This paper explores how transactions between smugglers and migrants come about in the context of irregular migration. We first offer some theoretical reflections on the challenges that such a context poses to both parties—smugglers and migrants—and point to three main conditions under which smuggling transactions take place: illegality, asymmetrical information and low trust. Next, we explore the strategies that migrants and smugglers alike may employ to overcome these challenges. We focus on three broad sets of strategies related to information-gathering, to information-checking (reputation and the role of physical and virtual communities) and to developing substitutes for trust (guarantees, escrow services and hostage-taking strategies a la Thomas Schelling). To illustrate our reasoning, we draw on examples from published works as well as from a novel set of 43 qualitative interviews with migrants recently smuggled to Europe. Such interviews were carried out in a destination country (England) and in a transit country (Greece). Evidence from this work supports previous calls to move away from a simplistic “predator-victim” discourse.

中文翻译：

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选择走私者：偷运到欧洲的移民中的决策

本文探讨了走私者与移民之间的交易如何在非正常移民的背景下发生。我们首先对这种背景对走私者和移民双方构成的挑战进行了一些理论反思，并指出了走私交易发生的三个主要条件：非法性、信息不对称和信任度低。接下来，我们探讨移民和走私者可能采用的应对这些挑战的策略。我们专注于与信息收集、信息检查（声誉以及物理和虚拟社区的作用）和开发信任替代品（担保、托管服务和劫持人质策略，如 Thomas Schelling）相关的三套广泛策略. 为了说明我们的推理，我们从已发表的作品中以及对最近被偷运到欧洲的移民进行的 43 次定性访谈的小说集中汲取示例。此类访谈是在目的地国（英国）和过境国（希腊）进行的。这项工作的证据支持先前呼吁摆脱简单化的“捕食者 - 受害者”话语。