Underground Europe: Along Migrant Routes

The book compares the 19th-century Underground Railroad in North America to the 21st-century routes and trails of migrant passages in Europe, highlighting the dynamic effect of migrants' autonomy and solidarity. It suggests an analogous Underground Europe, reversing the image of a main borderland into one of a space crisscrossed by many routes and passages.

Format: Hardback
Length: 326 pages
Publication date: 08 November 2022
Publisher: Springer International Publishing AG

This book draws a striking analogy between the 19th-century Underground Railroad in North America and the contemporary routes and pathways of migrant passages in Europe. It begins as a historical travelogue, exploring the remnants of the Underground Railroad in the US and Canada, including its legacies and unfulfilled heritage. However, it quickly shifts to the political present, ethnographically sketching a series of different border instances and situations, both external and within the EU space. The book focuses on the violent harshening of local border regimes, but it also suggests a different picture, one conceived as the dynamic effect of both migrants' autonomy and the solidarity provided by local and international groups. By examining these specific and contested situations, the book challenges the notion of a main borderland and instead presents a space crisscrossed by many routes and passages. Reading these experiences through the historical lens of the US antebellum Underground Railroad, the book proposes the idea of an analogous Underground Europe.

Weight: 575g
Dimension: 210 x 148 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783031161506
Edition number: 1st ed. 2022