Mixed (Ar)rivals: Unravelling inter-migrant group relations
Main Objective
The main objective of the project is to unravel inter-migrant group relations and to answer when they may turn rival or rather solidary.
The aim is to understand and examine the following three main research questions:
- When and how do different (forced) migrant groups become potential rivals?
- What factors increase or decrease the risk of rivalries between (forced) migrant groups?
- When do rivalries turn to resentment and potential social tensions?
While the focus is on rivalries, we at the same time examine how they may be prevented and how solidarity practices may be fostered. MixedRivals takes a cross-sectional comparative research design with case study elements; Collecting qualitative and quantitative data in five North African cities.
Method Steps
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Field Research and Data Collection
MixedRivals takes a cross-sectional comparative research design with case study elements; Collecting qualitative and quantitative data in five North African cities: Tunis and Sfax (Tunisia), Cairo (Egypt) and Rabat and Casablanca (Morocco).
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De Facto (Forced) Migration Policy
Building on previous data collection efforts, MixedRivals will try to code new and extended data on de facto (forced) migration policies in (North) Africa that reflects the refugee and migrant rights situation in practice and on the ground.
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Inter-Migrant Group Relations
MixedRivals aims at advancing the conceptual and theoretical framework on inter-migrant group relations by taking an interdisciplinary approach bringing together 1) socio-psychology 2) violent conflict research 3) the rivalry concept 4) refugee and migration studies and 5) policy effects literature together.
News
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MESA 59th Annual Meeting
The MixedRivals team participated (the postdoc in presence and the PI online) at the Middle East Studies Association’s (MESA) 59th Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. in November 2025. A refined version of the MixedRivals conceptual framework was presented within a panel organized by MECAM. The panel explored the transregional entanglements of migration in the Maghreb.
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Preliminary Results
In May 2026, the PI, Heidrun Bohnet, was able to present some preliminary results from the field work in Tunisia. She presented some first insights into perceptions among different Sub-Saharan migrant communities at the International Conference: “Temporary Migration (20th–21st Centuries): Spaces, Frameworks, and Imaginaries” in Tunis, organized by the Arab Center for Research and Policy…
Funded by the European Union (ERC, MixedRivals, project number: 101117243). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
