Interdisciplinary perspectives on migration and asylum

Migration and asylum are highly complex phenomena that impact many different aspects of social life. Addressing migration and asylum therefore calls for a plurality of analytical perspectives which, taken together, can provide a more comprehensive understanding. Interdisciplinarity is a crucial tool to unravel some of this inherent complexity and can serve to illuminate those aspects of migration and asylum that remain hidden, unknown, or distorted when only using a single lens of analysis. By bringing together empirical insights, theoretical advances, and methodological pluralism across disciplinary boundaries—and extending beyond academia—we can more effectively identify the current shortcomings of migration policy and governance. The DEMIG Talk series aims to highlight the diversity of disciplines that relate to the field of migration, emphasizing the importance of combining different angles to better grasp human mobility whilst also calling for increasing cross-pollination and knowledge exchange.

Join us on 9 April 2026 (14:00–15:00 CET) for a compelling DEMIG Talk with Riadh Ben Khalifa on the rise of anti–sub-Saharan migrant discourse in Tunisia. The talk explores whether this shift is driven by European security‑oriented migration agendas or rooted in Tunisia’s own political, economic, and social dynamics. Drawing on political speeches, civil society statements, post‑2011 reports, and key literature, Ben Khalifa uncovers how identity tensions, economic hardship, everyday racism, and populist narratives shape the racialization and politicization of sub‑Saharan migration in Tunisia.

Anti-Sub-Saharan Migrant Discourse in Tunisia: Between European Influences and Local Dynamics of Politicization and Racialization

Speaker: Riadh Ben Khalifa, University of Tunis, Tunisia

9 April 2026, 14:00-15:00 CET | online (Zoom Meeting)

Why has anti–sub-Saharan migrant discourse intensified so noticeably in Tunisia since 2023? And how do European narratives and domestic political dynamics interact in shaping this shift? In this talk, Riadh Ben Khalifa explores the forces behind the growing politicization and racialization of sub‑Saharan migration in Tunisia. The discussion will highlight how Tunisia’s position within the EU’s political, economic, and intellectual sphere contributes to framing migration through a security‑driven lens—particularly through bilateral cooperation that reinforces the criminalization of irregular migration. At the same time, identity tensions and transnational xenophobic narratives cultivate a sense of “invasion,” feeding conspiracy theories and legitimizing administrative rigidity and racialized attitudes.

Yet European influence alone does not explain the rise in hostility. Riadh Ben Khalifa shows how structural domestic factors—economic crisis, the absence of a coherent migration policy, the spatial concentration of sub‑Saharan communities, everyday racism, and populist rhetoric—play a decisive role in shaping public discourse. Join us for a thought‑provoking session exploring how global and local forces shape this pressing Tunisian debate.

Bio: Riadh Ben Khalifa is an Associate Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Tunis and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences (since September 2024). His research focuses on Mediterranean migration, the history of justice and crime, social movements, and the transnational history of Tunisia. He specializes in migration, asylum, and mobility during crises and political transitions, with a particular emphasis on Mediterranean migration in times of upheaval.

He earned his PhD from the University of Nice in 2009 with highest honors; his dissertation on wartime delinquency in the Alpes-Maritimes was published by Honoré Champion in 2015. Over the past decade, he has authored several books, peer-reviewed articles, and book chapters, and contributed to international reports on migration and refugee issues.

His recent publications include:

• Advocacy for Migration Policy in Tunisia: Coordinated and Inclusive (ed., 2023; 2025, in French
• Between Two Shores: Journey of a “Historian of Borders” (2021, in French)
• Mediterranean Migrations from the Middle Ages to the Present (ed., 2021; reissued 2022)
• The African Dimension in Tunisia’s Foreign Policy (1956–1986) (with Lotfi Aissa and Karim Ben Yedder, 2017, in Arabic)

Riadh Ben Khalifa is a scientific member of the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES), the Arab Institute for Human Rights, and the National Migration Observatory, and participates in several international migration research networks.
 

Support beyond the State: (in)formal social assistance and displacement

Speaker: Michael Collyer, University of Sussex, United Kingdom

16 April 2026, 13:00-14:00 CET | Format: Hybrid — in person at the University for Continuing Education Krems & online (via Zoom)

Analysis of social assistance prioritises the state as the principal actor delivering direct forms of support. There are good reasons for this: state institutions are the only actors with the capacity and the legitimacy to reach the entire population of a country, at least in theory. In practice, for most people, in most of the world, state institutions are more frequently sources of insecurity than of security. Apart from universal forms of increasingly limited subsidy, the state is largely absent as a welfare actor. For displaced people this situation is especially severe. Although refugees have greater legal barriers to economic inclusion, in practice internally displaced people are often in a similar situation. In many cases, particular support is directed to displaced people (IDPs) from specialist international agencies, frequently using government channels. This support fills important gaps in social assistance and is vitally important for displaced people. Yet it is only rarely provided in regular, predictable ways and, particularly in situations of long-term displacement, it is insufficient and must be supplemented by other sources. 

