.

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01:15:34.020 --> 01:15:44.220

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The the idea to move is usually an individual one so even within a context in which migration is very much.

427

01:15:46.380 --> 01:15:47.910

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: seen as a positive thing.

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01:15:49.110 --> 01:16:03.840

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Migrants do try to do take this choice alone and often they do not even tell their parents and their family that they are leaving in order not to make them more or they often told me it's better than.

429

01:16:05.220 --> 01:16:13.260

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: That we don't make them worry and we just tell them once we arrived, the safer destination, if we arrived safe a destination, so that was.

430

01:16:13.920 --> 01:16:26.820

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Often, what the idea behind, especially the first step of the journey, so the step from Eritrea to to adobe or to Sudan according to different people journey.

431

01:16:28.380 --> 01:16:29.010

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: But.

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01:16:30.060 --> 01:16:43.140

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: What is very interesting is what happens that in the second part of the journey, so what what happens when people are in Ethiopia, or in Sudan and they want to arrive in Europe.

433

01:16:44.520 --> 01:16:46.500

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Then, even then it's like.

434

01:16:47.790 --> 01:17:08.460

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: it's a very It shows very well the paradox of choice in this context of constraint mobility, why because people often young young young every trans that are seeking counsel, for instance, the gop and have a relative in Europe or in the US.

435

01:17:09.900 --> 01:17:18.750

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: We try to ask for their financial support, but if this financial support is not if people are not ready to give this financial support, because.

436

01:17:20.550 --> 01:17:34.350

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Not only because they don't have the money, but maybe because they don't want to facilitate the journey that can potentially lead to the death of a deer one of a loved one or a family member and then they often arrange.

437

01:17:35.370 --> 01:17:43.290

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The the journey with the smuggler and and somehow they give up their freedom in order to reach.

438

01:17:43.980 --> 01:17:58.950

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Libya and leave it at that point, the parents, so that not the parents, but the family members, even in the diaspora are called and asked them to to pay for for the for the journey that has already been.

439

01:18:01.980 --> 01:18:14.040

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: That does a really fast to those the journey before and the journey that that will take the migrants to Italy or to Europe so.

440

01:18:15.570 --> 01:18:19.740

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: To say and and then here it's a it's like.

441

01:18:21.420 --> 01:18:28.560

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: it's hard to say who is good, who is bad and who is willing, who is forced I mean.

442

01:18:29.910 --> 01:18:34.770

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Refugees are willingly taking the risk and even like giving up their freedom to.

443

01:18:36.000 --> 01:18:39.600

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: To be transported by smugglers, but.

444

01:18:41.490 --> 01:18:46.650

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Also, family members are forced to pay in spite of the fact that they think.

445

01:18:47.820 --> 01:19:04.860

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: That is not a good idea to move onwards and then and then smugglers are there, like to play the role of of the bed, but they're there they're part of the game that does not only involved smugglers, but families and migrants to.

446

01:19:06.510 --> 01:19:21.870

Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay terrific a question from Klaus GM estimator, how do we have retreats caught up in protracted displacement in countries that are not their destination of choice survive considering their legal legal status is in limbo.

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01:19:23.910 --> 01:19:24.540

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah.

448

01:19:29.340 --> 01:19:32.160

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Well, you know in.

449

01:19:33.300 --> 01:19:37.410

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: In Ethiopia well if you can see that have very different.

450

01:19:39.480 --> 01:19:49.920

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: legal provisions when it comes to the refugees and also different political and social context and the life of every trans-european in Sudan is very different.

451

01:19:50.490 --> 01:20:04.410

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: And i'm not talking about the current situation, because yeah in the current situation with with the ongoing war in together, I, there are many refugees that are just stuck in camp and they don't have any assistance with anyone and.

452

01:20:05.520 --> 01:20:08.790

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So that's a disaster but.

453

01:20:10.470 --> 01:20:15.750

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: When I was doing research in in Ethiopia, there were several.

454

01:20:17.010 --> 01:20:24.900

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: provisions that was called out of Camp policies or Eritreans were allowed suddenly retreats with some kind of.

455

01:20:26.250 --> 01:20:43.890

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: legal process going on, for example, the family reunification or sponsorship or someone who had a relative any way in another in in a city in Ethiopia was allowed to leave leave the camp and any fact many people survived.

