On 23 April 2024 we had another session of our (more or less) monthly journal club. In this occasion we discussed the special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies “Revisiting the EU’s new mobility regime“, coordinated by Jens Arnholtz and Janine Leschke. We also had the pleasure to welcome professor Daniela Urse (University of Bucharest) who introduced the discussion of the special issue.
Our discussion focused in particular on the choice of the special issue to use the framework (and vocabulary) of “mobility” -as opposed to our own preference to use “migration” to cover people who move inside the EU. In particular, the contribution by Bruzelius and Seeleib-Kaiser hilights how being an intra-EU migrant does not automatically translates into a less vulnerable position in sectors such as agriculture and forestry.
The picture emerging from the very interesting contributions led us to consider how the temporal techniques used to govern their mobility/migration (situations of temporary migration or temporary contracts) seemed to constitute the main determinant of vulnerability for the populations covered by the various articles.