300631 Forced migration: insights from Africa (30-M25) (S) (SoSe 2025)

African forced migration is the subject of various stereotypes that portray it as an exodus from Africa to Europe, explain it through allegedly omnipresent poverty and violence on the "dark continent", and depict African forced migrants as a helpless mass of unfortunates waiting to be saved by kind, white strangers.
But what if, underneath the veil of such stereotypes, a much more interesting, multi-faceted reality can be uncovered? What if there are large movements of forced migrants within Africa itself, far outnumbering those toward Europe? What if countries such as Uganda offer refuge to hundreds of thousands of refugees, crafting remarkable political responses to forced migration? What if forced migration from countries such as Congo or Somalia has unique, complex causes embedded in national histories as well as global political framework conditions? And what if African forced migrants are individuals who actively navigate through lived realities that are deeply affected by heterogeneities such as age and gender? When seeking to look beyond the simple stereotypes and to develop a sound, research-based understanding of African forced migration, it is essential to engage with such questions. This is what we do in this seminar.