Svenja Schurade, MA

I have been working as a research assistant at our institute since October 2023. My research and teaching focus on the implementation and organization of deportations, on pre-deportation detention and criminalization, on racism and authoritarian transformation processes, but also on solidarity-based alternatives and counter-narratives that have long since become a practical reality at the grassroots level. In my work, I combine academic research on power relations and the governance of migration with political engagement for a society based on freedom of movement, equality, liberty, and democratic self-determination.

I studied cultural anthropology/European ethnology and philosophy in Göttingen and submitted my dissertation in 2026, titled “The Organization of Deportations: An Exemplary Analysis of a New Wave of Authoritarian Neoliberal Racism in Germany.” During my doctoral studies, I worked on the European Return and Readmission Policy as part of the European research project MORE, in collaboration with various university institutes and NGOs across Europe. Even during my undergraduate studies, I worked at the intersection of academia, art, and activism on the opening and closing of the so-called Balkan Route during the “long summer of migration” in 2015, which led to the creation of the traveling exhibition ““yallah!? about the Balkan route.”