The Big Gamble: The Migration of Eritreans to Europe

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Univ of California Press, Dec 17, 2019 - Social Science - 242 pages
A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org.

Tens of thousands of Eritreans make perilous voyages across Africa and the Mediterranean Sea every year. Why do they risk their lives to reach European countries where so many more hardships await them? By visiting family homes in Eritrea and living with refugees in camps and urban peripheries across Ethiopia, Sudan, and Italy, Milena Belloni untangles the reasons behind one of the most under-researched refugee populations today. Balancing encounters with refugees and their families, smugglers, and visa officers, The Big Gamble contributes to ongoing debates about blurred boundaries between forced and voluntary migration, the complications of transnational marriages, the social matrix of smuggling, and the role of family expectations, emotions, and values in migrants’ choices of destinations.
 
 

Contents

Ingredients of an Ordinary Crisis
25
Diverse Responses to Protracted
50
Transnational and Peer Pressure in Onward
79
Inside the World of Smuggling
101
Making Sense of HighRisk Migration through Gambling
125
Postscript
145
Notes
169
References
197
Index
225
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About the author (2019)

Milena Belloni is a sociologist at the University of Trento. Her doctoral research on Eritrean migration received the 2016 IMISCOE Award. Belloni has published in the Journal of Refugee Studies and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

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