Experts Database

I am a young researcher interested in how we can use quantitative data to understand and contribute to Human Development.

Currently I am working as a Research Assistant at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, where I contribute to the development of two projects related to migration: MIGNEX and FUMI.

FUMI (Future Migration as Present Fact) is an ERC funded project led by Jørgen Carling that examines young adults’ thoughts and feelings about the possibility of migrating, based on empirical mixed-methods research in three West African countries. For more, please visit www.prio.org/fumi

MIGNEX (New knowledge on migration, development and policy) is a large collaborative project funded by the European Commission. PRIO leads a consortium of nine institutions. We collect data in ten countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and have an extensive programme of publishing and research communication. For more, please see www.mignex.org.

I hold a Master of Arts in Development Studies from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, where Imajored in development economics with a specialisation in econometric analysis. My main expertise is on survey design, analysis and communications.

I hold a PhD in social and political sciences, awarded in 1998, by the European University Institute. Previously, I studied political science at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Aix-en-Provence where I specialized on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region while learning Arabic.

I have lived and worked in Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia. Currently, I am a Senior Research Fellow at the European Neighbourhood Policy Chair of the College of Europe (Natolin Campus) where I direct the Natolin Academy of Migration while teaching and developing research on how migration affect bilateral and multilateral patterns of cooperation. I am also a research associate at the Tunis-based Research Institute on the Contemporary Maghreb (IRMC). As of February 2020, I will direct the Chair on Migration Studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies IMéRA, Aix-Marseille University.

My publications and major interests focus on the expansion of international regulatory systems and bilateral/regional patterns of cooperation, and on the diffusion and internalization of norms and practices pertaining to the “governance” of international migration, especially with reference to MENA and African countries.

Prior to this, I was part-time professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (European University Institute, Florence) where I supervised and managed interdisciplinary research projects on migration policies and developed field surveys mobilizing EU and non-EU partner institutions (in North and sub-Saharan Africa, the Mediterranean and the Caucasus).

I have also worked for the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organisation (ITC-ILO). I have served as a consultant to the European Parliament (LIBE Committee) on readmission policies and human rights observance in the EU. I have also cooperated with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the OECD Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC).

Finally, I am a member of the scientific committee of the Laboratory of Critical Studies on Forced Migration based at the University of Milan (Italy).

Kathryn is a political geographer and activist, whose work explores processes and practices of bordering and ordering contemporary societies and the ways in which these are being disrupted both through collective and mundane actions.

Her current research, funded by the Leverhulme Trust (2019-2021), seeks to address current theoretical and conceptual gaps in the field of border(ing) studies by developing disorder as a conceptual lens for analysing bordering processes and practices, drawing primarily on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. This conceptual work is underpinned by an empirical study of the disorders of bordering within three different UK public institutions: the National Health Service, higher education and social security.

Her current project builds upon earlier work, which focused on the ways in which borders and the processes and practices through which they are (re)made have moved from the margins into the centre of contemporary social and political life. This research primarily emanates from a collaboration with colleagues from the EUBorderscapes (2012-2016) project, Professor Nira Yuval-Davis and Dr. Georgie Wemyss.

Kathryn has wider research interests in geopolitics and institutional geographies. Her PhD research in Ukraine and Romania explored the alter-geopolitical lives of those living in marginalised communities. More recently, she has been collaborating with colleagues to research a range of different forced accommodation settings, including prisons and asylum seeker housing.

Kathryn completed her undergraduate studies in geography at the University of Nottingham, before moving on to study for an interdisciplinary MA at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, UCL in 1999-2000. After a few years of working in the private sector, she returned to academia in 2005 to complete an MA and PhD at the University of Birmingham, which were funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

She taught at the University of Birmingham in the 2006-2007 academic year and whilst carrying out research in Ukraine, she also gave a series of lectures at Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University. She was a research fellow at the University of Babes-Bolyai in Romania from January to July 2009. Prior to joining Northumbria in September 2013, Kathryn worked in the School of Geography at Queen Mary, University of London, initially as a Teaching Fellow and then as a Lecturer in Human Geography.

Dr. Castellsagué is an educator and social anthropologist, currently a Juan de la Cierva postdoc fellow at Universitat de Girona (UdG).
She has experience in education, education policy, gender equality, intersectionality, development studies, and mentorship.
Her skills include long-term fieldwork, qualitative methods, ethnography, and policy evaluation.

Independent Scholar at Centre for Refugee Studies at York University. Research experience on Migration, Conflicts and Cultural Integration issues. Former Visiting Scholar at top European think tanks such as CERI (Paris 2015), ISDP (Stockholm 2016), ZEI (Bonn 2017), IAI (Rome 2018), DIIS (Copenhagen 2019), ARENA (Oslo 2020). Project Manager of the "Program for the cultural Integration of Refugees and Migrants" UH/UNHCR (2016-2019), which applied an action research approach to improve the integration of refugees and migrants from the Middle East in Ecuador.