Paper short abstract:

The paper contributes to one of the topics of the panel namely religious practices in order to tease out the link between the religion and informality in the context of high mobility between Russia and Central Asia.

Paper long abstract:

The debate on the link between mobility and informality is quite a young field and the link between migrant lives and informality has not yet been quite explored and therefore the further enquiry into the religious lives of migrants and informal life arrangements of Muslims might be interesting to explore to further unpuzzle this complex relationships within the field. Muslim migrant daily lives in Moscow is quite challenging where state integration of migrants failed to provide social and economic support which was replaced by religious networks of belonging. although informally arranged this aspect of lives became crucial for each migrant in Moscow.

Paper short abstract:

My research casts a different light on the topic of entrepreneurship by analysing the experience of extremely mobile people who have developed efficient ways of bypassing the restrictive rules imposed by national border regimes in order to access new economic opportunities.

Paper long abstract:

The connection between entrepreneurship and mobility has been studied in a dichotomic way. On the one hand, a traditional perspective of migration prevails, with a focus on low-skilled, poor migrants launching businesses that build on their cultural capital as "exotic others" in order to circumvent economic and social exclusion. On the other hand, highly-skilled mobile entrepreneurs are glorified for transcending the borders of nation-states and developing cosmopolitan ways of life that free them from local attachments. This binary perspective, however, overshadows cases that correspond to none of these models. My research casts a different light on the topic of entrepreneurship by analysing two groups of extremely mobile people who have developed efficient ways of bypassing the restrictive rules imposed by national border regimes in order to access new economic opportunities. I study the mobility and business strategies of traders from Ecuador and Senegal who operate all over Europe, selling cheap goods imported from various locations during festivals, fairs, and touristic events. Although these "artists of the border" (Beck 2007) sometimes instrumentalise their status of otherness and exoticism to reach clients, they also adopt a very pragmatic approach to business and do not hesitate to exchange traditional handicraft for cheaper Asian products if it enables them to make new profit. In this sense, they have perfectly integrated the logics of the globalised economy, and although they operate in a grey area with respect to migration and trade regulations, they also know how to play with these rules.

Paper short abstract:

The paper aims to demonstrate the intersections between mobility and informal emplacements co-produced in the process of searching and offering of living places outside formal systems while interrogating the meaning of precarious modes of living for refugees and migrants.

Paper long abstract:

The paper traces the ways in which refugees and migrants in precarious legal and economic circumstances configure practices of room-searches in Berlin. The paper will first discuss the bureaucratic process for finding rooms in Berlin and the subsequent challenges for some people to access places to reside through 'formal means'. Second, the paper will track how migrants and refugees pursue alternative methods for searching places to reside. More specifically, the paper traces how refugees and migrants work in conjunction with Berlin-based solidarity groups in order to find access to informally organized housing outside of the formal bureaucratic system. Thus, the transformative work of refugees and migrants with regard to room-searches will be discussed. Much scholarship has discussed the networking system that migrants develop amongst themselves in order to find housing and work. However, there is little discussion on how refugees and migrants work with solidarity groups in order to pursue their particular aims within informal structures. A number of refugees and migrants excluded of the formal housing market approach such groups, which support them in finding accommodation outside of formal systems. Thus, the paper aims to demonstrate the intersections between mobility and informal emplacements co-produced in the process of searching and offering of living places outside formal systems while interrogating the meaning of precarious modes of living for refugees and migrants. Data are drawn on ethnographic work and on-going participation in a Berlin-based group, Schlafplatzorga, which supports refugees and migrants with accommodation.

Paper short abstract:

This communication addresses the issue of how to study informality and (im)mobility along the transnational social field of Romanian immigrants in Spain.

Paper long abstract:

In the on-going research project ORBITS (MINECO-FEDER-CSO2015-68687-P) we study the social ties within a transnational social field of Romanian citizens in Spain. Drawing on the link-tracing approach followed by Mouw et al. (2014) for the transnational networks of Mexican migrants in the US, we intend to interview 600 Romanians in four sites: two Romanian enclaves in the Spanish Mediterranean coast (Castelló & Roquetas de Mar), and their places of origin in Romania (Dâmbovița & Bistrița-Năsăud, respectively). In addition, this methodology is combined with ethnographic methods as observant participation, in-depth interviews, network drawing and group discussions. This mixed methods approach, we argue, facilitates to implement a focused investigation on how (im)mobility and informality become entangled as livelihood strategies.

Paper short abstract:

This paper presents the findings of a research on the settlement experiences of Syrians in Turkey and Germany. Within a moral economy perspective functions of the people who are identified as simsars (brokers) are analyzed with particular reference to the role they play in migrants' mobilities.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is about the usages of the word simsar as a category that does not recognize a difference between formality and informality or legality and illegality, and the functions of simsars in the lives of Syrian migrants on the way from Syria to Germany. During my ethnographic research with Syrian migrants on their settlement experiences in Turkey and Germany, simsar (the Arabic word for broker or middleman) appears often with reference to almost every facet of life. Simsars are smugglers, who walked the border with them from Syria to Turkey. They are the commissioners who found them informal jobs in Istanbul sweat-shops. Simsars are also human traffickers who arranged them the inflatable boats to cross the Aegean. Finally, they are the realtors who fixed rental contracts for a few thousand Euros in Berlin's increasingly tight housing market. Hence simsars are facilitators of movement—between borders, within the cities (from camps to flats) and on the social ladder. Their services are vital for migrants and refugees, while they are deeply detested.

Migrants situate these services within the language of a moral economy with an indifference to the informality and sometimes illegality of these positions. Within this moral economy there are workings of kinship, ethnic ties, migrant networks and religion; and value is determined within a matrix of the resources already available to the migrants and the promise of mobility—i.e. how high and how far.