Migration, vulnerability and the complexity of violence: Experiences of documented non-EU migrants in Slovakia

Blažek, Matej

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.07.002

Cited by 18 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…This is taken advantage of by traffickers and becomes further amplified in the foreign country where trafficked persons also become marginalised migrants. In general, migrants’ lack of trust in formal institutions tends to intersect with distorted perceptions of the host country and culture, often purposefully fuelled by the criminals (Blazek, ). Yet, a lack of knowledge and trust are not the only issues here, as the trafficked persons might relate the embodied experience of engagement with the police or supporting agencies to their experience with traffickers.…”

Section: Relational Geographies Of Human Trafficking: Multiple Spatiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Relational geographies of human trafficking: Inequality, manoeuvring and im/mobility across space and time

Blažek

Smith

2018

Trans Inst British Geog

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This paper demonstrates why and how a fuller geographical perspective extends contemporary scholarship on human trafficking within and beyond the discipline.We employ a relational approach and draw on in-depth qualitative research with trafficked persons and a range of stakeholders in Slovakia and the United Kingdom (UK), to depict how the processes underpinning human trafficking are nonlinear and operate instantaneously at multiple intersecting scales and temporalities and through diverse mobilities. The analysis problematises the discrete and homogeneous notion of space coupled with a linear conceptualisation of time and, more specifically, the normative portrayals of recruitment, transit and exploitation as distinct and sequential phases of human trafficking. Instead, the individuated experiences of trafficked persons are examined in relational geographies of inequality, manoeuvring and mobilities. Such a conceptual shift ensures that efforts to understand and combat human trafficking address its effects as well as the wider social relations and structural conditions that facilitate exploitation. We conclude the paper by outlining how a relational-geographic perspective has the potential to foster new forms of dialogue and inquiry within and beyond the discipline. K E Y W O R D SEastern Europe, exploitation, human trafficking, inequality, mobilities, relational geographies 1 | INTRODUCTION Human trafficking is inherently spatial, comprising cross-cutting processes of exploitation within and across local, regional, national and international borders. Yet, academic, policy and media understandings of human trafficking tend to rely on a discrete and homogeneous conceptualisation of space coupled with a linear conceptualisation of time (Smith, 2017). Our aim in this paper is to contribute to critical debates over structural inequalities that underpin human trafficking (Anderson & Ruhs, 2010;Andrijasevic, 2010;Lewis et al., 2015;Piper et al., 2015) by offering a geographical conceptualisation of human trafficking that explicitly recognises the relational nature of space and time. Using in-depth qualitative research with trafficked persons and a range of stakeholders in Slovakia and the United Kingdom (UK), we examine why viewing processes such as recruitment, transit and exploitation as distinct and sequential phases of the human trafficking process is reductive. In turn, we reframe human trafficking as a relational composition that spans multiple spaces and temporalities.The paper is structured as follows. First, we outline relational perspectives on human trafficking within critical inter-disciplinary scholarship and suggest that this could be enriched by engaging explicitly with relational conceptions of space (and time). Second, we introduce the writings of Massey, Bergson and Deleuze and present the theoretical framework for ---

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Section: Relational Geographies Of Human Trafficking: Multiple Spatiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Relational geographies of human trafficking: Inequality, manoeuvring and im/mobility across space and time

Blažek

Smith

2018

Trans Inst British Geog

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“…Within models of trafficking, these networks are often treated in taken-for-granted ways as the harbingers of recruitment and transportation in the trafficking process, who steer and control trafficked victims via multiple travel-transit points on the journey to the place of destination and, ultimately, exert control in the spaces of exploitation, threat and abuse. Whilst this may be the most prevalent means of trafficking, Blazek's (2014) investigation of non-EU migrants into Slovakia shows that recruitment and traveltransit, as well as post-migration exploitation and abuse, can also be shaped by extended family, friends and acquaintances, who may act within informal networks throughout the trafficking process. Blazek's study is thus beneficial for challenging homogenising representations of trafficking processes, and emphasising the importance of not conflating the diversity of trafficking processes (see also Blazek, 2015).…”

Section: Progressing Knowledge Of Traffickingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Population geography I

Smith

2017

Progress in Human Geography

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This first report explores how understandings of human trafficking have progressed within population geography. Exemplified by studies of exploitative labour migration, population geography has made implicit contributions by stressing the value of a geographic perspective of the webs of inter-connections and links between different places and trafficking. In addition, dominant ideas of linear trafficking processes have been disrupted, via evidencing the informal involvement of families in the phases of recruitment, transportation, and control. I argue that a more encompassing, inter-disciplinary tenet could be woven into population studies of trafficking, by more explicitly engaging with social science debates. Embedding the legal, global definition of trafficking into wider studies of migration is paramount for this direction of travel. There is also merit in population geography advancing understandings by adopting holistic lenses of enquiry, connecting-up with (sub-)disciplinary geographic studies of migration and trafficking in the Global South and Global North. Studies of trafficking provide a potentially fruitful terrain for population geography to deliver multi-disciplinary, impactful research of a key global challenge, to inform policies to prevent and mitigate the ills of trafficking, and progress conceptual and theoretical understandings of trafficking. KeywordsHuman trafficking, migration, population change, labour, exploitation I IntroductionMigration studies have been intensified within human geography by the so-called 'migration crisis ' (Davies and Isakjee, 2015;Collyer, 2016;Raghuram, 2016), sparking countless recent discussions of smuggling, asylum-seeking, refugees, and precarious and insecure movements; as international migration per se is firmly thrust into international political, policy, media and academic spotlights (Smith et al., 2015). Yet, there continues to be a relative dearth of studies of human trafficking in geographic scholarship, despite this unprecedented attention to conceptually-overlapping forms of migration (O'Connell Davidson, 2010;. This is particularly surprising within the context of population geography, given the ascendency of migration studies within the sub-discipline and trafficking being a form of migration that is in the limelight.First, trafficking is symbolic of wider contemporary global trends of the marketization and growth of migration industries within the 'age of migration ' (King, 2012). Processes of trafficking, for instance, are expressive of King's (2002: 95) assertion that: 'Migration has become a new global business with a constantly shifting set of agents, mechanisms, routes, prices and niches'. Indeed, King uses the example of trafficking to illustrate how market concepts have more fully penetrated into migration processes, describing the growth of a 'Migration PLC' and the proliferation of traffickers, agents, intermediaries, and monetary frameworks for places of origin, routes/transits and destination. In this way, more research on traffi...

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“…This absence and the particular context of Bratislava, echo some of the elements of post-socialist changes that we discussed in the previous section, although not all of them. The liberal and Westoriented character of the city has deflected militant forms of nationalism that swept over Slovakia in the 1990s (Carpenter, 1997;Hilde, 1999), and the city is by far the most cosmopolitan area of the country (Blazek, 2014). On the other hand, Bratislava has been exposed to transnational economic flows more than other Slovak regions and its urban landscape and social structures have been strongly affected by neoliberalization and foreign investments (O'Dwyer and Kovalčík, 2007).…”

Section: Community In Bratislava Activismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards dialogic post-socialism: Relational geographies of Europe and the notion of community in urban activism in Bratislava

Blažek

Šuška

2017

Political Geography

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Migration, vulnerability and the complexity of violence: Experiences of documented non-EU migrants in Slovakia

Cited by 18 publications

References 81 publications

Relational geographies of human trafficking: Inequality, manoeuvring and im/mobility across space and time

Relational geographies of human trafficking: Inequality, manoeuvring and im/mobility across space and time

Population geography I

Towards dialogic post-socialism: Relational geographies of Europe and the notion of community in urban activism in Bratislava

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