The Cities of Refuge platform aims to stimulate and demystify, through substantiated assessments, the ways in which the current refugee wave has been represented in Europe, particularly by bridging insular experiences into a wider continental dialogue.
IntroductionDespite numerous migrant waves through the decades, the current influx of refugees and asylum seekers into Europe has been framed by very specific narratives. From humanitarian calls for action to warnings of impending collapse, Europe thinks of itself under a crisis, at a political breaking point that justifies extreme discourses and measures.
The Refugee Spaces data project aims to stimulate and demystify the phenomena through examining the evidence rather than speculating on the so-called crisis. Through mapping and analysis of the openly available data provided by institutional and governmental sources, the platform attempts to spatialise the political and security measures designed to contain migration and the mobility of refugees.
We understand that migration and refuge are in a permanent state of flux, so this platform can only represent a snapshot of a specific period, in part constrained by reliability and availability of the data. Since we started this project, migration has played a more influential impact on political issues across Europe and the rest of the world, becoming sometimes the centrepiece of polarising campaigns and radical partisanship.
Brexit, the surprising success of populist agendas in some important national elections across Europe and elsewhere are just a few examples of how migratory issues have been used, and manipulated, for radical change. Security borders and sovereign intromission have expanded to Africa and Asia; the policing of the Mediterranean is now an established security regime; and humanitarian initiatives, to help refugees in peril, have been often criminalised.
In the following maps, the project shows a cartographical analysis of spatial responses and the administrative infrastructure brought by migration and refugees, stressing on the territorial relationships that associate mass movement with urban hotspots in four selected countries: France, Germany, Greece and Italy. Further countries can be added to the platform in the future. At the urban scale, the project identifies urban clusters/regions that are integral to current migration influxes, exploring their different strategies for reception and control.
Refugee Spaces has been funded by the 2016 Bartlett (UCL) Materialisation Grant. The project is a collaboration between the Development Planning Unit (DPU), Space Syntax Laboratory (the Bartlett School of Architecture), and the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA). The information presented on this platform is not intended to be a conclusion, but a departing point to track the spatial and economic impact of migration on European territories. We hope and anticipate that the output of this project could be used as a base for further research and collaborative work on European refugee and migration phenomena in future.“ The report, available to download, contains reflections and preliminary work done in preparation of the platform.
This project was created through a collaboration between the Development Planning Unit (DPU), Bartlett School of Architecture (BSA), and the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at University College London. The project was funded through a Bartlett Materialisation Grant.
The project team included Camillo Boano, Giovanna Astolfo, Ricardo Marten, Falli Palaiologou, Keyvan Karimi, and Ed Manley, with Gala Nettelbladt, Tahmineh Hooshyar Emami and Asimina Paraskevopoulou.
Migration and displacement are a constant worldwide phenomenon. Although European governments and media have portrayed the recent wave of arrivals to the continent as an onslaught, Europe currently hosts only 6% of displaced migrants, with none of its countries being close to the top–hosting countries in the world. Between 2010-15 Italy has seen an increase of refugee population of around 122%; while Turkey has seen an increase of around 32200%.
The visualisation shows numbers of asylum seekers and refugees against country population for years 2010 and 2015. It allows to compare numbers across different countries in Europe and Middle East. By clicking on the 3d button below, it is possible to understand what are the more hospitable countries. The source for this dataset is UNHCR.
© EuroGeographics for the administrative boundaries.
The spatial units for country areas are based on ‘NUTS 0 Administrative units / Statistical units’ classification by Eurostat. These units are used as the basemap for the data of asylum seekers and refugees’ counts by UNHCR. Asylum seekers and refugees’ counts: UNHCR
One of the inconsistent aspects of migration which affect the cost and economy around migration and seems to differ in quantity from one European space to the other, is the privatisation of refugee related services. This is one of the ways in which a state can reduce its costs in providing housing, security, detention or legal aid to asylum seekers. Instead, for-profit companies are invited to bid on the jobs, providing lower cost alternatives, and naturally averting higher costs which are incurred to the state if public servants perform the same tasks and duties of care. Specifically, in-donor costs refers to “expenditures for the sustenance of refugees during the first twelve months of their stay (payments for refugees’ transport to the host country and temporary sustenance as food, shelter and training and expenditures for voluntary resettlement of refugees in a developing country)
The map shows OECD data on country spending (in million USD, current prices) on the ‘in-donor refugee costs – spending’ for years 2010 and 2015. In-donor spending is assigned to the donor country under the Humanitarian aid sector as part of the Official development assistance (ODA). Specifically, in-donor costs refers to “expenditures for the sustenance of refugees during the first twelve months of their stay (payments for refugees’ transport to the host country and temporary sustenance as food, shelter and training and expenditures for voluntary resettlement of refugees in a developing country)
OECD makes the following notes on in-donor costs: “[Under in donor costs are recorded] ‘official sector expenditures for the sustenance of refugees in donor countries during the first twelve months of their stay. This includes payments for refugees’ transport to the host country and temporary sustenance (food, shelter and training); these expenditures should not be allocated geographically. However, this item also includes expenditures for voluntary resettlement of refugees in a developing country; these are allocated geographically according to the country of resettlement. Expenditures on deportation or other forcible measures to repatriate refugees should not be counted as ODA. Amounts spent to promote the integration of refugees into the economy of the donor country, or resettle them elsewhere than in a developing country, are also excluded.” DAC Secretariat, April 2016, p.2, < https://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/RefugeeCostsMethodologicalNote.pdf >, [Accessed 28 January 2018]. “Readers should be aware that data on in-donor refugee costs are not necessarily comparable between donors as reporting practices vary in terms of categories of refugees included, types of expenditures covered, and methodology used to assess costs during the first year of stay of refugees.” DAC Secretariat, April 2016, p.2, < https://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/RefugeeCostsMethodologicalNote.pdf >, [Accessed 28 January 2018]. Where the value is ‘0’ it indicates a value lower than USD 0.5 million.
