The facilities of the Scalabrinian Center for Migration Studies, or CSEM, are located on the second floor of an office building in the capital of the Brazilian government, Brasília. Deacon Klaus-Jürgen Kauß and Thomas Broch, the author of this article, visited the CSEM as part of a trip to Brazil from September 1 to 15, 2024.
CSEM: an overview
A short summary of CSEM's tasks and activities could be as follows: Founded in 1988, CSEM is an institution for practice-oriented research and specialized studies on migration and flight issues, which works in the academic field and has an international network and reach.
As its name suggests, CSEM is linked to the religious order of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo, founded in 1895 by the Italian bishop Giovanni Battista Scalabrini (1839-1905) in Piacenza, Italy. Following in the footsteps of their founder, who was beatified in 1997 and canonized in 2022 and is considered the “father of migrants”, the Scalabrinian Missionary Sisters - as well as the male branch of the order founded in 1887 and the Scalabrini Secular Institute founded in 1961 - are active today throughout the world in pastoral and social work for and with migrants and refugees. The CSEM also refers explicitly to the charism of the religious order and its globally active members in the written document on its identity.
In line with this vision, the CSEM sees its task as the promotion, creation and dissemination of interdisciplinary scientific knowledge on migration and forced displacement. Its mission is to support the human dignity of migrants and refugees and actively defend their rights, with the aim of creating a fairer world in which no one is a foreigner.
The team
CSEM's offices are modest in size and, in view of the broad spectrum of activities that are carried out, the small number of full-time staff is surprising, although they are supported by a network of volunteer scientific correspondents.
At a joint meeting with Klaus-Jürgen Kauß and me, they introduced themselves:
Marlene Elisabete Wildner MSCS, who currently works mainly from her office in Maravilha, in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, due to family commitments.
The deputy director is Roberto Marinucci, who has a master's degree in missiology. He is also editor-in-chief of the scientific journal REMHU (see below) and works with Bárbara Marciano Marques, a doctoral student in anthropology.
Carmen Lussi, who holds a doctorate in theology with a specialization in migration and interculturality, was director of the CSEM from 2005 to January 2009 and is responsible for the CSEM's publishing house, which publishes the books of the CSEM's various series (see below), as well as the books of the CSEM's international conferences.
Igor Borges Cunha, who has a master's degree in Social Sciences and a bachelor's degree in International Relations, works at CSEM as an institutional strengthening and fundraising analyst.
Michael Starllone de Araujo Arquilino is a graphic designer and communications specialist for CSEM's public communication and fundraising activities in various formats and on various social media platforms. He works externally and is usually connected to team meetings by video. For activities that require a personal presence, such as filming, interviews at CSEM events, conferences or strategic planning, Michael travels to Brasilia.
Coromoto Del Carmen (“Carmencita”) Urrieta Gonzales, a migrant from Venezuela, has a bachelor's degree in Human Resources Management and works as an administrative assistant at CSEM.
Tuíla Botega, who has a master's degree in Social Sciences, and Diana Ysabel Mundarain Gil, who has a bachelor's degree in Sociology, are researching the conditions of access and the experiences of international migrants to social security benefits in Brasilia, in a study carried out in collaboration with the local government and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The project analyzes the conditions under which international migrants have access to social security benefits in Brasilia and their experiences with these benefits.
Tuila Botega and Bárbara Marciano Marques are researching the situation of people who have suffered serious injuries and physical disabilities on the migratory route and who return to Honduras. This mainly concerns issues related to strategies for their reintegration, both within families and at community level. This research is being carried out in collaboration with the Pastoral de Movilidad Humana in Honduras.
CSEM's programmatic self-sufficiency
“I'm a forced migrant from Venezuela, a person of color and a woman,” emphasizes Diana. As a sociologist, this gives her a specific insight into the situation and different experiences of migrants in three ways.
This is not a casual comment, but one that Diana expressly made with the intention of being programmatic. And it points not only to her specific personal experience, but above all to the identity of CSEM. In all its activities - sociological and pastoral research, research into specialized literature, advisory services, public social advocacy - the CSEM team is fundamentally and always concerned with taking the perspective of migrants and refugees holistically and in a systemic approach, and shaping the work from this perspective. In contrast to the perspective of the state or the receiving societies, for example, which usually focus exclusively on the security policy aspect, seeing the migrant's existence through the eyes of the people affected allows migration to be experienced and interpreted as an opportunity and a wealth of possibilities, both for the receiving societies and, in the successful and expected case, for the migrants and refugees themselves.
