“Most debate on migration policies in Europe pay little attention to the ways that day-to-day practices shape the reality of migration control. The notion of ‘a gap’ typically describes the relationship between migration policies on paper and in practice, implying that something simply goes wrong when policies are put into action. But is that what happens?”.

To answer this question, our Alumna Federica Infantino edited with Djordje Sredanovic the book Migration Control in Practice: Before and Within the Borders of the State, recently published by the Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles. Wiener-Anspach Alumnus Ahmed Hamila and Fellow Anissa Maâ are among the authors of this book, which offers “a more complex and nuanced understanding of what happens on the ground” by focusing on the perspective of those implementing migration policies on a daily basis.

Federica Infantino, PhD in Political and Social Sciences (ULB), was granted in 2015-2016 a Wiener-Anspach postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford  to carry out a research entitled  “Detention and deportation of migrants in the UK. Analysing public action from below”. Federica  is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the European University Institute (more info).

Ahmed Hamila, PhD in Political Science (ULB/University of Montreal), was in Oxford the same year as Federica as a Wiener-Anspach Doctoral Fellow. Later, in 2020-2021, he was granted a postdoctoral fellowship to carry out research at the University of Cambridge on “The constitution of a new space for collective action: mobilisations for LGBT refugees in the UK”. Ahmed is now Assistant Professor in Sociology of Migrations at the University of Montreal (more info).

Finally, Anissa Maâ, PhD in Political and Social Sciences (ULB), was granted a postdoctoral fellowship in 2021-2022 but had to postpone her stay at Oxford University due to the pandemic. She has therefore just started her research on “Indigenous’ migration control? The role of return migrants in the implementation of migration control in West Africa” under the supervision of Professors Ruben Andersson and Loren Landau at the Department of International Development (more info).

Congratulations to Federica, Ahmed and Anissa on this publication and best wishes for their research!

See also: “Is there a gap in migration policy and practice? Yes, but also so much more”, a post by Federica Infantino and Djordje Sredanovic on the Migration Policy Centre blog.