Why and How to Research the Political Economies of Camps - 2nd Module - Educational toolkit - camPEconomies project

Educational Module Toolkit – CamPEconomies: Camps, Political Economy, and Humanitarian Governance This three-module educational package offers a critical examination of refugee camps in Europe through the lenses of camp studies, political economy, and humanitarian governance. Moving beyond humanitarian and security-centered narratives, the modules analyze camps as infrastructures embedded in broader regimes of migration management, funding architectures, and labor relations. Module 1 introduces key theoretical debates in camp studies and reconceptualizes camps as dynamic governance devices rather than isolated spaces of exception. Module 2 shifts the focus to the political economy of camps, examining funding regimes, crisis framings, and the economic rationalities that sustain camp infrastructures. Module 3 critically engages with humanitarianism as a mode of governance, foregrounding emergency logics, institutionalization, and labor stratification within the humanitarian industry. Combining lectures, podcast-based empirical material, and critical reading exercises, the package provides analytical tools for understanding how camps function as economic, political, and administrative formations within contemporary European migration governance.