Centre for the Study of Safety & Well Being Politics &International Relations

ESRC Seminar 4: Security/Insecurity & Migration in the Global Economic Crisis 2008-2012

Speaker Biographies

Annie Benveniste is Maitre de conférences of Cultural Anthropology in the Department of Educational Sciences and on the Interdisciplinary MA in Genre(s), pensées des différences, rapports de sexe, at the University of Paris 8. She has gained the Habilitation à diriger des recherches (HDR – an accreditation for the supervision of research at a high level) on “Research on Strangers or How not to be Stranger to One’s Own Research”, from the University of Paris 7; a PHD in Educational Sciences entitled “Lifelong Education in the Ivory Coast”, from the University of Paris 8; and an MA in Communication and Development, from Stanford University. Her research has focused on various topics including education and development; education and technologies; immigration; religious renewal in outlying Parisian neighbourhoods; intergenerational transmission of memory and narratives; representations of the transformation from racial state to “rainbow nation” among school parents in some districts of Soweto (South Africa). She is the author of numerous books on immigration and religion and has published articles in peer reviewed journals. She was guest editor of the following special issues of Le journal des anthropologue: “Globalization: Migrations and Religion” (2004) and “Education, Religion and the State” (2005).

Giovanna Campani is Professor of Intercultural Education and Gender Anthropology at the University of Florence. Her main research area comprises: intercultural education; comparative pedagogy; studies on migrations and gender; social inclusion/exclusion; migrant integration in educational systems and intercultural activities; refugee protection, human trafficking, female marriage migrants, processes of migrant labour insertion and unaccompanied minor migrants. She has published widely in these subject areas.

Anca-Loredana Enache is based at the University of Eastern Finland and holds an MA in Human Rights and Democratization from the European Inter- University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation – EIUC (2011). Her thesis examined the gap between the rights protection needs of migrant domestic workers and the actual implementation of the International Human Rights Norms. Her general research interests cover the areas of Roma in Europe; feminization of migration; transnationalism; race and racism while her current research is on “Families on the Move Across Borders: Children's Perspectives on Labour Migration in Europe”.

Vanya Ivanova is a researcher and project assistant at the New Bulgarian University’s Center for European Refugees, Migration and Ethnic Studies (CERMES), where she is conducting her PhD research on Return Policies: Comparative Analyses of Highly Qualified Migration in Bulgaria and Bosnia and Herzegovina under the supervision of associate professor Anna Krasteva. Vanya Ivanova has a BA in History from the University of Sofia (with specialization on South Eastern Europe in the 20th century) and an MA in Diplomacy and International Relations from the New Bulgarian University. Her research interests lie in the field of migration studies and more specifically in return policies; highly qualified migration; brain circulation; forced migration; (re)integration, etc. Vanya Ivanova is a Fellow of the Transatlantic Forum of Migration and Integration (TFMI) of the German Marshal Fund of the United States and Robert Bosch Stiftung since its establishment in 2008.

Maria Margaronis is currently the London correspondent of the New York-based, weekly periodical The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/) which covers politics and culture from a liberal Left perspective. She has written on various issues of concern in Europe and has most often covered Greek and UK politics. She has also written for the Guardian, the London Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement and made radio documentaries for the BBC. Her recent reports and writings have focused on the effects of the Eurozone debt crisis on Greece and have considered the emergence and impact of extremist parties. A recent article on Golden Dawn, “Fear and Loathing in Athens: the Rise of Golden dawn and the Far Right”,
appeared in the Guardian (weekend supplement) of 27 October 2012.

Susi Meret is Assistant Professor at Aalborg University Denmark where she is attached to the Center for the Studies of Migration and Diversity (CoMID). Her research interests include migration policies in a comparative perspective in Scandinavia; anti-migration policies; populism and right wing populist parties in Europe; voting attitudes and discourses against Islam. Recent publications include: ‘Irregular Migration from a Comparative Scandinavian Policy Perspective’ with Jørgensen, Martin Bak, in Thomsen et al. (eds.) Irregular Migration In a Scandinavian Perspective. With Hans-Georg Betz, ‘Right-wing Populist Parties and the Working Class Vote: What Have You Done for Us Lately?’ in: Class Politics and the Radical Right, Rydgren J. (ed.), Routledge, 2012 and ‘Gender, Populism and Politics of Belonging’ with Birte Siim in: Negotiating Gender and Diversity in an Emerging European Public Sphere, Siim, B & Mokre M., Palgrave, forthcoming 2012.

Mojca Pajnik is assistant professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, and senior research associate at the Peace Institute, Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her more recent books include Precarious Migrant Labour Across Europe (co-edited with G. Campani, 2011), Prostitution and Human Trafficking: Gender, Labour and Migration Aspects (2008) and Nations–States and Xenophobias: in the Ruins of Former Yugoslavia (co-edited with T. Kuzmanić, 2005). Recently she has coordinated the PRIMTS project – Prospects for Integration of Migrants from “Third Countries” and their Labour Market Situations: Towards Policies and Action (EC, 2008-2010) and is currently partner to MIG@NET, Transnational Digital Networks, Migration and Gender (FP7, 2010–2013).

Natalka Patsiurko is a Research and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Sociology of the University of Aberdeen. Her areas of research include labour migration, informal economies and migration policies, as well as nationalism and identity in Eastern Europe. She was a team member on FP-7 ENRI-East project, investigating minority identities in eight Eastern European countries. Natalka Patsiurko received her doctoral degree at McGill University in Montreal, where she examined recent illegal labour migration from Ukraine to Southern Europe.

Claire Wallace is Professor of Sociology and Vice-Principal Research and Knowledge Exchange at the University of Aberdeen. She has undertaken a number of studies of East-West migration in the last 20 years and most recently has been involved in a study of ethnic minorities on the Eastern European borderlands as part of an FP7 EU project (ENRI-East European, National and Regional identities in the new European Borderlands). Claire Wallace was formerly President of the European Sociological Association.