456

01:20:45.510 --> 01:20:50.310

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: quite well in in Ethiopia, they managed to find jobs they got married.

457

01:20:52.110 --> 01:20:59.490

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah and and and to some extent, also in Sudan, there is a very stronger limitation to.

458

01:21:00.030 --> 01:21:19.290

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: To the freedom of movement of refugees that, in theory, should always be in camps, but as a matter of fact cartoon import Sudan have been populated by by Eritreans and it's up and so forth, for decades, and they are active in the Labor market also the Mary they they live so.

459

01:21:22.350 --> 01:21:42.900

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: yeah so they do survive and some people survive even well, you would say they're doing trade or they set up their own business, but still in a in a context that can can potentially shift very, very quickly like like like now.

460

01:21:46.290 --> 01:21:54.930

Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay terrific one last question from seven SEC Nick what kind of gender dynamics, have you observed in terms of gift giving and gambling.

461

01:21:57.240 --> 01:21:58.440

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Whereas if I don't see.

462

01:21:59.670 --> 01:22:00.360

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The question.

463

01:22:03.120 --> 01:22:06.120

Roger Waldinger, UCLA: it's at the towards the top of the list.

464

01:22:07.530 --> 01:22:13.230

Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Let me repeat it, what kind of gender dynamics, have you observed in terms of gift giving and gambling.

465

01:22:14.940 --> 01:22:15.870

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Okay.

466

01:22:18.180 --> 01:22:23.040

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Well, in terms of gift giving and gambling.

467

01:22:25.740 --> 01:22:28.020

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Okay, well, I have to say.

468

01:22:30.000 --> 01:22:32.190

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: So high risk migration, so this.

469

01:22:34.950 --> 01:22:38.790

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: is very risky enterprise is mostly.

470

01:22:39.960 --> 01:22:45.900

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: man's business but it's also there is also a significant amount of.

471

01:22:46.890 --> 01:23:08.880

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Women that undertake this is extremely risky and physically challenging journey, so any of the the white majority of the people that that arrived by boat to do you ever been to Italy are our man there's also a good amount of of women and and.

472

01:23:11.130 --> 01:23:14.370

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: and well, there are also a lot of.

473

01:23:15.930 --> 01:23:28.980

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Strategies let's say that connect women and men in the sense strategies and also just relationship that emerging in the context of of crisis in which also people.

474

01:23:30.000 --> 01:23:44.250

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Try to escape, but they also fall in love and they they meet people that the afterwards they are separated with for a long time, and because because of because of because of exile because of migration, so I also met.

475

01:23:45.750 --> 01:23:51.930

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Several women and men that were in Ethiopia or Sudan and.

476

01:23:53.070 --> 01:24:06.240

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: we're awaiting for a family visa to reach their partners that that that was already residing in Europe or or again in the US or Canada and.

477

01:24:07.530 --> 01:24:10.710

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: At times, that this is these unions were.

478

01:24:11.970 --> 01:24:22.260

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The result of previous marriages, but at times that they were also the result of somehow family solidarity, so the fact that.

479

01:24:22.560 --> 01:24:38.280

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The same family came from from the same village and and people were trying to help each other to to to reach a more stable and safe place and, and this is how many, many, many unions also emerged.

480

01:24:41.700 --> 01:24:42.270

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Young.

481

01:24:44.190 --> 01:24:46.830

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: A you said in gender in gambling and in.

482

01:24:51.000 --> 01:24:52.920

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: The question was about gambling.

483

01:24:53.520 --> 01:24:54.930

Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Yes, I think you've answered it.

484

01:24:55.170 --> 01:24:55.920

Milena Belloni- FWO University of Antwerp: Okay, good.

485

01:24:56.130 --> 01:25:10.380

Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay, all right, so that really brings us to the end of our session, I want to thank Milena for terrific presentation and for such wonderful exchange with the audience, thanks also to David for so stimulating a comment.

486

01:25:10.830 --> 01:25:21.720

Roger Waldinger, UCLA: i'd like to remind you all that we will meet again next week same time same place, but for a different type of session, this is the emerging immigration scholars workshop on.

487

01:25:22.500 --> 01:25:38.340

Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Integration and we will meet from 12 to two papers are available, upon request, so without further ado, thanks to everyone and looking forward to seeing you next week, and thank you so much, Elena okay bye bye everyone.


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