M Belloni
Biographic Data
| ID | 40647 |
|---|---|
| NAME | M Belloni |
| GIVEN NAMES | M |
| FAMILY NAME | Belloni |
| SIGNATURE | BELLONI M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Antwerp |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1261-4988 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 194 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Intersecting vulnerabilities, diverging pathways: An intersectional analysis of PrEP access disparities among migrant populations in Belgium
OBJECTIVE: This study explored how intersecting vulnerability factors reduced migrants' access to HIV Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in Belgium, moving beyond single-factor analyses to examine complex, interconnected barriers. METHODS: Drawing on data from a larger study, we conducted a qualitative multi-method study using key informant interviews (n = 8), in-depth interviews with migrant men and a transgender woman, all of whom have sex with me…
The variable geometry of proof: The use of evidence in EU family reunification processing
Deserving or undeserving
This paper documents the initial phase of the "National Alien Services" program (LVV in its Dutch acronym), intended to shelter undocumented people in the Netherlands from 2019 to 2022. The programme established a national network of guidance and reception facilities for undocumented migrants in five major Dutch cities to put previous urban-level initiatives on a more uniform basis. This paper analyzes the implementation of the LVV in Amsterdam, …
Fraudulent Families? Investigating the Role of Paperwork in the Assessment of Refugees' Family Reunification in Belgium
Current European directives indicate that refugees must be afforded more leniency when certifying the family relationships in family visa applications. However, our research—based on an in-depth thematic analysis of a sample of proceedings of the Belgian Council for Alien Law Litigation (2015–2019)—shows that even when refugee families provide documentary evidence about family ties and identity, this is often used against them. Building on studie…
Daring to aspire: Theorising Aspirations in Contexts of Displacement and Highly Constrained Mobility
Binary distinctions between 'refugees' and 'economic migrants' continue to prevail in humanitarian discourse, with asylum policies heavily focusing on refugees' vulnerabilities and reduced choices. By addressing the paradox between vulnerability and agency embedded in the international protection regime, this article aims to lay the foundations for reconceptualising aspirations in contexts of displacement and highly constrained mobility. First, w…
Cosmologies and migration: On worldviews and their influence on mobility and immobility
This article argues that the concept of ‘cosmologies of destinations’ is a useful theoretical tool to provide an emic understanding of the social and moral meanings of migrants’ journeys. By this concept, I refer to the hierarchical representations of the world that orient migration journeys. Drawing from my multi-sited ethnography with Eritreans at home and abroad, I illustrate how migration destinations were mapped by my informants along an imp…
Much More Than Just Money: Investigating Remittances Across Time and Place in the Eritrean Context
Remittances have played crucial and shifting roles in Eritrea and its diaspora. They were fundamental to the achievement of national independence and are a resource with which the current government strengthens its power. Households have been reliant on remittances for survival, while for migrants they have been crucial to reinforce their sense of national belonging. Drawing from fieldwork, this article analyses remittances as a powerful tool to …
Return and Retreat in a Transnational World: Insights from Eritrea
When refugees’ access to economic, political, and social rights cannot be guaranteed in one locale, individuals make pragmatic choices about what relationships to sustain with authorities elsewhere, even with those that caused their flight in the first place. This process of return is rarely akin to conventional repatriation, understood as the full re-establishment of the rights and responsibilities associated with citizenship (Bradley, 2013). In…
The right to exit as national and transnational governance: The case of Eritrea
In this article, we seek to explain some of the seeming paradoxes of extreme restrictions on the right to exit in the case of Eritrea. While the government has denied passports and exit visas to all but a few categories of Eritrean resident citizens in order to avoid a mass exodus from the country, and imposed harsh punishments on those found crossing the border illegally, the government has also institutionalised policies to “welcome” absconders…
Accumulated Homelessness: Analysing Protracted Displacement along Eritreans’ Life Histories
This article introduces the notion of ‘accumulated homelessness’ to account for the repeated loss and lack of home experienced by many migrants in Europe today. Through the lens of home and homelessness, we argue that the debate on protracted displacement—often applied only to developing countries—should be extended to Europe. Going beyond the idea of shelterlessness, we consider homelessness as a multidimensional and multiscalar condition which …
