News

In May 2026, Heidrun Bohnet presented preliminary findings from the project’s fieldwork in Tunisia at the international conference ‘Temporary Migration (20th–21st Centuries): Spaces, Frameworks, and Imaginaries’. Her presentation shared first insights into perceptions among different Sub-Saharan migrant communities and contributed to ongoing discussions on migration, mobility, and inequality. The conference was held in Tunis and was jointly organized by the Laboratory for the History of Mediterranean Economies and Societies (HESM) at the University of Tunis, and the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (CAREP).

A new project-related publication by Shaddin Almasri, co-authored with Alemu Asfaw Nigusie, was published in Migration Studies in 2026. Titled ‘The permanent few or the temporary many? Evaluating refugee integration obstructors through implementation of the Ethiopia and Jordan Job Compacts,’ the article examines how policy and governance shape refugee labour inclusion in Ethiopia and Jordan, with particular attention to how implementation differences can obstruct longer-term integration.

A new project-related policy paper, co-authored by Amira Abdelaziz Elsaid, addresses barriers that migrants in Egypt face in accessing education, a key basic service. Focusing on school-aged Sudanese migrant children in Greater Cairo, especially at the primary level, the paper draws on stakeholder interviews, roundtable discussions, and existing research to assess current efforts and develop two policy alternatives: Hybrid Learning for Equitable Access to Education and Supervised Community Learning Centers Engagement. The latter is advanced as the main policy recommendation to support both short-term and long-term educational inclusion of migrant children.

In November 2025, the project team participated in the 59th Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) in Washington, D.C. The team presented a refined version of the project’s conceptual framework as part of a panel organized by MECAM on the transregional entanglements of migration in the Maghreb.

In June 2025, Heidrun Bohnet presented the project’s conceptual paper,’Rival relations? Theorizing Inter-Migrant Group Relations in the Face of Inequality and Mixed Migration Arrivals,’ at the international conference ‘Continuity and Change in the Mediterranean: Migration Shifts’ in Casablanca. The conference offered an inspiring opportunity to exchange with leading scholars, regional experts, and organizations working on migration in Morocco.

In November 2024, Heidrun Bohnet joined the Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM) at the University of Tunis as a Visiting Scholar. During her stay, she participated in the conference ‘A Decolonial Mediterranean? Disparities, Imaginations, Power Relations’ and in MECAM’s event week ‘(In)Equity in the Maghreb: Perspectives for Development,’ where she presented on ‘The realities of refugee work rights: Policy gaps and the consequences for violence.’ The visit also provided an important opportunity for exchange with regional experts and fellow researchers.

At the beginning of the project, the Principal Investigator, Heidrun Bohnet, organized the panel ‘Refugee policies, rights, and aid: Between law and practice, differentiation by nationality and civil conflict’ at the International Studies Association (ISA) conference in April 2024. The panel brought together leading scholars to discuss migration policies, implementation gaps, and questions of rights and aid relating to migrants, including refugees, while the project’s Postdoctoral Researcher, Shaddin Almasri, presented her work on ‘Refugee inclusion—for who?’.