Book Launch: Forced Migration, Masculinities, and Vulnerabilities in the Mediterranean. Refugee Men on the Margins of Europe
This event marks the launch of Forced Migration, Masculinities, and Vulnerabilities in the Mediterranean, a new book examining forced migrant men’s vulnerabilities along the Central Mediterranean Route (CMR), which connects sub-Saharan Africa to Sicily via Libya.
Drawing on ethnographic research and life-history interviews with sub-Saharan African asylum seekers and international protection holders in Sicily, the book expands our understanding of the violence-migration nexus by exploring the role of intersectional power hierarchies in shaping forced migrant men’s experiences of suffering and vulnerability along one of the deadliest migration routes in the world. Participants’ narratives of gendered embodiment within the trans-Mediterranean illegality industry illuminate a continuum of violence produced by their marginalised positions within locally salient hierarchies of masculinities. Situated within the racialised landscape of the so-called Mediterranean migration “crisis,” the performance of “competent” manhood emerges as a crucial narrative site through which forced migrant men contest prolonged marginalisation and reclaim subjectivity. Overall, the book frames the relationship between forced migration, masculinities, and vulnerabilities as a critical lens for revealing participants’ neglected social welfare needs and demands in postcolonial Europe. Forced Migration, Masculinities, and Vulnerabilities in the Mediterranean appeals to those with research interests in migration governance, gender, sexuality, postcoloniality, race, ethnicity, European studies, and humanitarianism.
Meet our speakers and chair
Isabel Shutes is an Associate Professor in International Social and Public Policy. Her research centres on inequalities relating to citizenship, migration and mobility; long-term care systems, migration and care work; transnational social protection and social rights. Her research engages with a range of actors in migration and social policy, including state and civil society actors, service providers and employers, and with the lived experiences of care, work and migration across different social groups. She has a particular interest in qualitative research methods.
Alessio D’Angelo is a Professor of Social Policy within the School of Law and Social Sciences at the University of Derby, where he co-directs the Centre for Criminology and Social Policy Research. He is Editor of the journal Social Policy and Society and a member of the Executive Committee of the Social Policy Association (SPA). He is also a member of the British Sociological Association (BSA), where he is a convenor of the Social Network Analysis Study Group (SNAG).
Eleonore Kofman is a Professor of Gender, Migration and Citizenship and co-Director of the Social Policy Research Centre and co-cluster lead of the Migration, Policy and Society research cluster at Middlesex University. She is an executive board member of IMISCOE, the largest network of institutions of migration research in Europe and has served on a number of research evaluation panels for the ESRC, Norwegian Research Council Expert Panel 2019; 2020; 2021, Czech Academy of Science: Social Science Evaluation 2021, the Belgian French Community Research Evaluation 2023-2025, AHRC 2025 and Nordforsk 2025.
Author: Marcy Palillo is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Greenwich. She holds a PhD in Social Policy from the London School of Economics (LSE) and has previously taught at Sciences Po Paris, LSE, and the University of Bradford. Her research examines the intersections of migration, gender, and race in the Mediterranean. She has published widely in leading international journals, including International Migration Review, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Journal of Refugee Studies.
Coretta Phillips is a Professor of Criminology and Social Policy and the Head of the Department of Social Policy. Coretta serves as an Editor for Oxford University Press' Clarendon Studies in Criminology. Previously she has been on the editorial boards of the British Journal of Criminology, Punishment and Society, Race and Justice, and the Palgrave Studies in Race, Ethnicity, Indigeneity and Criminal Justice. Coretta has acted as a consultant for the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, UK Home Office, Ministry of Justice, Judicial Studies Board, Clinks, Howard League for Penal Reform, and the Metropolitan Black Police Association.
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