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Research Terms of Reference: Mixed Migration Trend Monitoring in Libya: Libyan refugees and asylum seekers in Italy

Attachments

2. Methodology

2.1. Methodology overview

Context and rationale

Since the renewed fighting of 2014, Libyans have experienced a rapid deterioration of living conditions. Recent fightings in Tripoli area in September/August 2018 have reveiled the persistent fragility of the security situation. In August 2018, an outbreak of violence was reported in Tripoli, marking an additional deterioration of the conflict. The 2019 Humanitarian Needs Overview describes the situation as characterized by “Continued conflicts, sudden escalations of violence, recurrent shifts of areas of control, proliferation of armed groups and political instability”. 3 The presence of explosive hazards including landmines, unexploded ordnance, improvised explosive devices, and the continued clashes between active armed groups in highly populated areas are still common elements of daily life in Libya. In the last years, persisting security concerns coupled with the deterioration of the economic situation, notably the cash and liquidity crisis, have severely affected the livelihood of Libyans. The 2019 Humanitarian Needs Overview report identifies 823,000 people in need, of which half are Libyans. 4 Among them, those who have been exposed to insecurity and conflict or who consider themselves Libyan but are not officially recognized as citizens and cannot access documentation are considered to be the most vulnerable.5 In recent years, Libyans have started to leave the country by engaging in irregular border crossings to Europe through the Central Mediterranean Route. By October 2018, 428 Libyan refugees and asylum seekers arrived in Italy,6 representing an emerging nationality engaging in mixed migration movement. However, little is known about the migration trends of Libyans to Italy.
This study aims at providing an increased understanding of the dynamics of Libyan movements abroad, by investigating the key displacement drivers and the decision making process, as well as the displacement trajectories and smuggling/trafficking dynamics of Libyans who reached Italy by boat via the Mediterranean in 2018.

Analytical framework

This assessment builds on a theoretical framework which recognizes refugees and asylum seekers’ agency – i.e. presuming that individuals have the ability to make decisions about their trajectories, trying to anticipate future trajectories and assembling their migration strategies accordingly – while acknowledging migration as an embedded phenomenon, which is shaped by a variety of concurring factors transcending the individual sphere.7 In order to gain an enhanced understanding of the decision making process driving recent Libyan migration, this assessment will look at drivers at the micro and meso level, where drivers are defined as forces which lead to the inception of cross-border movements and to their perpetuation.At the micro level, this assessment will consider forced migration as a function of capabilities9 and aspirations to migrate.10 As both aspirations and capabilities are socially constructed11 and are usually correlated with the political and security environment as well as with socio-economic development, the analysis of individual drivers will encompass protection risks related to the situation of protracted conflict, as well as the respondent’s socio-economic profile . Furthermore, building on the transnational approach,12 specific attention will be devoted to the time dimension. By considering time as a constitutive feature of migration, we recognize that the processes of border crossing, incorporation into new contexts and the establishment and maintenance of connections to homeland and in countries of destination occur simultaneously and mutually inform each other. As such, we acknowledge that the decision-making process does not occur at a single moment in time, but is rather the results of socially-embedded individual aspirations and changes in the more contextual factors occurring at the meso level.
At the meso level, this assessment will focus on what have been defined as precipitating and mediating factors.13 When considering decision-making as a dynamic process that takes place over time, precipitating factors account for those elements of the socioeconomic, political or environmental spheres that trigger individuals’ departures, such as the deterioration of the security conditions or an economic downturn. Mediating factors are instead those that enable, constraint, facilitate or decelerate migration. Their analysis will include considering the role played by actors of the migration industry such as smugglers, traffickers or the diaspora network, in the definition of an individual migration experience. This assessment will hence encompass elements such as the security situation and socio-economic developments in Libya as well as the dynamics of smuggling, in a view to gain an enhanced understanding of how these factors shaped recent Libyans migration.

Overview of the methodology

The methodology will include qualitative in-depth IIs (IIs) with Libyan refugees and asylum seekers who have engaged in irregular border crossing through the Central Mediterranean Route, to be conducted in Sicily and mainland Italy. Data collection sites will be identified during the initial mapping exercise conducted at field level.