Saskia Bonjour is senior lecturer in political science. She teaches mostly in the field of gender & politics and intersectionality. Her research focuses on the politics of migration and citizenship in the Netherlands and in Europe. She is especially interested in family migration, civic integration, gender and migration, and Europeanisation.
Through her study of the politics and policies of migration and citizenship, Saskia Bonjour explores how political actors define identities and communities, that is how they distinguish between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Her research is about how these actors define criteria of membership as well as the rights and resources which flow from different degrees of membership and deservingness, and thus what it means to belong. A crucial line of inquiry in her work is the relation between the politics of intimacy and the politics of belonging, i.e. the way in which gender and family norms shape the politics of migration and citizenship.Other aspects of migration politics that she has published about include the impact of law and courts, Europeanisation, party politics, and the impact of news media on policymaking. Saskia Bonjour's research approach is comparative and interdisciplinary, drawing not only from political science but also from history, law, and sociology.