Migrant smuggling as a collective strategy and insurance policy : views from the margins

In this volume of The ANNALS, we present a collection of empirically based research projects on migrant smuggling, seeking to create a more nuanced understanding of the topic that supersedes perspectives that are often found in mainstream narratives of unscrupulous and ruthless criminal gangs preying on vulnerable and desperate migrants. The contributing authors rely on field data to reveal the complex and often symbiotic relationships between migrants and the people behind their journeys. Often misunderstood in juxtaposition to narratives of security and control, the lived experiences of migrants describe smuggling facilitators as relatives or close friends, acquaintances or distant operators—all members of a social net- work of varying relational proximity. Vulnerability in migration grows as the travel distance and transit points increase and the density of one’s own community ties decreases. The procurement of smuggling services is always situated within the collective wisdom and lived experiences of the migrants and their communities, and the strategies to increase the odds of success and to reduce the hazards and uncertainty of traversing foreign terrains.-- Crimes of Solidarity in Mobility: Alternative Views on Migrant Smuggling, Sheldon X. Zhang, Gabriella E. Sanchez, Luigi Achilli -- Manufacturing Smugglers: From Irregular to Clandestine Mobility in the Sahara, Julien Brachet -- Out of West Africa: Human Smuggling as a Social Enterprise, Stephanie Maher -- Refugee Protections from Below: Smuggling in the Eritrea-Ethiopia Context, Tekalign Ayalew Mengiste -- The “Good” Smuggler: The Ethics and Morals of Human Smuggling among Syrians, Luigi Achilli -- Community Dimensions of Smuggling: The Case of Afghanistan and Somalia, Nassim Majidi -- “I Want to Be Trafficked so I Can Migrate!”: Cross-Border Movement of North Koreans into China through Brokerage and Smuggling Networks, Kyunghee Kook -- Rumors, Encounters, Collaborations, and Survival: The Migrant Smuggling–Drug Trafficking Nexus in the U.S. Southwest, Gabriella E. Sanchez, Sheldon X. Zhang -- What Makes a Good Human Smuggler? The Differences between Satisfaction with and Recommendation of Coyotes on the U.S.-Mexico Border, Jeremy Slack, Daniel E. Martínez -- Navigating with Coyotes: Pathways of Central American Migrants in Mexico’s Southern Borders, Yaatsil Guevara González -- Historicizing Mobility: Coyoterismo in the Indigenous Ecuadorian Migration Industry, Victoria Stone-Cadena, Soledad Álvarez Velasco -- Migrant Smuggling: Novel Insights and Implications for Migration Control Policies, Anna Triandafyllidou -- Special Editors’ Note, Sheldon X. Zhang, Gabriella E. Sanchez, Luigi Achilli -- Policy Perspective, Morgane Nicot, Bianca Kop