Periodic Reporting for period 5 - EUBorderCare (Intimate Encounters in EU Borderlands: Migrant Maternity, Sovereignty and the Politics of Care on Europe’s Peripheries)
Berichtszeitraum: 2020-07-01 bis 2021-07-31
EU Border Care is a comparative study of the politics of maternity care among undocumented migrants on the EU’s peripheries. Empirical analysis of personal and institutional relations of care and control in the context of pregnancy and childbirth will support an innovative critique of the moral rationale underpinning healthcare delivery and migration governance in some of Europe’s most densely crossed borderlands in France, Greece, Italy and Spain.Grounded in long-term ethnographic fieldwork, the project will trace the networks of maternity care delivery in peripheries facing an increase of migration flows, and characterised by structural social and economic underinvestment. The team has investigated migrant maternity from three interlinked research perspectives: migrant women, healthcare delivery staff, and regional institutional agencies, to address wider questions about identity and belonging, citizenship and sovereignty, and humanitarianism and universalism in Europe today.
This section covers the final reporting period and presents a general overview of the project results and their exploitation and dissemination. EU Border Care lasted for an extra year than originally planned, thanks to an extension granted by the ERC in the spring of 2020, when the COVID-19 health emergency was quickly proving to bring many planned research and dissemination activities to a halt. This extension, together with the ERC's remarkable support and flexibility, enabled me to veer the project research objectives in the new, unexpected direction of the pandemic's effects on maternity care in EU Border Care's project countries, with a special focus on Italy. I was able to hire a talented and dynamic postdoctoral researcher to focus on the latter topic, conducting research online and in the field, when conditions permitted. Further, ongoing activities such as data analysis, publications and dissemination activities with other field sites, and involving past project team members, continued, thus attesting the strength of the professional and personal bonds established within EU Border Care's team throughout the years. Whereas, regrettably, some strategically significant dissemination and return activities which had been planned for 2020, such as a special multi-media exhibit and workshop in the foyer of the ERCEA in Brussels (planned May 2020), a short documentary on Lampedusan midwifery and motherhood (planned filming in March 2020) and policy returns in all field sites (June 2020) had to be abandoned, some welcome exposure came in particular thanks to the publication in French and Italian of Sandrine Martin's comic entitled 'Chez too' ('A casa'), based on the project ERCcOMICS collaboration, from March 2021 onwards (and ongoing). I have detailed all our most recent research and dissemination activities in the attached documentation - I do however wish to stress that overall, EU Border Care, represents in my view, a very good example of the ERC's focus on 'high-risk, high-gain' focus. The project was designed and planned following extensive discussions with experts who could testify a rise of pregnant crossings from anecdotal evidence in 2014 - and yet as 2015 unfolded, the hypothesis proved to be quantifiably true, beyond expectations. My team was able to document first hand the specific demographics and challenges of pregnant migrants and their families across the WPs, identifying specificities and commonalities in both patient and frontline service experiences of these medical encounters int he midst of the so-called 'crisis of migration' and its aftermath. The project's main argument rested on the need to fill a gap both in data and in analysis, pushing for an increased awareness of the gender dimension of international migration, and of the challenges met by frontline care services in European borderlands. More certainly needs to be done, but I am proud of the attention, interest and inspiration the project has generated among early-career and established researchers, as well as among activists and frontline workers. The local support from stakeholders and gatekeepers the project team members received across all project countries attests to the enthusiasm with which both patients and frontline workers responded, observing it was high time someone gave them a voice and documented their work and experiences. I am hopeful the project has laid empirical and epistemological foundations for more research to be conducted on this urgent, timely and important subject.
Progress beyond state of the art is based on the first half of the project: 1) the comparative field method which brought several researchers to work in different field sites over the same period of time constituted a risk, insofar as it could have called for replication of research findings or overlap of thematic areas. This however did not materialise, as EU Border Care successfully uncovered the great demographic and social diversity of the flows entering the European Union, and the regional specificities attached to each borderland and the reproductive and maternity care options provided. Differences and parallels between WPs sparked the development of separate research strands and themes within the project itself, which is being reflected in the outputs currently under review and/or about to be published. 2) the hypotheses of the empirical and analytical significance of the question of reproductive and maternity care in EU borderlands have been confirmed and have indeed taken an importance greater than the project itself. The interest raised by the project in local field sites (including by key research participants and stakeholders), as well as the larger academic community in Europe and beyond have underlined the timeliness of the project, in scholarly and policy circles. 3) Working with visual artists who are not photojournalists or migration experts has enabled fruitful and ethical research, and have contributed to challenging the representation of refugees and migrants rescued in borderlands, especially women, as voiceless victims. 4) Working with different tools and with different media has amplified the complexity of the borderlands portrayed, encouraging a more reflexive and anthropological study of the social and symbolic landscapes. 5) Thematically, the importance of birth and kinship, of memory and autobiography have been confirmed and have represented an ethically sound entry into representation of pregnant crossings and life on Europe's peripheries. 6) Methodologically, focusing on respect and return of research findings to source communities have been very positive experiences; these cannot wait several years but have to be organised at regular intervals.
The rest of the project will be focusing almost entirely on scholarly and public dissemination activities, the publications projects of different formats which will gradually be incorporated as outputs. The focus will be to valorise achievements and return some of the research to source communities.
The rest of the project will be focusing almost entirely on scholarly and public dissemination activities, the publications projects of different formats which will gradually be incorporated as outputs. The focus will be to valorise achievements and return some of the research to source communities.