Transnational Lived Citizenship - The Case of the Eritrean Diaspora
This special focus section analyses state-diaspora relationships with a focus on the case of Eritrea, a paradigmatic example, as we show in this introduction, to elaborate on the following key questions: What determines loyalty between diaspora and the state? How can we understand the dynamics of co-optation, loyalty, and resistance that characterise many diaspora-state relationships? What is the role of historical events and memory in building a…
Remittance Houses and Transnational Citizenship: Mapping Eritrea's Diaspora-State Relationships
Can diaspora houses be used as a site to explore transnational citizenship? Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Eritrea, this article shows that different kinds of remittance houses reify different categories of transnational citizens with various sets of rights and duties. Drawing on studies on state-diaspora relations and remittance houses, I illustrate the key role that housing plays in the Eritrean state's efforts to build a loyal diaspora. By…
Collective thinking in the field: Distributed cognition in large-scale qualitative research
Comment étudier aujourd’hui la mobilité, en pratique ? Les multiples plaidoyers en faveur des ethnographies multi-situées (depuis Marcus, 1995) ont favorisé la multiplication des enquêtes qualitatives internationales ; mais la transnationalisation de méthodes ethnographiques, développées à l’échelle locale, suscite de nouveaux défis. Dans cet article, les membres du projet ERC HOMInG reviennent sur les difficultés rencontrées, et solutions dévelo…
Thinking Home on the Move: A Conversation across Disciplines
Thinking Home on the Move is a powerful and in-depth look into what we as humans perceive as ‘home’. It presents an interdisciplinary conversation with leading scholars to illuminate the state-of-the-art and the ways ahead for researching home on the move and from the margins. It asks the question, what is home, and why do we need it
When the phone stops ringing: On the meanings and causes of disruptions in communication between Eritrean refugees and their families back home
In recent years, a growing number of studies have highlighted the role of technology in facilitating the circulation of the information and images that underpin migrants' journeys and aspirations. However, less attention has been paid to the social circumstances that obstruct these communication flows. Based on ethnographic work in Italy and Eritrea, in this article I show that, despite the technological possibilities that are available, contacts…
Methodological innovations, reflections and dilemmas: The Hidden Sides of Research With Migrant Young People Classified as Unaccompanied Minors
This paper offers some behind-the-scenes insights drawn from the collective fieldwork experiences of the contributors to this Special Issue. These include reflections on: how decisions about modes of accessing research participants fundamentally shape the research process and outcomes; the pitfalls of only focusing on young people's migratory experiences while ignoring the multiple other dimensions to their lives; how we can best capture and repr…
Family project or individual choice? Exploring agency in young Eritreans' migration
Since the beginning of 2010s, the movement of unaccompanied minors from Eritrea has significantly increased and has become the object of international concern. This migration is often explained by media and humanitarian actors as the mechanical reaction to recent conscription campaigns by the Eritrean government. However, these explanations fail to consider that young people's mobilities emerge from a context of protracted crisis. Building on the…
Breaking Free from Tradition: Women, National Service and Migration in Eritrea
Drawing from ethnographic research with five young women living in Asmara (Eritrea), this article investigates the intersection between migration aspirations and the desire for gender –and sexual – emancipation. While an increasing amount of studies focuses on the effect of migration on gender roles and sexuality, this article aims to understand the gendered nature of migration aspirations at their outset. After a brief review of the role of wome…
Refugees and citizens: Understanding Eritrean refugees’ ambivalence towards homeland politics
This article revisits ambivalence as a protracted state which does not simply develop as a result of the migration experience but stems from overlapping levels of normative inconsistency. Drawing from my ethnography of Eritreans’ everyday life in the homeland and abroad, I analyse their attitudes of patriotism and disenchantment through an ambivalence lens. Their ambiguous attitudes are arising from national and transnational Eritrean state polic…
My Uncle Cannot Say “NO” if i Reach Libya’: Unpacking the Social Dynamics of Border-Crossing among Eritreans Heading to Europe
