Join us for a presentation by author Hannah Pool (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies) on the social and financial relationships that shape undocumented journeys from Afghanistan to Europe.
About the book:
What social relationships and economic interactions facilitate the crossing of borders for people to seek asylum? The Game - The Economy of Undocumented Migration from Afghanistan to Europe (Oxford University Press, 2025) follows the migration trajectory from Afghanistan to Germany, examining each stage of the journey through Iran, Turkey, Greece, and along the so-called Balkan route. Through this trek, the book accompanies a group of Afghan families and friends as they are being smuggled together along the route to seek asylum and safety. It thereby conceptualizes and theorizes the entire trajectory from the country of origin to the destination using a multisited ethnographic approach. By bridging economic sociology and migration studies, the book aims to provide insights into the economic interactions and social relationships essential for acquiring, saving, borrowing, spending, and exchanging money to facilitate undocumented migration. It contextualises these social relationships along the route through the lenses of debt, special monies, bribes, alms, and gift-giving. Throughout the migration journey, relationships with family, fellow migrants, smugglers, humanitarian actors, and border control officials shape and are shaped by access to financial resources. Through its ethnography, the book highlights the undocumented border-crossing and delves into the core of what it means to flee: Who has the means to escape dangerous conditions and seek asylum, and who remains trapped due to a lack of financial resources or supportive social networks?
Prior registration is required. Please register here.
Speakers
Hannah Pool is a senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. Her research focuses on the intersection of mobilities, money, and borders. For the research project "Doing the Game. The Moral Economy of Coming to Europe," she conducted a multi-sited ethnography on undocumented migration trajectories from Afghanistan to Germany. Her research has been awarded the Dissertation Prize of the German Sociological Association (DGS), the Dietrich Thränhart Prize of the German Political Science Association (DVPW), the Maria Ioannis Baganha Prize for Migration Studies of IMISCOE, the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society, and the Albert Ballin Prize for Globalization Studies. Hannah has been a visiting scholar at the Refugee Studies Center and the COMPAS Institute at Oxford University, Columbia University, and the Berlin Center for Social Sciences (WZB). She studied in St. Andrews, Tehran, and Dresden, funded by the German National Academic Scholarship and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
Discussants
Ali Fathollah Nejad PR Image Ali Fathollah-Nejad is a German–Iranian political scientist and author, with a focus on Iran, the Middle East, and the post-unipolar world order. He is Founder and Director of the Center for Middle East and Global Order (CMEG), a think-tank devoted to exploring transformations and promoting a foreign policy that reconciles interests and values. He teaches Middle East politics and international security at the Hertie School and is an Affiliate of its Centre for Fundamental Rights. He is also a Senior Fellow with the University of Bonn’s Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS). In the past, he served as Iran expert with the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), the Brookings Institution, and the American University of Beirut (AUB).
Lukas M. Fuchs is an interdisciplinary migration and refugee researcher with international work experience at the intersection of international relations between states, international movement of people and the social integration of migrants. Among other, he has done research in Germany, Uganda, Kenya and Israel. He recently led a project on humanitarian admission and local staff programs for Afghans as well as a project that closely looks at the live courses of Afghan families in Germany through their migration trajectories. At DeZIM, he also works on a variety of topics pertaining to refugee and asylum policy, citizenship, migrants' sense of belonging and return and re-migration aspirations of refugees.
Chair
Vera Wriedt is a Research Associate at the University of Münster’s Käte Hamburger Centre on Legal Unity and Pluralism as well as at the Law Faculty's Institute for Public Law and Human Rights. Her research focuses on borders and human rights. She completed her doctoral thesis entitled ‘Bordering Belonging: Colonialism, Nationality and Expulsions in the European and African Human Rights Systems’ at the Hertie School and Ghent University with distinction (summa cum laude). Before starting her PhD, Vera worked in the Border Justice Programme of the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR). She has taught courses on human rights and migration at Freie Universität Berlin and the Hertie School.