CSEM collaborators like Carmencita and Diana bring specific, experience-based accents to the center's activities and the focus of their research work, with which they make it clear that the situation of migrants in their country of origin, Venezuela, for example, is completely different from the situation in Brazil, where they live today. And this applies in different ways to migrants all over the world. They don't just need food, clothing, shelter, medical assistance and much more, i.e. support to meet their basic survival needs. They also need an intercultural sensitivity that strengthens them on their journey between origin and future. Diana illustrates this with the example of food. Food is more than just nourishment; it is a thread of connection with the past and cultural roots that can contribute to the healing of trauma. Food security is therefore an important part of CSEM's research work and part of a research agenda that the center brings to the activities of the Scalabrinian Sisters' Missions and with which it supports and qualifies the team.
This example shows the different nature of the research approaches, which, however, also combine fundamental and common elements. “Everyone experiences migration in different ways,” says Diana, ”but beyond that, migration is a shared experience.”
"The Protagonism of Migrants and Refugees”: the guiding principle of CSEM's studies and research.
This led the CSEM team to develop central guidelines for CSEM studies and research between 2015 and 2017, in a three-year process of reflection and systematization, coordinated by Pedro Russi, with the collaboration of Carmen Lussi, Igor Cunha, Luiza Giovanna Moura, Roberto Marinucci and Tuila Botega, which were published in 2018. The title is “The Protagonism of Migrants and Refugees”. “The activities, records, knowledge and aspirations of the CSEM throughout its 30 years of activity,” says the preamble to the document, ‘have provided fundamental elements for the formulation and planning of action strategies and have constituted the basis for the methodological and institutional qualification of its program of studies and research’.
Above all, CSEM's studies and research are anchored in human rights and the promotion and defense of the life and human dignity of people in situations of mobility. However, the “recognition of the protagonism of migrants and refugees” is decisive in the context of this fundamental conception; it is the “central guideline of CSEM's studies and research”.
The concept of “protagonism”, which has become particularly important in Latin America and is not easy to translate into German, focuses on people's own identity as central and active individuals and is therefore the opposite of a paternalistic and welfare understanding of aid. According to the CSEM guidelines, the aim is to emphasize “the agency of subjects in mobility” in all concepts and reflections: “their capacity and potential to act, to influence and transform facts and opinions, their resilience in the face of challenging situations and the exercise of their autonomy to make decisions for themselves and their families and to participate in the processes of the societies in which they find themselves due to the fact of their migration or their search for refuge”.
Migrants and refugees as autonomous subjects, as “agents of change”, of influence and creativity - that's what it's all about. This concept of its core guidelines, says the CSEM, allows it to “align its processes of analysis and knowledge production with a proactive perspective on the phenomenon of migration, recognizing the agency of individuals who face the most adverse scenarios, highlighting displacement as a flexible and strategic resource that people draw on, and emphasizing human creativity and adaptability when migration is used to reshape everyday life and rebuild lives in the face of new challenges”. Migration is recognized “as an essentially human phenomenon - a positive one - and diversity as a richness”. The ethical stance is also emphasized, which means that when researching migration and flight, people “in a situation of mobility are not considered just research objects or mere informants”.
The CSEM understands this definition of mission not only as the hermeneutical horizon of its studies and research, but also as a strategy to integrate its various activities, such as events, publications, consultancies, etc., to support and qualify the work at the Scalabrinian Center and in the missions of the Scalabrinian Sisters around the world, and to qualify itself in the dialogue with the partners it has and will have in the future in the fulfillment of its mission at national and international level. The CSEM is concerned with “clarifying its own identity and establishing its epistemological and institutional foundations in relation to the actors with whom it is in dialogue”.
I have highlighted the most important elements of the CSEM guidelines in detail because they have the potential not only to reflect and promote even more strategic and substantively consistent and convincing activities, but also to initiate critical reflection in Germany - in an increasingly rigid social and political debate and agenda, in which migration and flight largely appear only under the aspect of threatened security, an endangered economy and an overburdened society. The fact that asylum law, uncontrolled immigration, foreign crime and Islamist terrorism are lumped together without reflection (or deliberately and purposefully) means that a frighteningly xenophobic and misanthropic, fearful and often hateful public narrative is becoming increasingly prevalent.
