5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

The externalization of European Union (EU) border control regimes and the increasing securitization of migration bequeaths Morocco and the Maghreb as liminal sites of migratory capture and transition, frontiers and hotbeds, origin and transit routes for African youth into “fortress” Europe. While Africa appears as the continent that matters most to EU policymakers working on migration, the Mediterranean Sea represents a major frontline in the ‘battlefield’ of irregular migration. The unwarranted ‘waste of human bodies’ of mostly African youth desperate to cross the sea into Europe marks an unprecedented watershed in the history and (un)ethical politics of irregular migration. The stringent EU policies raise the paradox of international migration and heighten debates on the politics of frontiers, borders, territoriality, transnationalism, coloniality of power, global ethics, human rights, and socio-economic justice.
This session interrogates interrelated questions whether, how African and European governments, stakeholders including religious and economic entrepreneurs, exacerbate the mass human fatalities in the sea and desert lands. What ethical significations the criminalization and politicization of migration portend in light of human rights and social justice. What is the role and place of religious entrepreneurs (pastors, prophets, prophetesses, marabouts, diviners, diviners, healers, religious vendors/brokers in refugee/transit camps) and religious resources in facilitating migration processes? How does the lived, gruesome experiences of African youth, as migrants, asylum seekers/refugees, shape their spiritual/religious lives through the liminal phases of the journey, in refugee/transit camps, and on arrival at temporary host destinations? How do religious communities in Africa and the African diaspora impact/impugn migration trajectories?