Migrant people camps and their environments in Europe : methodology, maps and first results from Bosnia and Herzegovina

Résumé En

Where are refugees’ camps? Are their environments positive for their residents?This presentation focuses on camps settled to host people on the move and their environments, and on the methodology developed in an ongoing PhD project.In the European Union and at its borders, policies are setting aside foreign populations in camps, materialising a spatial expression of rejection. These camps are spaces of transit and control, temporary or permanent, where people find help or repression.In my thesis, I examine their environments by analysing their location, their influence on the territory in which they are set up, and how migrants develop their autonomy inside.I therefore come back on definitions of the terms, then focus on two challenges:- The first one is to map these camps in Europe in an attempt to establish a classification;- The second is to develop a methodology for studying the influences of the camps on their environments, based on the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where 7 camps have been set up since 2018.On a European scale, initial mapping results show that some camps are located in environments isolated from public services. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, they are appearing - and disappearing - as part of the process of accession to the European Union. In Bihac, the relocation of the camps from the town centre to the mountains marks a shift from proximity to the border to distance from it, and from the omnipresence of migrants to their invisibility. Locally, a strategy of immersion with the No Name Kitchen association enabled me to observe the movements of migrants between the camps and the squats, depending on the strategies deployed to access resources (housing, water, food, hygiene). These realities are understood through supporting actions that are reprimanded by the police, through recording sound to make podcasts, and by running formal interviews.