This section aims to analyse the topics that present the intersection between geopolitics, food and migration, through a country-based and historical analyses of issues relevant to current events.
Recent migration flows from Nepal are having direct effects on several socio-economic facets of the country’s economy.
Nowadays, Germany is probably both a model and a dissuasive example. A model when we consider that millions of migrants (especially from Southern Europe) found their place within its borders. A dissuasive example since the integration of around 1,7 million refugees has largely failed and the German welfare state could be on the verge of collapse.
Since 2017, migratory flows crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe have radically changed. This is arguably the outcome of the resolute policy measures adopted by the European Union (EU) and its member states to address the so-called “migration crisis” which invested Europe in 2014-16.
North Africa’s short-lived Arab Spring of 2010-2011 illustrates a disastrous cycle of conflict, food insecurity, and forced migration. Food shortages sparked tension. Migration accelerated. As young people moved away, the farming sector suffered, yields declined, and competition for food increased among those who stay behind.
Often crystallized in the vast public imagination as a place of conflict and starvation, Ethiopia is in fact a fast-developing country, which many look at as a model. Between the blurred lines of recent historic events a less stereotyped image of the giant of the Horn still struggles for recognition.
After a promising beginning, Syrian integration in Turkey must be judged a failure. Rather than bringing two peoples together, food has played a role in driving them apart. It's a sad story.
We tend to think of Europe and Africa as of two distinct continents. In fact, there is an area in which they are almost one: the Mediterranean Region. We already live in a kind of Eurafrica. And what binds together is migration.
Despite Mexican migration northward diminishing, in the last few years people from Central America, mostly fleeing food insecurity, have been moving to the United States in troves, adding up to the overall Hispanic American population. Such an increase has caused the assimilation of Latinos into the US society to advance, producing a mixture of different cuisines and food habits. While also inducing the likes of Donald Trump to rant against newcomers and pursue the completion of a wall between the US and Mexico. Main factors of a thorny issue strongly related to food (and lack thereof).
