Youth Mobility and Migration in the Making of Europe

Although the terms 'migration' and 'mobility' are often used interchangeably, differentiations and overlapping meanings are first and foremost an expression of power relationships (Karl & Kmiotek-Meier, 2015). While the term migration is often used for third-country nationals and movements of a certain duration, mobility is generally portrayed as something positive, and frequently used to describe intra-EU movement and other types of movements, whether it is student mobility (Cairns, 2014) , scientific mobility and frequently international movements of groups with high cultural capital or highly skilled (Favell, 2008). The aim of this paper is to critically review the use of terms and categorizations to define and differentiate mobility and migration through a systematic literature and policy review carried within H2020 projects MOVE: Mapping mobility -pathways, institutions and structural effects of youth mobility in Europe (2015-2018) and MICADO Migrant integration dashboard and cockpits (2019-2022). Our main hypothesis is that in the same vein that happens with the terms 'refugee' and 'migrant' (Crawley & Slepkaris, 2017) dominant categories fail to capture the complex and dynamic nature of this phenomena in which many many people defy the parameters used by policymakers.