This article investigates the role of transnational family networks in facilitating undocumented migration, by analyzing the case of Eritrean refugees on the move towards Europe. Based on the consideration that irregular border-crossing usually involves not only migrants and smugglers but also family members financing these journeys from abroad, I illustrate that their economic support is rarely voluntary. This is mainly due to the moral dilemmas…
Learning How to Squat: Cooperation and Conflict between Refugees and Natives in Rome
This article investigates the relationship between refugees’ integration and residential segregation by analysing Eritreans’ participation in local squatting practices in Rome. While it has often been assumed that residential concentration is linked to lack of participation in wider society, this case study points to counterintuitive implications of integration and segregation dynamics. After revisiting the relevant debate with specific focus on …
Refugees as Gamblers: Eritreans Seeking to Migrate Through Italy
Although the Dublin Regulation aims to prevent secondary movements within Europe, refugee flows from Italy toward northern Europe persist. Existing literature has investigated the relationship between refugee flows, policies, and other macro socioeconomic and cultural factors but the individual decision making underlying refugee mobility is relatively unexplored. Based on my ethnographic research, this article investigates how Eritrean refugees i…
Refugees as Gamblers: Eritreans Seeking to Migrate Through Italy
Although the Dublin Regulation aims to prevent secondary movements within Europe, refugee flows from Italy toward northern Europe persist. Existing literature has investigated the relationship between refugee flows, policies, and other macro socioeconomic and cultural factors but the individual decision making underlying refugee mobility is relatively unexplored. Based on my ethnographic research, this article investigates how Eritrean refugees i…
Learning How to Squat: Cooperation and Conflict between Refugees and Natives in Rome
This article investigates the relationship between refugees’ integration and residential segregation by analysing Eritreans’ participation in local squatting practices in Rome. While it has often been assumed that residential concentration is linked to lack of participation in wider society, this case study points to counterintuitive implications of integration and segregation dynamics. After revisiting the relevant debate with specific focus on …
Daring to aspire: Theorising Aspirations in Contexts of Displacement and Highly Constrained Mobility
Binary distinctions between 'refugees' and 'economic migrants' continue to prevail in humanitarian discourse, with asylum policies heavily focusing on refugees' vulnerabilities and reduced choices. By addressing the paradox between vulnerability and agency embedded in the international protection regime, this article aims to lay the foundations for reconceptualising aspirations in contexts of displacement and highly constrained mobility. First, w…
Methodological innovations, reflections and dilemmas: The Hidden Sides of Research With Migrant Young People Classified as Unaccompanied Minors
This paper offers some behind-the-scenes insights drawn from the collective fieldwork experiences of the contributors to this Special Issue. These include reflections on: how decisions about modes of accessing research participants fundamentally shape the research process and outcomes; the pitfalls of only focusing on young people's migratory experiences while ignoring the multiple other dimensions to their lives; how we can best capture and repr…
Family project or individual choice? Exploring agency in young Eritreans' migration
Since the beginning of 2010s, the movement of unaccompanied minors from Eritrea has significantly increased and has become the object of international concern. This migration is often explained by media and humanitarian actors as the mechanical reaction to recent conscription campaigns by the Eritrean government. However, these explanations fail to consider that young people's mobilities emerge from a context of protracted crisis. Building on the…
Refugees and citizens: Understanding Eritrean refugees’ ambivalence towards homeland politics
This article revisits ambivalence as a protracted state which does not simply develop as a result of the migration experience but stems from overlapping levels of normative inconsistency. Drawing from my ethnography of Eritreans’ everyday life in the homeland and abroad, I analyse their attitudes of patriotism and disenchantment through an ambivalence lens. Their ambiguous attitudes are arising from national and transnational Eritrean state polic…
My Uncle Cannot Say “NO” if i Reach Libya’: Unpacking the Social Dynamics of Border-Crossing among Eritreans Heading to Europe
This article investigates the role of transnational family networks in facilitating undocumented migration, by analyzing the case of Eritrean refugees on the move towards Europe. Based on the consideration that irregular border-crossing usually involves not only migrants and smugglers but also family members financing these journeys from abroad, I illustrate that their economic support is rarely voluntary. This is mainly due to the moral dilemmas…
