Luca is a sociocultural anthropologist with extensive fieldwork experience across the Horn of Africa (particularly Northern Somalia), Emirates (Dubai) and Italy. His research has included war-induced displacement, conflict and post-conflict processes, Africa/Europe migration, African diasporas in Italy, material culture and heritage, commercial routes, and trading networks. He has obtained individual and cooperative research grants on transnational networks (Hunt Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), asylum seekers in Italy (collaborative photo-ethnographic research project with exhibitions), and intangible heritage in the Italian Alps. On these topics, he has published two monographs, five edited volumes and several  scientific articles. He is co-founder and coordinator of the research centre Escapes. Critical Studies on Forced Migrations (http://users2.unimi.it/escapes/). He is Associate Professor at the Università degli Studi di Milano, where he teaches Cultural Anthropology at BA level and Human Development and Mobility in a Changing World at the MA level.

University of Milan, Italy

luca.ciabarri@unimi.it

Since 2010, Barbara has been carrying out ethnographic research in Sicily, both on landing zones and within refugee camps, developing an in-depth analysis of policies of confinement as devices for the moral control, physical and social detention of refugees. Her extensive research experience on political asylum has included the impact of European border regimes on migrants, migratory routes in the Mediterranean area, and the nexus between political and gender-based violence. Over time, the involvement of refugee women and the gaze on the ways in which arrival contexts exacerbate vulnerability and human suffering have allowed her to develop a feminist perspective on border regimes and forms of exclusion based on the subordination of gender, culture, and class. Currently, her work mainly concerns processes of reconstruction of subjectivity after experiences of persecution and abuse; the temporal dimension of violence; critical perspectives on the moral regimes of humanitarian taxonomies. She is co-founder of the research centre Escapes. Critical Studies on Forced Migrations (http://users2.unimi.it/escapes/). She is Senior Researcher at the University Roma Tre. 

University Roma Tre, Italy

barbara.pinelli@uniroma3.it 

In 2017, Elia received his PhD in social anthropology at the University of Milan-Bicocca. His research experience started in 2011 in Somaliland, where he studied the local political arena, youth activism, political party members, their participation in electoral campaign and the state-building process in the Republic of Somaliland. During his PhD, he expanded his research interests to the study of marginalised minorities and the ascribed status groups of occupational specialists in Somaliland. He conducted a historical-ethnographic investigation on social stratification and emancipation dynamics in the Somali territories. In 2019 he worked on social networking practices of Somali migrants in Italy. Between 2019 and 2021, Elia was enrolled as a postdoctoral researcher in the MigChoice project based at the University of Birmingham and the University of Milan-Bicocca. He carried out fieldwork in The Gambia under MigChoice project and studied the connections and disconnections between migration patterns and development interventions through a historical perspective on local development practices. In the Gambia, he also researched the multi-sited social, political and economic arenas of Gambian rural villages. 

Her PhD thesis (2010) offers a comparative analysis of Egyptian and refugee women performing paid domestic work in Cairo. Her most recent publication (2021) focuses on highly-skilled African migrants. She has conducted research with migrants living in Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, the US, the UK, and Jordan.

She has numerous publications on women’s rights in Kuwait. Her current research focuses on activism against public sexual violence in Egypt including issues of masculinities. She is the co-editor of Gender in the Middle East and North Africa: Contemporary Issues and Challenges (2020) with Lynne Rienner Publishers which was selected as a 2020 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title. It was among 531 books and digital resources chosen by the CHOICE editorial staff from among the over 3,500 titles reviewed by Choice in 2020.

Nada completed her PhD at Rutgers University, focusing on collective mobilization surrounding infrastructural failures in Egypt, including the study of Egyptian labor migration to Europe and the Arab Gulf. After her PhD, Nada contributed to a research project in collaboration with UKRI-MIDEQ and the Centre for Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo, investigating Egyptian labor migration to Jordan. Concurrently with her involvement in the TRACES project, she is a sociology lecturer at the American University in Cairo. Nada's professional background encompasses journalism, animated film production, and consulting on gender and development projects.

Her personal family ties to the Nubian displacement inspired her MA thesis titled “ On Displacement and Music: Embodiments of Contemporary Nubian Music in the Nubian Resettlements”. Between 2018-2020, she did her fieldwork in the village of her ancestors, the displaced village of Toushka, Kom Ombo.
Currently she is working as a research consultant for the “Traces: Mobility, Violence, and Solidarity” project. A project co-lead by AUC’s Sociology, Egyptology, and Anthropology Department, where she is exploring and tracing musical cultural heritage and practices of African migrants and refugees currently based in Cairo. In 2020, she worked as a research assistant (consultant) for Rift Valley Institute for a project titled “Khartoum’s Cairo Connection: Understanding Sudan’s Diaspora in Egypt”. Since fall 2021, she has been working as an Adjunct Lecturer of Music, teaching World Music and Songs of the Americas courses at the American University in Cairo. Other than her academic work, Fayrouz is also a practicing musician (Flute) interested in folk music, particularly Nubian music. 