This paper, considers these other sources - often referred to as ‘informal’ or ‘vernacular’ forms of social assistance. The paper draws on research with displaced people (both refugees and IDPs) in DRC, Lebanon and Pakistan which investigated all forms of support, other than the labour market. We consider all of these forms as social assistance, regardless of the source.  The research brings together work on two research projects: Protracted Displacement Economies (2020-24) funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council and Better Assistance in Crises (BASIC) funded by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office. It draws on large surveys in each country, supplemented by interviews and Q method to identify attitudes to social assistance. Overall the research demonstrates that displaced people strategise around a wide range of sources of social assistance. The reliance on non-state sources is likely to continue and has important implications for state engagement in displacement crises. 

Bio: Michael Collyer is Professor of Geography and Head of the Department of Geography at the University of Sussex. He chairs the Independent Advisory Group on Country of Origin information, within the office of the UK’s Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. He also chairs Sanctuary on Sea, Brighton’s City of Sanctuary group. His latest book is Refugees in a World Without Aid (co-authored with colleagues at Sussex, OPUS, 2025)

Spirituality in Spaces of Waiting: Uncertainty and Sacralization Practices in Migrant Shelters at the US-Mexico Border

Speaker: Olga Odgers Ortiz, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Mexico

12 February 2026, 16:00-17:00 CET | online 

What role does spirituality play in the lives of migrants facing long periods of uncertainty? In this talk, sociologist Olga Odgers Ortiz explores how migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers cope with extended waiting times in shelters along the US-Mexico border. Based on qualitative research jointly conducted with Craig Smith, Olga Olivas and Javier Jiménez in Catholic, Evangelical, Muslim, and secular shelters in Tijuana, she examines how sacralization practices—such as invoking protection, seeking comfort, healing, and re-semanticizing suffering—help individuals navigate hardship and maintain well-being. Join us for an insightful discussion on migration, uncertainty, and the role of spirituality in resilience.

Bio: Olga Odgers-Ortiz is a Mexican sociologist and senior researcher at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF) in Tijuana, where she has worked since 1999. Her research focuses on Mexico–U.S. migration, with emphasis on identity transformation, religion, and health among migrants.

She holds a PhD in Sociology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, where her dissertation on Mexican migrants was later published as Identités frontalières.

Odgers-Ortiz is a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and the National System of Researchers (SNI Level III). She has led multiple interdisciplinary projects on religious change, urban integration, and migrant health, and currently serves as editor-in-chief of the journal Migraciones Internacionales.

Approaching immobility from an ethnographic perspective 

Diana Mata-Codesal, Department of Social Anthropology of the University of Barcelona  

22 January 2026, 14:00-15:00 CET | online

In a world increasingly perceived as mobile, experiences of immobility are widely shared by diverse groups. Yet immobility is not only a state to avoid; it can be valued as a desirable horizon, emerging not as a limitation but as a conscious choice. While traditional sedentary norms considered immobility a normative ideal, the increasingly prevalent ideology of mobility generates tensions between valued forms of immobility, such as being settled or rooted, and undesirable forms, such as being stuck or immobilized. Anthropology’s ethnographic method allows us to approach immobility from the perspective of those who experience it. In this talk, I will show the potentialities of this approach to detect changing and contested meanings and imaginaries of immobility.
 
Bio: Diana Mata-Codesal is lecturer at the Department of Social Anthropology of the University of Barcelona (Spain). She publishes mostly on migration and human mobility with a focus on Latin American migrants. She was the co-convenor of the Anthropology and Mobility Research Network (AnthroMob) of EASA 2022-2024 and previously the co-coordinator of the Migrant Organizations research cluster of IMISCOE (European Network for Migration Studies) 2015-2018.

Complexity and uneveness in migrants’ regularization pathways in Latin America 

Gisela P. Zapata, Federal University of Minas Gerais

Thursday, 13 November 2025, 15:00-16:00 CET | online 

Drawing on qualitative data from 143 interviews with Venezuelan migrants across eight Latin American countries – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Uruguay – this paper presents a comparative analysis of migrants' documentation itineraries vis-à-vis regularisation pathways in these destination countries. While the existing literature has documented shifts in migration and refugee policy over the past decade, less attention has been paid to how such transformations have impacted on migrants’ regularisation pathways. We argue that regularisation is not a singular legal outcome, but a dynamic, often non-linear process shaped by the proliferation of legal-administrative instruments and widespread documentation fragility.