Accumulated Homelessness: Analysing Protracted Displacement along Eritreans’ Life Histories
This article introduces the notion of ‘accumulated homelessness’ to account for the repeated loss and lack of home experienced by many migrants in Europe today. Through the lens of home and homelessness, we argue that the debate on protracted displacement—often applied only to developing countries—should be extended to Europe. Going beyond the idea of shelterlessness, we consider homelessness as a multidimensional and multiscalar condition which …
When the phone stops ringing: On the meanings and causes of disruptions in communication between Eritrean refugees and their families back home
In recent years, a growing number of studies have highlighted the role of technology in facilitating the circulation of the information and images that underpin migrants' journeys and aspirations. However, less attention has been paid to the social circumstances that obstruct these communication flows. Based on ethnographic work in Italy and Eritrea, in this article I show that, despite the technological possibilities that are available, contacts…
Transnational Lived Citizenship - The Case of the Eritrean Diaspora
This special focus section analyses state-diaspora relationships with a focus on the case of Eritrea, a paradigmatic example, as we show in this introduction, to elaborate on the following key questions: What determines loyalty between diaspora and the state? How can we understand the dynamics of co-optation, loyalty, and resistance that characterise many diaspora-state relationships? What is the role of historical events and memory in building a…
Remittance Houses and Transnational Citizenship: Mapping Eritrea's Diaspora-State Relationships
Can diaspora houses be used as a site to explore transnational citizenship? Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Eritrea, this article shows that different kinds of remittance houses reify different categories of transnational citizens with various sets of rights and duties. Drawing on studies on state-diaspora relations and remittance houses, I illustrate the key role that housing plays in the Eritrean state's efforts to build a loyal diaspora. By…
The right to exit as national and transnational governance: The case of Eritrea
In this article, we seek to explain some of the seeming paradoxes of extreme restrictions on the right to exit in the case of Eritrea. While the government has denied passports and exit visas to all but a few categories of Eritrean resident citizens in order to avoid a mass exodus from the country, and imposed harsh punishments on those found crossing the border illegally, the government has also institutionalised policies to “welcome” absconders…
Fraudulent Families? Investigating the Role of Paperwork in the Assessment of Refugees' Family Reunification in Belgium
Current European directives indicate that refugees must be afforded more leniency when certifying the family relationships in family visa applications. However, our research—based on an in-depth thematic analysis of a sample of proceedings of the Belgian Council for Alien Law Litigation (2015–2019)—shows that even when refugee families provide documentary evidence about family ties and identity, this is often used against them. Building on studie…
Return and Retreat in a Transnational World: Insights from Eritrea
When refugees’ access to economic, political, and social rights cannot be guaranteed in one locale, individuals make pragmatic choices about what relationships to sustain with authorities elsewhere, even with those that caused their flight in the first place. This process of return is rarely akin to conventional repatriation, understood as the full re-establishment of the rights and responsibilities associated with citizenship (Bradley, 2013). In…
My Uncle Cannot Say “NO” if i Reach Libya’: Unpacking the Social Dynamics of Border-Crossing among Eritreans Heading to Europe
This article investigates the role of transnational family networks in facilitating undocumented migration, by analyzing the case of Eritrean refugees on the move towards Europe. Based on the consideration that irregular border-crossing usually involves not only migrants and smugglers but also family members financing these journeys from abroad, I illustrate that their economic support is rarely voluntary. This is mainly due to the moral dilemmas…
Learning How to Squat: Cooperation and Conflict between Refugees and Natives in Rome
This article investigates the relationship between refugees’ integration and residential segregation by analysing Eritreans’ participation in local squatting practices in Rome. While it has often been assumed that residential concentration is linked to lack of participation in wider society, this case study points to counterintuitive implications of integration and segregation dynamics. After revisiting the relevant debate with specific focus on …
Refugees as Gamblers: Eritreans Seeking to Migrate Through Italy
