Experts Database

I am a sociologist, I have a master's degree in International Migration from the Université de Poitiers (France) and the University of A Coruña (Spain) and I hold a PhD in Social and Behavioural Sciences from the University of A Coruña.
I am currently a member of ESOMI (Sociology Team of Societies in Movement) at the University of A Coruña where I work as a researcher in the Carewell Project (PCI2021-121924). From 2017 to 2021 I worked with a FPU fellowship at the Faculty of Sociology, where I carried out my thesis "Colombian women in Spain and Brazilian women in Portugal. An intersectional analysis of women's migrations in the transnational/poscolonial space", under the direction of Laura Oso Casas.
In my research I analyse the migratory trajectories of Latin American women in Spain and Portugal, addressing the link between the ethnosexualisation processes, the migration policy and the dynamics of the sexual labour and marriage markets of destination.
Intersectionality and post/(de)colonial and transnational perspectives constitute the prism from which I approach gender within international migrations. The border as a political subject, racism and the construction of otherness are transversal topics in my work.
I have participated in 6 research projects funded in competitive calls, at European, national and regional level. I have carried out 6 research stays in prestigious international centres, including the University of Leeds (UK), the Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil) and the Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Mexico), for a total of 11 months abroad. To date, I have been accepted two scientific articles in international impact journals on migration and gender, with ScopusQ1 and Scopus Q2 indexing, respectively.

Abu Saleh Mohammad Sowad is an FRQSC doctoral candidate in Social and Cultural Analysis at Concordia University, Montreal. His research focuses on the constructions of diasporic masculinities among Bangladeshi men in Canada. He is also working as a research professional in the Research Chair on Gambling at Concordia University, Montreal, where he leads the research team on gender and gambling. Previously, he obtained an MSc in Gender, Development and Globalisation at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where his thesis focused on the aftereffect of migration on the deconstruction of masculinities among Bangladeshi immigrant men in the United Kingdom. He also has an MSS and a BSS degree in Women and Gender studies from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He has been working as a faculty member in the Department of Women and Gender Studies, University of Dhaka, since 2014 and is currently on study leave. He also has extensive experience workings as a consultant with various INGOs like ActionAid Bangladesh, NETZ Bangladesh, OXFAM and USAID/Bangladesh.

Ibrahim Soysüren is a researcher at the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. He studied law and has a Master’s degree in economics, both from the University of Marmara (Istanbul). He has been a lawyer at the Istanbul Bar Association since 2001. He also studied French and Sociology and obtained a Master's degree in Sociology from the University of Neuchâtel. Since 2010, he has been working at this University on several research projects. He was a visiting researcher at the University of Galatasaray (Istanbul) and the Population and Development Centre (CEPED), a joint research unit of the Descartes University (Paris) and the French Institute for Research on Development (Paris) and the Migrations and Society Research Unit (URMIS) of the University of Diderot (Paris)
He holds a PhD from the University of Neuchâtel. The title of his dissertation is “Sociological and legal analysis of the deportation of foreigners in France, Switzerland and Turkey: For a comparative sociology of the deportation of foreigners”. He has published three books: "The Deportation of Foreigners in France, Switzerland and Turkey. For a Comparative Sociology of the Deportation of Foreigners"
“The Deportation of Foreign Offenders: Abdelmalek Sayad’s sociology on the basis of the Swiss case” (in French) and, “Border and Deportation” (co-edited with Didem Danış) (in Turkish). He is also the author of several articles.

I am an Assistant Professor of Development and Education in Inclusive Societies at Utrecht University. I am studying interventions countering polarization in education, and educational cooperation initiatives between mosques, schools and youth care institutions sharing a student population in multiethnic neighbourhoods. In my work, I use qualitative methodology and adopt a multidisciplinary approach to studying issues of cultural diversity and learning. My research interests include integration and empowerment of migrant youth, ethnic and religious identity formation, multilingualism in children and sociology of education. I appreciate being approached for collaboration on these topics.

Previously for my Ph.D. research at the University of Amsterdam, I investigated the portrayal and practice (i.e. organization, learning goals, content, curriculum, and pedagogies) of mosque education in the Turkish Islamic communities in the Netherlands, with a special attention to the role played by this non-formal religious education in the integration of the Turkish-Dutch children.

I am a member of the American Educational Research Association, the Comparative and International Education Society, and the Netherlands Interuniversity School for Islamic Studies.

Helga Špadina is an Assistant Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law Osijek, Croatia. She specialized in international law, human rights law, migration law, labor and social law and anti-discrimination law. She has working experience with the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and UN refugee agencies in South-East Europe and Middle East. Her international assignments focused on international refugee law, human rights protection, anti-human trafficking, migration management and protection capacity building. She regularly provides expert reports and conducts analysis of legislation to UN agencies, international organizations and EU Expert Committees.

Mr Theo Sparreboom took up the position of Labour Migration Specialist in the ILO’s Decent Work Team for Eastern and Southern Africa based in Pretoria in March 2019. Prior to joining the team in Pretoria, Mr Sparreboom worked for the Labour Migration Branch, the Statistics Department and the Economic and Labour Market Analysis Department at ILO headquarters in Geneva since 2007; he also held various technical and leading positions in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia for both the ILO and private international agencies from 1995 to 2007.

Mr Sparreboom is the ILO lead author of a 10-country study on the economic impact of immigration in developing and emerging economies (including Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Rwanda and South Africa), which was published by the ILO and OECD in 2018. He holds a PhD in Economics from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, and has published widely in official reports and peer reviewed journals on labour markets, migration, statistics, education and (youth) employment.

Sarah Spencer is Director of Strategy and a Senior Fellow at COMPAS and was Director of the Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity from its inception in 2014 until March 2019. She is Chair of the Board of Directors of IMISCOE, the European network of migration research institutes and scholars, and a member of Kellogg College, Oxford’s largest and most international graduate college.

Sarah’s research interests focus on irregular migrants, on which she has been PI in projects on national and city responses to irregular migrants in Europe, initiated under an Open Society Fellowship, and on families with No Recourse to Public Funds in the UK; on integration (on which she is collaborating with Katharine Charsley, University of Bristol), human rights and equality issues, and on the policy making process. Sarah was awarded her doctorate at Erasmus University Rotterdam, has an MPhil from University College London and took her first degree at the University of Nottingham.

At the Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity, Sarah is responsible for the City Initiative on Migrants with Irregular Status in Europe (C-MISE); and for Oxford’s contribution to the Urban Innovative Action project in Utrecht, the Refugee Launchpad. She was Director of its Autumn Academy symposium from 2016-2018 and responsible for its award-winning online tool to assess the eligibility of migrant families for local authority support.

Sarah was a co-founder of the network of equality and human rights organisations in Britain, the Equality and Diversity Forum (now ‘Equally Ours’) and its Chair for ten years (2002-2012); a Commissioner and Deputy Chair (2003-2005) of a statutory body, the Commission for Racial Equality; Programme Director at the Institute for Public Policy Research (1990-2003); and Director of the human rights NGO, Liberty (1984-1989). She has twice been seconded into the Cabinet Office strategy unit to contribute to studies on migration policy and has been a member of government Taskforces and advisory bodies. In 2007 she received a CBE for services to equality and human rights.