CSEM's scientific activities and publications.
Back to CSEM's research work.
CSEM's research team is multidisciplinary in the fields of social sciences, theology and pastoral care. In its studies and publications, the team deals with the living conditions of migrants, focusing on specific countries and regions. Research has been carried out in Italy/Europe, on the borders between Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo and between Mozambique and South Africa, and more recently in Mexico and Honduras in Central America.
In 2022, Tuíla Botega published the book “Pastoral de Movilidad Humana y migrantes retornados con discapacidad. Building paths to reintegration” (see above). The article by Bárbara Marciano Marques, published in the volume “Fuerza de la vida: Mujeres migrantes retornadas con discapacidad física y cuidadoras de migrantes” (2022), takes a closer look at the work of the “Pastoral de Movilidad Humana” with women in Honduras.
Although Tuíla and Bárbara's research in recent years has focused mainly on Honduras and the women and people with disabilities there (who have returned from migration), the focus for the future is the situation of migrant women between Haiti and the Dominican Republic and from the Caribbean to Latin America.
REMHU: Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Mobility
CSEM is making a significant contribution to international migration research with the publication of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Mobility, or REMHU, compiled by Roberto Marinucci and Bárbara Marciano Marques. The research and science journal is published in five languages: Portuguese, Spanish, English, French and Italian. With justified self-confidence, the CSEM team describes it as „one of the most relevant in the world in the field of human mobility with a notable profile in the academic community“. In dialogue with around 3,000 authors worldwide, the editors identify thematic focuses, developments and trends in migration research and pastoral care, commission authors for thematic articles, research current literature, publish reviews and bibliographical references and provide feedback to the respective authors. The scientific relevance of the publications is also discussed with the network of scientific correspondents; not everything is accepted; in fact, the majority of articles - around 65% - are rejected because, for example, their content is redundant in relation to existing literature or because they do not meet the scientific standards of the journal for which the editors are responsible.
Although the magazine was published four times a year in printed format until the end of 2023, it has only been published digitally since 2024. This not only saves considerable costs, but also helps to ensure that it is much more up-to-date than would be possible with a single quarterly publication.
The statistics show how REMHU is increasingly being used: between 2018 and 2023, the number of articles viewed increased from 173,662 to 303,279; in the first eight months of 2024 alone, the statistics recorded 237,354 views. Brazil (64,000), the USA (18,000), the Netherlands (16,000), Belgium (15th) and China (9,000) stand out.
Publishing books
CSEM's activities also include the publication of books, under the responsibility of Carmen Lussi, which are produced in-house or in cooperation with partner organizations in several languages. The publication program comprises five thematic series: “Migrations Series”, with different scientific approaches and topics in the field of human mobility; the “Pathways Series”, on theology and pastoral care of migration; the “Memories Series”, with historical studies; the “Ecumene Series”, which is fundamentally concerned with a theology of the phenomenon of human mobility; and, finally, the “Walking with Migrants Series”, with publications aimed at the practice of social pastoral work with migrants and refugees, including the publications mentioned above by Tuíla Botega, Bárbara Marques and Diana Mundarain.
The Paroikos System
In addition, CSEM coordinates the Paroikos system, a platform that collects, stores, organizes and manages data on the aid provided in the missions of the Congregation of the Scalabrinian Sisters in more than ten countries. This system makes it possible to record and monitor the various support actions, including reception procedures, social assistance, protection services and integration programs.
Paroikos not only serves as a solid database for future analysis and studies, but also provides a comprehensive and detailed overview of the Congregation's missionary work and facilitates the evaluation and improvement of the activities it carries out. This data is essential for the Congregation to plan, improve and further qualify its actions - always with the aim of meeting the specific needs of migrants and refugees in various contexts. The Paroikos system reflects CSEM's commitment to an evidence-based approach and to promoting efficient and humanized practices to support mobile populations.
Communication
CSEM's communication plays a strategic role in consolidating the institution as a reference point for migration and refugee issues, forced displacement and human rights. Through an integrated approach, the Institute seeks to strengthen the visibility of its initiatives and promote a deeper understanding of the reality of migrants and refugees. To this end, it produces reliable content, disseminates research and publications and shares the experiences of people in situations of mobility. CSEM is present on the main social networks in order to increase its reach, raise awareness among different social groups, influence political processes and, above all, strengthen the network of support and solidarity with migrants and refugees.
