No abstract

The arrival of more than one million migrants, many of them refugees, has proved a major test for the European Union. Although international relief and monitoring agencies have been critical of makeshift camps in Calais and Eidomeni where infectious disease and overcrowding present major health risks, few have examined the nature of the official reception system and its impact on health delivery. Drawing upon research findings from an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded project, this article considers the physical and mental health of asylum–seekers in transit and analyses how the closure of borders has engendered health risks for populations in recognised reception centres in Sicily and in Greece. Data gathered by means of a survey administered in Greece (300) and in Sicily (400), and complemented by in-depth interviews with migrants (45) and key informants (50) including representatives of government offices, humanitarian and relief agencies, NGOs and activist organisations, are presented to offer an analysis of the reception systems in the two frontline states. We note that medical provision varies significantly from one centre to another and that centre managers play a critical role in the transmission of vital information. A key finding is that, given such disparity, the criteria used by the UNHCR to grade health services reception do not address the substantive issue that prevent refugees from accessing health services, even when provided on site. Health provision is not as recorded in UNHCR reporting but rather there are critical gaps between provision, awareness, and access for refugees in reception systems in Sicily and in Greece. This article concludes that there is a great need for more information campaigns to direct refugees to essential services.

Commencing with some recent examples drawn from Anglophone media, this introductory article reflects on the multiple ways in which crisis and migration have been interconnected over the last decade in public discourse, political debates and academic research. It underlines how crisis has not simply become a key descriptor of specific events, but continues to operate as a powerful narrative device that structures knowledge of migration and shapes policy decisions and governance structures. It explains the rationale for choosing Europe as a multidimensional setting for investigating the diverse links between migration and crisis. It ends with a summary of the contributions that are divided into four thematic strands: relationships between the economic crisis and migrant workers and their families; the Mediterranean in crisis; political and public discourses about the post-2015 'migration crisis'; and ethnographies of everyday experiences of the 'refugee crisis' on the part of migrants, activists and local people.

This article discusses Chinese migrants’ incorporation in European cities and the relevance of the urban space. In particular, it focuses on the Chinatowns of London and Milan, beginning from two recent cases where their space has been contested. Alongside the different histories and contemporary patterns of Chinese migration and settlement and the varying policies and politics of immigration and integration in Britain and Italy, we bring the urban factor in our analysis. More specifically, we look at the political economy of the urban space and the role of Chinatown in the dynamics of urban restructuring in the two cities. We conclude by summarizing the key dimensions of comparison and by highlighting additional elements that are important in order to understand the multiple processes conditioning Chinese migrants’ incorporation in Europe, the peculiarities of Chinatown as a specific urban locale and the politics of contestation and protest involving immigrants in urban contexts. In that sense, the article examines different layers of explanation and builds a comparative analytical framework that goes beyond the limits of migration studies.