Previously she studied Philosophy at La Sapienza University, Rome, and École Normale Supérieure, Paris. As a Research Collaborator for the Traces of Mobility project she is tasked with researching, editing, and supporting in the organization of field work and events. Lucilla is also a Research Fellow of the Institute for Sustainable Urbanisation, Hong Kong and an Associate of Asia Initiatives, New York. 

In addition, she is a Project Collaborator in AUC’s Department of Sociology, Egyptology, and Anthropology on the “Traces: Mobility, Violence, and Solidarity” Project. She has a decade of experience working on migration issues in the MENA region, having previously worked in Jordan, and has also conducted research with refugees in Uganda. She has an MA in Migration and Refugee Studies from CMRS at AUC and a BS in International Studies from the University of Scranton. She is on Twitter at bur_ski

Rachel Ibreck is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research explores struggles for memory and justice during and after mass violence and forced displacement in Africa. It contributes to debates about political agency and mobilisation in crisis and atrocity settings, and critical perspectives on international interventions and policies in the fields of human rights, humanitarianism, transitional justice and peacebuilding, based on ethnographic and collaborative action research methods. She is the author of South Sudan’s Injustice System: Law and Activism on the Frontline (Zed Books, 2019). Her work has been published in a range of book chapters and peer-reviewed academic journals including: The Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Memory Studies, African Affairs, and The Journal of Civil Society. She holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations from the University of Bristol, where her dissertation explored the politics of memorialisation after genocide in Rwanda. She is a co-editor of the Journal of Genocide Research and co-investigator on Traces of mobility, violence and solidarity: Reconceptualizing cultural heritage through the lens of migration.

Martina Tazzioli has extensive research experience on migration politics in the Mediterranean region, and her work has mainly focused on Italy, Greece and Tunisia. Her research is characterised by an interdisciplinary approach at the crossroad of political theory, migration and border studies and political geography. She has published four monographs on the topic and her most recent book is "Border Abolitionism: Migration Containment and the Genealogies of Struggle and Rescue" (2023).

Peter Rees is a political theorist in the department of Politics and International Relations at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He was formerly an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at Aberystwyth University. His research investigates the relationship between human rights and citizenship through a focus on irregularised migration. He also contributes to debates on maritime migration. Peter has published in journals such as Political Studies, Contemporary Political Theory and Tropos. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher on the Fondazione Compagnia di San Paulo research project: Traces of Mobility, Violence and Solidarity: Reconceptualizing cultural heritage through the lens of migration.

Fatma Raach is member of many international research projects on migration studies. The themes of those projects are related to the externalization of border management and the cooperation with Tunisia and Ethiopia, the UE policies and the political, legal and financial instruments in matter of migration management. 

She is member of the expert committee (Cornell university) which is in charge of the preparation of the study on African responses to migration and the guiding principles on migrant’s rights. This project is implemented with the collaboration of the Migrants Initiative team and the ACHPR.

She was the project director of the legal clinics on migration project which aims to strengthen the access to justice for migrants and asylum seekers. 

She published reports and articles in migration studies. She is member of the European Academic Refugee Interdisciplinary Network and a member of the Migrants rights initiative (Cornell University). 

Assistant professor of international law at the University of Carthage (School of Legal, political, and social sciences of Tunis). She holds of PhD in Law of the Sea from the University of Strasbourg (France). She is the Head of research and publications of the Center of International Law and Maghreb-EU relations (University of Carthage). She has previously worked as a national analyst (Campaign finance) at the EU Electoral Observation mission in Tunisia- 2019, and as a legal advisor for Democracy International, and trained in several international venues in international Law of the Sea (Legal service of the European Commission, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, UNODC in Vienna). She is part of several European and international research projects working on International Law today, EU-Africa relations, political transitions & legal reforms, migration. Her research focuses mainly on international law and litigation, Law of the Sea, Migration through sea, Maritime Safety and Security, non-state actors, Constitutional law and public liberties, international legal theory.

Holder of a doctorate in psychoanalysis and psychopathology at the University of Paris and a master's degree in political science from the University of Paris Dauphine. His research focuses mainly on the impact of migration policies and bordering processes on the subjectivities of migrants from the global south, particularly in the context of irregular Tunisian immigration.

Wael is a clinical psychologist with refugees, families of missing and undocumented migrants, he has carried out several field surveys with sub-Saharan and tunisian migrants and has contributed to several journals by articulating anthropology psychoanalysis, border studies and postcolonial studies. In 2022 he published his book Harga and desire for the West. Psychoanalytical studies of illegal Tunisian migrants.Nirvana Ed.

Member of the executive committee of the Tunisian Association of Constitutional Law

Expert in human rights closely working with civil society. Coordinator of several projects with international and national civil society organizations, she worked especially as a coordinator of the activities and was in charge of the drafting of implementation reports in the framework of the project "Legal empowerment of migrant persons", financed by the European Union and implemented by Enabel. 

Her work focuses on International criminal law, human rights, constitutional law, migration and refugee law.