Decentring migrant smuggling: reflections on the Eastern Mediterranean route to Europe

Abstract

Mostly embedded in the debates on irregular migration, the first-generation migrant smuggling research, which developed in the 1990s, has long been limited by its conventional state-centric criminality-based focus. This article, inspired by the second and most recent generation of scholarly research on the issue, over the last decade, offers new thoughts and empirical perspectives for transcending those limitations. The second generation of migrant smuggling research is an attempt at decentring for a better understanding and framing of migrant smuggling that arose from critiques of the first-generation studies. This critical perspective challenges the dominant accounts and moves scholarship on the issue toward an examination of the discursive and legal processes of states that criminalise migrant smuggling, highlighting the significance of understanding the perceptions and experiences of a wide range of actors. Drawing on the findings of fieldwork conducted in Turkey and its neighbourhood over the last 20 years, this article critically assesses and decentres the current state of knowledge about migrant smuggling in Europe’s south-eastern periphery. The study finds that migrant smuggling is highly complex because of its embeddedness in socio-institutional and transnational environments, which constantly affect both migrants’ and smugglers’ risk perceptions and coping strategies, causing incredibly dynamic migration trajectories.