© EuroGeographics for the administrative boundaries.
The spatial units for country areas are based on ‘NUTS 0 Administrative units / Statistical units’ classification by Eurostat. These units are used as the basemap for the data of asylum seekers and refugees’ counts by UNHCR.
The funds provided by the EU to member States to manage returns reached 674 million Euros between 2008-13 (The Migrant Files). The cost of detention for undocumented migrants is calculated differently in each country. For instance, Italy between 2005-11 spent 1 billion Euros on detention (Lunaria, 2013). Comparing public funds for refugee reception and social integration with those for relocation, detention and securitisation, the ratio is 1:2.
The visualisation shows the median cost of a deportation (in Euros) per each country. these estimates represent the lowest bound of the total cost and does not include some specific info as “Dublin deporations”, “the loss of businesses of European companies”. Data are calculated The Migrant Files (www.themigrantsfiles.com/ )
The Migrant Files clarify about their methodology: “These estimates represent the lowest bound of the total cost: The so-called Dublin deporations are not taken into account. The number of deportations from some countries is missing for some years. The cost of overhead (e.g the salaries of the prosecutors, the supporting staff etc.) is never taken into account in any estimate. The loss of business of European companies, especially airlines, but also shops that cater to immigrants or companies that employ them, is never taken into account.”
© EuroGeographics for the administrative boundaries.
The spatial units for country areas are based on ‘NUTS 0 Administrative units / Statistical units’ classification by Eurostat. These units are used as the basemap for the data of asylum seekers and refugees’ counts by UNHCR.
Securitisation and externalisation of borders and related military operation have the highest relative impact on the cost of migration and refuge – highly exceeding resources allocated to humanitarian response. Large sums have been allocated to Turkey and Libya following agreements in 2016 and 2017 to set up and manage centres to intercept and detain migrants along the main migration routes outside the geographical territory of Europe. Since its creation in 2005 as the EU border agency, the Frontex’ budget has been steadily increasing. From 20 million euros in 2006, its annual budget reached 90 million euros in 2010, and 143 million in 2015. Today, it is of 300 million euros (AEDH,2017; Frontex; Perkowski, 2012).
The visualisation shows the steady expenditure on securitisation and militarisation of the Mediterranean. By clicking on the below button, it is possible to see the total Frontex budget for years 2012, 2015 and 2017 (in Euros).
© EuroGeographics for the administrative boundaries.
The spatial units for country areas are based on ‘NUTS 0 Administrative units / Statistical units’ classification by Eurostat. These units are used as the basemap for the Frontex budget. Frontex budget: Frontex
Since 2015, dominant discourses around refugees deployed by EU political leaders and echoed in the mainstream media typically favoured the vocabulary of security, fear, risk, and the existential threats posed by cross border mobility.
Data on migration and refuge are used to create or reinforce a narration of invasion, suspicion, danger, threat and fear; the rhetoric of risk makes migration control and securitisation an increasingly profitable business. However, the same ‘alarming’ data on arrivals, can be looked at from another angle. Data do not prescribe any specific narration by themselves; they entail a level of deliberation – and ethical responsibility – on how they are collected, processed, selected and disclosed.
The same logic applies to non-demographic data, as for instance the costs related to migration: the budgets available for the refugee protection programmes (Expenditure), against the cost for security including Deportation, Detention and border security (Frontex).
By collating and spatialising different data sets, the aim of this set of visualisations on demographic and cost in Europe is to build an evidence-based, less biased understanding of the phenomenon of migration and forced displacement, while implicitly provoking a debate on how it is represented and reproduced through national datasets.
All the data gathered by this project are available to download. Please select a dataset from the dropdown below to see its description.