Ethnography on the Underground Migratory Routes from Sudan to the North: Sombok Is an Idea and Ideas Never Die

This book uses an ethnography of the migratory route from Sudan to the EU to understand how undocumented migration experiences take place and breed underground forms of mobilities and survival strategies. It pays particular attention to the production, circulation and resilience of migratory knowledge in transnational networks and how those produce and sustain specific mobility practices. The related research questions focus on: how and which narratives and popular imaginations circulate and foster high-risk journeys towards Europe, referred to as sombok; understanding how these kind of journeys are interpreted and framed according to gender, religion and family traditions; discerning how border regimes produce specific migration careers, decision making processes and forms of resistance and cooperation with other actors; how the figure of the smuggler is framed by people on the move and how one group of smugglers interpret their activities at the Ventimiglia border; and how the practices of homing on the move and solidarity housing experiences take place and prop underground routes. This book will be of interest to scholars of migration.