Forschung

 

 

More than 120 million people have been forcibly displaced worldwide because of war, persecution, violence or human rights violations. New and long-standing conflicts are responsible for the highest levels of displacement on record. Refugee journeys to potential places of safety are rarely straightforward; they are staggered and time-consuming, hazardous, have uncertain outcomes and often cause additional vulnerabilities. Multiple attempts, failures, detours, prolonged time in waiting, extortion and violence along the way seem to be the norm rather than the exception. 

Whenever land routes are too dangerous or simply unavailable, refugees take to the sea. In the last decade, the numbers of maritime boat journeys have increased in most migration corridors around the globe. Whether on inflatable rafts, rubber dinghies, wooden fishing vessels or large freighters, refugees risk their lives in order to escape oppression and terror. The more governments engage in restrictive deterrent and immobilisations measures, including interceptions, turn/pushbacks and detention at sea, the more refugees opt for dangerous routes. We often know about the outcomes of maritime voyages are, even in the case of fatal accidents or disappearances, but little is known about what happens on board boats.

The discussions throughout this writeshop will offer a deeper understanding of refugees’ decision-making and coping strategies in times when the sea is increasingly weaponised against refugees. Making refugee boats the prime site of this writeshop, we seek to explore the social relations and interactions of the passengers aboard refugee boats. The interplay of internal and external factors throughout the journeys can cause cohesion and mutual help but can also cause tensions and breakdown of solidarities. Based on existing case studies, we ask participants to 

illustrate how refugees experience maritime passages and how they react to unforeseen challenges, risks and obstacles (pushbacks, deterrence);
showcase the evolving dynamics among passengers onboard and how they shape the socialites onboard, including pre-existing ties, gender, age, class, health and power; specific temporalities of the journey and materialities of the boats; and
thereby also reflect on the methodological and ethical concerns encountered when studying maritime refugees and boat journeys.

Focusing on refugee boats allows us to trace their role for the passengers and this will also provide people with a voice who otherwise remain silenced and subdued by violence.

In this writeshop we want to challenge the conventional public ‘boat people’ narratives and the inherent norms they engender regarding the political dynamics between the so-called sending countries in the Global South and the destination countries in the Global North serves a new prism for a much wider, thought-provoking social criticism of the contemporary global border and asylum regimes. 

We also want to draw attention to ethical questions and dilemmas of working on forced displacement and maritime migration. We want to complicate the relationship between prioritising the human dignity, rights, safety and well-being of research respondents and political agendas or politicised discourses within which our research is published, communicated and debated.   

We are particularly looking for contemporary and historical empirical case studies of maritime refugees, boat journeys and what happens on refugee boats.  We encourage junior scholars from the Asia-Pacific to apply.

Please send us your expression of interest by 1 July 2025, including a mini-bio and an abstract. We will invite selected submissions by 1 August 2025. Full drafts are due by 15 December 2025. The drafts will be circulated among the other participants and organisers.

Writeshop date: 26-29 January 2026

Venue: Asia School of Business in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 

We will seek funding to cover the travel costs for invited presenters. The envisioned outcome for this workshop is an academic journal special issue. 

Contact: antje.missbach@uni-bielefeld.de or g.hoffstaedter@uq.edu.au