Prof. Dr. Sabine Hess (co-coordinator) is a cultural anthropologist and has been dealing with questions of migration, flight, border, and racism for many years. Her doctoral thesis was about new mobile strategies of migration of Eastern European women to Germany, taking into account the transformational processes in Eastern European societies (2008). Given the relevance of the migration policies of the EU, she increasingly concentrated on the field of Europeanization of governing migration and on practices of transit migration at Europe’s margins. As a research fellow, she was part of the interdisciplinary research project “Transit Migration” (funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation (2002-2005)). Since then she looked at the design of Turkey as a buffer zone and at the UNHCR. In her postdoc research project – conducted in a central European intergouvernemental organisation of migration policy counselling – she analysed the formation and implementation of Europeanized migration policies mainly looking at the example of the so-called Budapest process. In the past three years she conducted research concerning Syrian transit refugees in Istanbul (project Global City Istanbul; CETREN). Via the Network for Critical Research on Migration and the Border Regime (“Netzwerk kritische Migrations- und Grenzregimeforschung” – kritnet) and as the director of the Laboratory for Migration and Border Regime Research (University of Göttingen), she has profound transnational knowledge on the genesis and developments of the European border regime. Being member of the Council for Migration (“Rat für Migration”) she is involved in expertises on refugee/asylum policies.
Dr. Vassilis Tsianos (co-coordinator) is a sociologist and has been doing research and publishing on questions around migration and the European border regime for many years. As a research fellow, he was part of the interdisciplinary research project “Transit Migration” (funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation (2002-2005)) where he looked at the shaping of the European border regime and migration in Greece. From 2010 to 2013 he coordinated the EU research project “Mig@Net. Transnational Digital Networks, Migration and Gender.” Here he analysed (a) the digitalisation of European border control by looking at he mechanics and the implementation of the European database EURODAC and (b) the usage of digital media by migrants for crossing borders. Being involved in the Network for Critical Research on Migration and the Border Regime (“Netzwerk kritische Migrations- und Grenzregimeforschung” – kritnet) and as a member of the Council for Migration (“Rat für Migration”) he gains deep insights into the development of the European border regime and into German migration/asylum politics.
Marianthi Anastasiadou has studied Pedagogy and is currently writing her doctoral thesis on neo-Nazi discourse and the construction of gendered political identities in contemporary Greece at the Pädagogische Hochschule Freiburg. She has participated as a pedagogist and researcher in several pro-equality interventional programs, while she is currently working as a pedagogist with unaccompanied refugee minors in Northern Greece.
Dr. Barbara Beznec is a political scientist and is concerned with questions of migration, citizenship and civil rights especially in the countries of ex-Yugoslavia. Thanks to her longstanding research activities on site, she has profound knowledge about movements of migration and politics of borders in the countries of ex-Yugoslavia.
Dr. Fırat Genç is an urban anthropologist and has been dealing with questions of migration processes in urban space for a few years. Being cofounder of “Migrant Solidarity Group Istanbul” (Göçmen Dayanışma Ağı) and long-term contributor of “Helsinki Yurttaşlar Derneğiy” (Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly), he is familiar with the current migration events in Turkey – inside the country as well as at its borders.
Dr. Gerda Heck has been doing research on transnational migration processes and on the European migration and border regime for many years. Since 2007, her ethnographic works have been focussing the effects of the externalisation of the EU migration policy outside the borders of Europe and the living conditions of migrants in so-called transit (Morocco and Turkey). In the context of the research project “Global Prayers”, she has examined the migration routes of Congolese Christian revivalists on their ways to Europe. She could follow two important routes from Kinshasa to Paris and elaborate the different conditions in the places of transit (Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro). Since 2008, she is in Turkey on a regular base for doing research and frequently organises students’ excursions (e.g., “New migration to Turkey”).
Bernd Kasparek is currently writing his doctoral thesis in cultural anthropology (supervised by Prof. Dr. Sabine Hess) following questions of europeanisation of border control looking at the example of Greece and laying a special focus on the border control agency Frontex. Since 2008, he has conducted research in Greece regularly and several times a year and has published several texts. Being member of “bordermonitoring.eu e.V.” and of the Network for Critical Research on Migration and the Border Regime (“Netzwerk kritische Migrations- und Grenzregimeforschung”), he has a deep and continuous insight into the conjunctures of the European border regime especially in the Mediterranean.
Dr. Brigitta Kuster is a cultural researcher, writer, and artist primarily interested in visual and film studies, (post)colonialism, and migration and border studies. She was a junior researcher in the project “Mig@Net. Transnational Digital Networks, Migration and Gender”, where she started working on the informatization of the European borders.
Athanasios Marvakis is Professor in Clinical Social Psychology at the School of Primary Education at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki/Greece. Since 1990 he has conducted research and taught in Germany, Latvia, Netherlands, Austria, Croatia, Greece, United Kingdom, Austria, Turkey, South Africa, Luxemburg, China, Canada, Denmark, Mexico, Brazil and Chile. His interests revolve around psychology and its relations with the various forms of social inequalities and social exclusion (e.g., racism, nationalism, ethnicism, multiculturalism), including youth as a social group and migrants in Greece. In the last years he is engaged in the critical psychology of learning, the ‘schooling-complex’ and the neoliberalisation of the psychological regime.
Panagiota Amarilis Mezidou: Teacher for Greek language and Greek literature. Post graduate studies in learning disabilities and diglossia. Co/researcher in pedagogical-psychological programs.
Dr. Dimitris Parsanoglou is a sociologist and works on migration to Greece focussing on labour market and urban spaces. He has many publications in these topics as well as concerning migrant housework and national as well as European migration policies. In his role as coordinator of the EU research project “Mig@Net. Transnational Digital Networks, Migration and Gender,” he has, among other topics, analysed the role of digital media in crossing Greek borders.
Marc Speer lives and works in Budapest and is currently finalising his doctoral thesis with the title “Das humanitäre Grenzregime. Eine ethnographische Grenzregimeanalyse in Serbien, Ungarn und der Ukraine” (“The Humanitarian Border Regime. An Ethnographic Analysis of Border Regime in Serbia, Hungary and Ukraine“). His supervisors are Prof. Dr. Sabine Hess (University of Göttingen) and Prof. Dr. Sonja Buckel (University of Kassel). He works for “bordermonitoring.eu e.V.”. In this context, he has written several reports and surveys especially concerning the situation of asylum seekers in Hungary.