The findings point to a regional trend towards the complexification of documentation itineraries, resulting in the emergence or expansion of irregularity and the development of diverse regularisation pathways. This complexification often involves the succession of temporary and permanent statuses, transitions between administrative and asylum regularisation pathways, and periods of regularity interwoven with irregularity. This complexity contributes to greater legal stratification and increasingly hazardous and prolonged processes for securing permanent legal status. This paper sheds light on the intersection between legal frameworks and individual trajectories, offering new perspectives on (ir)regularity, rights access, and the governance of migration in Latin America. 

Bio: Gisela P. Zapata is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Demography and researcher at the Centre for Regional Development and Planning (CEDEPLAR) at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil. She holds a PhD in Human Geography from Newcastle University (UK). She is a fellow of the Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and founding member of the Research Group ‘Comparative Analysis on International Migration and Displacement in the Americas’ [CAMINAR]. Her research focuses on international migration and displacement, migration policies, remittances, and the migration-development and humanitarian-development nexus in Latin America.

Migrants’ Political and Social Participation in Rural Italy: Empirical Evidence

Giorgia Zogu, University of Vienna

Thursday, 23 October 2025, 14:00-15:00 CEST | online 

This presentation explores opportunities for political and societal participation of migrants by examining rural case studies from selected regions in Italy. Despite common assumptions about rural political disengagement or populist leanings, rural areas are diverse political and social spaces shaped by socio-economic, cultural, and historical disparities. Through a comparative lens, the webinar analyzes structural conditions, local governance, party system influences, and local and regional actors that support or hinder political and civic engagement, as well as societal participation in rural contexts.

Giorgia Zogu explores how local factors shape immigrant political participation in rural Italy. Comparing nine diverse municipalities, she finds that individual traits (such as language and employment) and community dynamics (including local institutions and social networks) influence engagement.
By focusing on the Italian case, the webinar aims to identify both common patterns and context-specific dynamics that contribute to understanding political behavior and societal engagement beyond urban-centric narratives.

Bio: Giorgia Zogu is a political scientist specializing in migration, minority rights, and political participation. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Vienna and was previously a Pre-Doctoral Fellow at Eurac Research in Bolzano, Italy (Institute for Minority Rights & Center for Migration and Societal Change). Her doctoral research examines the political participation of individuals with immigrant backgrounds in rural areas of Italy, with a particular focus on how rurality influences access to and forms of engagement. Furthermore, she conducted research on the recruitment, representation and political experiences of candidates with immigrant backgrounds in local-level electoral processes. Beyond that, Giorgia Zogu actively engages in science communication through editorial and creative roles, such as in the DoctorIt! (University of Vienna) and AutIn (Eurac Research) podcasts.

Between knowledge and assumptions: The migrant in the eyes of the policymaker

Katharina Natter, Leiden University  

Thursday, 18 September 2025, 14:00-15:00 CEST | hybrid format: University for Continuing Education Krems, Room SE W 1.03 + online 

What role does expert knowledge play in migration policymaking? While previous research focused on differentiating instrumental from symbolic knowledge use, this paper advances scholarly insights into equally important, yet under-theorized knowledge practices: knowledge non-use and misuse. Based on a comparative analysis of justification narratives surrounding Austrian, Italian and Dutch migration reforms since the 2000s, this paper delves into knowledge use dynamics across three policy areas: counter-smuggling, asylum reception, and migrant worker attraction. The analysis shows how “the migrant” is portrayed in fundamentally different ways across policy areas, with clear consequences on whether knowledge is used, cherry-picked, disregarded, or even distorted. 

Bio: Katharina Natter is Senior Assistant Professor at the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University. She researches migration politics from a comparative perspective, with a particular focus on the role of political regimes in immigration policymaking. Katharina’s work seeks to advance migration policy theory and to connect it with broader social science research on modern statehood and political change. Hereby, she also hopes to contribute to the wider academic effort of bridging theorizations of socio-political processes in the ‘Global South’ and the ‘Global North’.

Katharina has conducted extensive field research on the politics of migration in Morocco and Tunisia, but has also worked on European migration policies and on the link between migration and development. She has published in International Migration Review, Population and Development Review, Political Research Exchange, Comparative Migration Studies and the Journal of North African Studies. Her recent book, The Politics of Immigration Beyond Liberal States: Morocco and Tunisia in Comparative Perspective, has just been published by Cambridge University Press.

Katharina received her PhD in Political Sociology from the University of Amsterdam in 2019. Prior to that, she worked at the International Migration Institute (University of Oxford) and studied Comparative Politics at SciencesPo Paris. Since 2011, she is also involved in Asylos, an NGO providing Country of Origin research for lawyers representing asylum seekers.