The Game: Counter-mapping informal refugee mobilities along the Balkan Route

Thousands of migrants (mostly from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Africa) travel every year along the so-called Balkan route. Considered the main overland migration corridor in Europe, this route consists of a complex geography of formal and informal and visible and "invisible" sites that sustain "the Game," the term migrants use to refer to their irregular journeys across the region. Along the route, an archipelago of makeshift camps has emerged, serving as temporary shelters and sites where migrants meet, rest and plan the next steps. The ERC-funded TheGAME project will explore these makeshift camps’ social and political realities while considering them as interconnected, corridor-forming geographical formations which are key to the migrants’ multiple experiences of the Balkan route.