Advisory Board

Anna Chiara Cimoli

Anna Chiara Cimoli is a lecturer in History of Contemporary Art at the University of Bergamo. She earned a diploma in Museology at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris and a Ph.D. in History of Architecture from the Polytechnic of Turin. 

In 2011-15 she participated as a researcher in the European project MeLa*-European Museums in an age of migrations; within this framework, she carried out a research on European migration museums. She has worked for over twenty years as a cultural mediator, designing experimental programs aimed at audience development and a more layered representation of society in museums. Her last project in this framework is MUBIG, a neighbourhood museum in Milan (with ABCittà and Pinacoteca di Brera). 

Anna has published extensively in the field of the relationship between​ museums and society, with a focus on migration, coloniality, and memory. She is the co-director of the online magazine roots§routes. Research on visual cultures and the curator of the “Museologia presente” series at Nomos publishing house. She is the author, among other books, of Musei effimeri. Allestimenti di mostre in Italia 1947-1963 (2007), Che cosa vedi? Musei e pubblico adolescente (2017) and Approdi. Musei delle migrazioni in Europa (2018).

She advocates for the right of migrants, as well as teaching Italian to unaccompanied minors.

Jasna Dragovic-Soso

Jasna is Professor of International Politics and History at Goldsmiths, University of London and Director of the Centre for the Study of the Balkans. She works on memory politics, transitional justice, nationalism, state disintegration and international intervention, with a focus on former Yugoslavia and the post-Yugoslav region.

She has provided expertise on the post-Yugoslav region to various non-academic stakeholders, including the Foreign Office, non-governmental organizations in the UK and the Western Balkans, the Royal Court Theatre, the International Commission on the Balkans, and British and international media outlets. She has held visiting fellowships at the London School of Economics and School of Slavonic and East European Studies, UCL. She co-edits the Palgrave book series on Memory Politics and Transitional Justice. She is currently writing a book about truth commission initiatives, nation-building and memory politics in the post-conflict Balkans.

Jean-Pierre Cassarino

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

Currently, Jean-Pierre is teaching migration governance and international cooperation at the College of Europe (Natolin Campus). He is also a research associate at the Tunis-based Research Institute on the Contemporary Maghreb (IRMC). From February to July 2020, he directed the Chair in Migration Studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies IMéRA, Aix-Marseille University. Prior to this, he was part-time professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (European University Institute, Florence) where he 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).

Jean-Pierre’s 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.

Finally, Jean-Pierre is a member of the scientific committee of the Laboratory of Critical Studies on Forced Migration based at the University of Milan (Italy), an external member of the International Justice and Human Rights Centre (IJHR, Edge Hill University, UK) and one of the coordinators of the research strand “External dimension of EU migration and asylum policies” at the Academy of Law and Migration (ADiM, Viterbo, Italy).

Manzoul Al-Assal

Munzoul Assal is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Khartoum. He also holds the position of Professor II at the department of social anthropology, University of Bergen, Norway. Prior to this he was the Director of the University Alumni (2009-2013), Director of the Mamoun Beheiry Centre for Economic and Social Studies in Africa (2015-2017), and Director of the Peace Research Institute at the University of Khartoum (2018-2020), and Dean of Scientific Research (2021-2023). Assal was visiting professor at the universities of Paris 8 (2009) and Sharjah (2020-2021). His research focuses on migration, refugees, internally displaced persons and peace building. Assal was member of the Board of Trustees of the Arab Council for Social Sciences 2015-2023.

Hassan Boubakri

Professor-Doctor (Senior Lecturer) of Geography and Migration Studies, HDR (“Habilitation à Diriger les Recherches”: Degree giving access to supervise PhD theses) / University of Sousse (Faculty of Arts and Humanities/Departments of Geography and Anthropology). Member of the SYFACTE Laboratory (Système d’Informations, Formations, Aménagement, Cartographie, Télédétection et Environnement). University of Sfax. Member of the NAMAN (North African Migration Academic Network) (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco & Tunisia).

National partner (University of Sousse/Tunisia) and Steering Committee member of the EuroMedMig (Mapping European Mediterranean Migration/ Jean Monnet Network) (Leader: Universitat Pompeu Fabra/Barcelona), funded by the Erasmus + Jean Monnet Network Program of the European Commission (2019-2022).

Research areas:

  • Irregular migration, asylum, refugees, and migration policies carried out by destination, transit or origin countries, on the North, such as on the South shore of the Mediterranean.
  • International migration flows in North Africa and its neighborhoods (EU, Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan Africa), and their management by States and International Organizations (such as UNHCR, ILO, IOM…).
  • CSOs activities in Migration, Asylum and Human Rights issues
  • Migration, investments and development in the regions of origin, such as in the destination societies and areas… 
  • The links between migration, labor market, employment and skills, in the framework of international (such as the European Program “Power2Youth”) or national (such as “MADEL”: Migration and Local Development/ Ministry of Social Affairs) Programs.