Although the Dublin Regulation aims to prevent secondary movements within Europe, refugee flows from Italy toward northern Europe persist. Existing literature has investigated the relationship between refugee flows, policies, and other macro socioeconomic and cultural factors but the individual decision making underlying refugee mobility is relatively unexplored. Based on my ethnographic research, this article investigates how Eritrean refugees i…
Breaking Free from Tradition: Women, National Service and Migration in Eritrea
Drawing from ethnographic research with five young women living in Asmara (Eritrea), this article investigates the intersection between migration aspirations and the desire for gender –and sexual – emancipation. While an increasing amount of studies focuses on the effect of migration on gender roles and sexuality, this article aims to understand the gendered nature of migration aspirations at their outset. After a brief review of the role of wome…
Refugees and citizens: Understanding Eritrean refugees’ ambivalence towards homeland politics
This article revisits ambivalence as a protracted state which does not simply develop as a result of the migration experience but stems from overlapping levels of normative inconsistency. Drawing from my ethnography of Eritreans’ everyday life in the homeland and abroad, I analyse their attitudes of patriotism and disenchantment through an ambivalence lens. Their ambiguous attitudes are arising from national and transnational Eritrean state polic…
Collective thinking in the field: Distributed cognition in large-scale qualitative research
Comment étudier aujourd’hui la mobilité, en pratique ? Les multiples plaidoyers en faveur des ethnographies multi-situées (depuis Marcus, 1995) ont favorisé la multiplication des enquêtes qualitatives internationales ; mais la transnationalisation de méthodes ethnographiques, développées à l’échelle locale, suscite de nouveaux défis. Dans cet article, les membres du projet ERC HOMInG reviennent sur les difficultés rencontrées, et solutions dévelo…
Thinking Home on the Move: A Conversation across Disciplines
Thinking Home on the Move is a powerful and in-depth look into what we as humans perceive as ‘home’. It presents an interdisciplinary conversation with leading scholars to illuminate the state-of-the-art and the ways ahead for researching home on the move and from the margins. It asks the question, what is home, and why do we need it
When the phone stops ringing: On the meanings and causes of disruptions in communication between Eritrean refugees and their families back home
In recent years, a growing number of studies have highlighted the role of technology in facilitating the circulation of the information and images that underpin migrants' journeys and aspirations. However, less attention has been paid to the social circumstances that obstruct these communication flows. Based on ethnographic work in Italy and Eritrea, in this article I show that, despite the technological possibilities that are available, contacts…
Methodological innovations, reflections and dilemmas: The Hidden Sides of Research With Migrant Young People Classified as Unaccompanied Minors
This paper offers some behind-the-scenes insights drawn from the collective fieldwork experiences of the contributors to this Special Issue. These include reflections on: how decisions about modes of accessing research participants fundamentally shape the research process and outcomes; the pitfalls of only focusing on young people's migratory experiences while ignoring the multiple other dimensions to their lives; how we can best capture and repr…
Family project or individual choice? Exploring agency in young Eritreans' migration
Since the beginning of 2010s, the movement of unaccompanied minors from Eritrea has significantly increased and has become the object of international concern. This migration is often explained by media and humanitarian actors as the mechanical reaction to recent conscription campaigns by the Eritrean government. However, these explanations fail to consider that young people's mobilities emerge from a context of protracted crisis. Building on the…
Accumulated Homelessness: Analysing Protracted Displacement along Eritreans’ Life Histories
This article introduces the notion of ‘accumulated homelessness’ to account for the repeated loss and lack of home experienced by many migrants in Europe today. Through the lens of home and homelessness, we argue that the debate on protracted displacement—often applied only to developing countries—should be extended to Europe. Going beyond the idea of shelterlessness, we consider homelessness as a multidimensional and multiscalar condition which …
Transnational Lived Citizenship - The Case of the Eritrean Diaspora
This special focus section analyses state-diaspora relationships with a focus on the case of Eritrea, a paradigmatic example, as we show in this introduction, to elaborate on the following key questions: What determines loyalty between diaspora and the state? How can we understand the dynamics of co-optation, loyalty, and resistance that characterise many diaspora-state relationships? What is the role of historical events and memory in building a…
Remittance Houses and Transnational Citizenship: Mapping Eritrea's Diaspora-State Relationships
