Award for GIGA researchers: Dr. Christiane Fröhlich and Dr. Lea Müller-Funk win Routledge Area Studies Interdisciplinarity Award
Prize | 2023
Dr. Christiane Fröhlich and Dr. Lea Müller-Funk are the winners of this year’s Routledge Area Studies Interdisciplinarity Award. The GIGA researchers received the award for their outstanding article “Mobility Control as State-Making in Civil War: Forcing Exit, Selective Return, and Strategic Laissez-Faire,” published in Migration Politics. The award is presented by the renowned publishing house Routledge and honours outstanding interdisciplinary research in the field of Regional Studies, with an emphasis on real-world applicability.
Our GIGA researchers’ winning article takes an in-depth look at how state and non-state actors attempt to control mobility during civil wars and how that and state-building processes interact in such situations. Their research, based on the literature on strategic displacement and migration policy in combination with empirical findings amid the ongoing wars in Libya and Syria, identifies three mechanisms of mobility control in civil-war contexts: forced exit, selective return as a form of displacement, and strategic laissez-faire as a deliberate lack of regulation in relation to displacement and return. The article sheds light on how state actors, rebels, and militias use these mechanisms to create a new (post-)war order that includes some citizens while excluding others due to perceived political threats. The work thus contributes to a deeper understanding of the complex inter-relationships existing in civil-war settings.
The jury recognised not only the high quality of the research involved but also its real-world applicability. Receipt of this award underlines GIGA researchers’ commitment to outstanding interdisciplinary scholarship. The GIGA is proud of Christiane and Lea, and congratulates them both on this magnificent achievement.
This paper by Dr. Christiane Fröhlich and Dr. Lea Müller-Funk addresses the question of how different actors govern mobility during civil war, and how mobility control and processes of state-making interact in such settings.
In this paper, we study the question of who and what drives forced migration governance in origin, host, and transit states, drawing on empirical material from the contemporary Syrian and Libyan, and the historical Algerian displacement situations.
This paper by Dr. Christiane Fröhlich and Dr. Lea Müller-Funk addresses the question of how different actors govern mobility during civil war, and how mobility control and processes of state-making interact in such settings.
Around 80 million people have been forcibly displaced by war or political violence worldwide. Several millions more have fled because of environmental disasters and socio-economic marginalisation. We focus on the background of this phenomenon in the regions of origin.
In this paper, we study the question of who and what drives forced migration governance in origin, host, and transit states, drawing on empirical material from the contemporary Syrian and Libyan, and the historical Algerian displacement situations.
This paper by Dr. Christiane Fröhlich and Dr. Lea Müller-Funk addresses the question of how different actors govern mobility during civil war, and how mobility control and processes of state-making interact in such settings.
Around 80 million people have been forcibly displaced by war or political violence worldwide. Several millions more have fled because of environmental disasters and socio-economic marginalisation. We focus on the background of this phenomenon in the regions of origin.
In this paper, we study the question of who and what drives forced migration governance in origin, host, and transit states, drawing on empirical material from the contemporary Syrian and Libyan, and the historical Algerian displacement situations.
This paper by Dr. Christiane Fröhlich and Dr. Lea Müller-Funk addresses the question of how different actors govern mobility during civil war, and how mobility control and processes of state-making interact in such settings.