CSEM's international conferences
Although CSEM's research and publication activities initially focused mainly on the Latin American and Caribbean region, the international perspective and South-South dialog have gained prominence in recent years. International conferences on migrants and refugees with participants from all over the world serve this purpose. The Mission Department of Diosece Rottenburg/Stuttgart provides significant support for these conferences, both in terms of content and funding.
The first of these conferences was held December 4-6, 2018 at the Lumgo Institute in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was preceded by a year-long research project in which CSEM evaluated the work of Scalabrinian missions in three regions, each of which operates on both sides of a national border: on the borders between South Africa and Mozambique, between Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and between Mexico and the USA. The results of this field research were presented and discussed at this conference and published in 2019 in the volume edited by Marlene E. Wildner entitled “Rebuilding Lives at the Borders. Challenges in Dealing with Migrants and Refugees” (vol. 22 of the ‘Migrations Series’, Brasilia 2019).
The second of these international conferences - scheduled for 2020 in Johannesburg, but then postponed several times due to the pandemic - took place from March 21 to 23, 2023 at the Jesuit University in Tijuana, Mexico, in front of the gigantic double steel fence separating the US from the Latin American subcontinent and in the midst of the drama of refugee movements and migration from Latin America. On September 25, 2024, the CSEM presented in Brasilia the volume edited by Roberto Marinucci, in which the results and discussions of this conference can be read: “Life and Agency at the Borders. Defending the right of migrants and refugees to have rights” (vol. 26 of the ‘Migrations Series’, Brasilia 2024).
Finally, the third international conference on migration and refugee issues will be held in Brasilia from 20 to 23 May 2025 and will be dedicated to the theme “Dialogues for understanding, humanizing and valuing people on the move”.
ICoMiR: international conferences on migrants and refugees as a sub-brand under the CSEM brand
The CSEM wants these conferences to become a regular initiative in which participation is practically essential for international experts. For this reason, the CSEM is transforming these conferences into a separate “sub-brand” under the CSEM umbrella brand, which will emphasize the continuity of these events and, at the same time, be open to the variety of content that the general topic of “migration” presents and demands.
The text of this sub-brand is “International Conferences on Migration and Refuge”, as an acronym: ICoMiR. The content and working methods of these conferences can be summarized in two terms, which also define the identity and working methods of the CSEM: Dialogue and migration: learning from each other; progressing on a common path through dialogue, strengthening the dignity and rights of migrants and refugees, and socially and politically defending the vision and support for people in situations of mobility as “protagonists”, as subjects and “agents” of their own lives and decisions, and appreciating and shaping migration as a human right and as an opportunity for creative personal and social development.
This understanding of learning from each other through dialog and the corresponding concept of conferences have different levels, which, however, are mutually related and intertwined as if in a matrix: It is about mutual dialogue with migration work professionals in order to incorporate their experiences into the systematic development of migration work and, conversely, support them in their activities; it is about mutual dialogue with migration-related science in order to incorporate its findings into practice and, conversely, validate them through practical experience; it is about mutual dialogue with migrants and refugees in order to assess their specific and authentic experiences and incorporate their knowledge; mutual dialogue with political representatives in order to achieve a fruitful exchange in the debate between positions related to migration and human rights and political feasibility, which promotes further development at national and international level; and finally, mutual exchange at South-South, South-North and North-North levels, which takes into account the respective cultural and political circumstances and also makes the specific knowledge available in the countries of the South particularly fruitful.
A logo with reduced form, expressive colors and visual clarity, together with the text “ICoMiR - International Conferences on Migration and Refuge”, strengthens the recognition of the series of these conferences. It cites the color scheme of the CSEM umbrella brand logo and thus also expresses its motto: “No one is a stranger”.
Behind this development of the international conferences' brand is the CSEM's affirmation and self-confidence that the systemic approach and complex dialog give these conferences, as well as the CSEM's activities as a whole, a unique edge in the international discourse on the phenomenon, opportunities and problems of global migration.
The systematization and stabilization of the international conferences of the CSEM and the publication of their results under the common slogan “ICoMiR - International Conferences on Migration and Refuge” give them - this is the goal - a recognizable meaning, strengthen their recognition in science, practice and politics, as well as in migrant communities, promote interest in participation and, moreover, are an important support in the search for external partners for co-financing.
Dr. Thomas Broch
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