Can diaspora houses be used as a site to explore transnational citizenship? Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Eritrea, this article shows that different kinds of remittance houses reify different categories of transnational citizens with various sets of rights and duties. Drawing on studies on state-diaspora relations and remittance houses, I illustrate the key role that housing plays in the Eritrean state's efforts to build a loyal diaspora. By…
Cosmologies and migration: On worldviews and their influence on mobility and immobility
This article argues that the concept of ‘cosmologies of destinations’ is a useful theoretical tool to provide an emic understanding of the social and moral meanings of migrants’ journeys. By this concept, I refer to the hierarchical representations of the world that orient migration journeys. Drawing from my multi-sited ethnography with Eritreans at home and abroad, I illustrate how migration destinations were mapped by my informants along an imp…
Much More Than Just Money: Investigating Remittances Across Time and Place in the Eritrean Context
Remittances have played crucial and shifting roles in Eritrea and its diaspora. They were fundamental to the achievement of national independence and are a resource with which the current government strengthens its power. Households have been reliant on remittances for survival, while for migrants they have been crucial to reinforce their sense of national belonging. Drawing from fieldwork, this article analyses remittances as a powerful tool to …
Return and Retreat in a Transnational World: Insights from Eritrea
When refugees’ access to economic, political, and social rights cannot be guaranteed in one locale, individuals make pragmatic choices about what relationships to sustain with authorities elsewhere, even with those that caused their flight in the first place. This process of return is rarely akin to conventional repatriation, understood as the full re-establishment of the rights and responsibilities associated with citizenship (Bradley, 2013). In…
The right to exit as national and transnational governance: The case of Eritrea
In this article, we seek to explain some of the seeming paradoxes of extreme restrictions on the right to exit in the case of Eritrea. While the government has denied passports and exit visas to all but a few categories of Eritrean resident citizens in order to avoid a mass exodus from the country, and imposed harsh punishments on those found crossing the border illegally, the government has also institutionalised policies to “welcome” absconders…
Fraudulent Families? Investigating the Role of Paperwork in the Assessment of Refugees' Family Reunification in Belgium
Current European directives indicate that refugees must be afforded more leniency when certifying the family relationships in family visa applications. However, our research—based on an in-depth thematic analysis of a sample of proceedings of the Belgian Council for Alien Law Litigation (2015–2019)—shows that even when refugee families provide documentary evidence about family ties and identity, this is often used against them. Building on studie…
Daring to aspire: Theorising Aspirations in Contexts of Displacement and Highly Constrained Mobility
Binary distinctions between 'refugees' and 'economic migrants' continue to prevail in humanitarian discourse, with asylum policies heavily focusing on refugees' vulnerabilities and reduced choices. By addressing the paradox between vulnerability and agency embedded in the international protection regime, this article aims to lay the foundations for reconceptualising aspirations in contexts of displacement and highly constrained mobility. First, w…
Deserving or undeserving
This paper documents the initial phase of the "National Alien Services" program (LVV in its Dutch acronym), intended to shelter undocumented people in the Netherlands from 2019 to 2022. The programme established a national network of guidance and reception facilities for undocumented migrants in five major Dutch cities to put previous urban-level initiatives on a more uniform basis. This paper analyzes the implementation of the LVV in Amsterdam, …
Intersecting vulnerabilities, diverging pathways: An intersectional analysis of PrEP access disparities among migrant populations in Belgium
OBJECTIVE: This study explored how intersecting vulnerability factors reduced migrants' access to HIV Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in Belgium, moving beyond single-factor analyses to examine complex, interconnected barriers. METHODS: Drawing on data from a larger study, we conducted a qualitative multi-method study using key informant interviews (n = 8), in-depth interviews with migrant men and a transgender woman, all of whom have sex with me…
The variable geometry of proof: The use of evidence in EU family reunification processing
Sociology (18 works) · Political science (17 works) · Law (14 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (12 works) · African history and culture analysis (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Ethnography (8 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Political economy (8 works)