Transnational Mobility and Externalization of EU Borders: Social Work, Migration Management, and Resistance

Transnational Mobility and Externalization of EU Borders: Social Work, Migration Management and Resistance addresses the topics of social work and international migration, with specific focus on the consequences of EU border externalization policies. The increasingly authoritarian character of EU border management raises a number of issues related to the role of social work within a context that is heavily charged, both ideologically and politically. After theoretically and historically contextualizing externalization with explicit attention to (neo)colonial genealogies of the current migration regimes, this book examines the complex inter-relations of social workers with key actors, namely mobile people, policy makers or funders. Particular attention is paid to the socio-economic and political impacts of the global Covid-19 pandemic on social work with variously categorized people moving across borders or immobilized incamps. Finally, the book explores how social workers and refugees resist violent migration controls and increasing criminalization of cross-border movements. This volume brings together contributions located in the so-called countries of origin and transit targeted by EU externalization interventions, as well as EU countries, in which social workers deal with the effects of border externalization and internalization.

Robel Abay is guest professor of participatory approaches in social and health sciences at Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin.

Tanja Kleibl is Professor for Social Work, Migration and Diversity at University of Applied Sciences Wurzburg-Schweinfurt, Germany. She is also the author of Decolonizing Civil Society in Mozambique (Zed Books, 2021).