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Partners
Prof. Dr. Valentina Mazzucato
Maastricht University
Professor of Globalisation and Development
My name is Valentina Mazzucato and I am the coordinator of the TCRAf-Eu programme. My interest in Africa was sparked many years ago when I volunteered as a teacher in a Harambee high school in north-eastern Kenya. Since then all my working life I have worked in and on Africa. In the transnational migration group I have established here at Maastricht University, we have set out to bridge boundaries between classical anthropological studies on child fostering systems in Africa and transnational migration studies to ask how child care works within transnational families under conditions of global migration and in a cultural context where child fostering is an accepted norm. We do this for various African migration flows, giving equal attention to outcomes for migrant parents and children and their caregivers back home. Studying and teaching such topics means bridging boundaries between disciplines and between geographical localities. My passion for this endeavour stems from my own transnational family life and the fact that bridging boundaries has always framed both my academic and personal life.
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Dr. Victor Cebotari
Maastricht University
Post-doctoral researcher
My name is Victor Cebotari and for the time being, I am working at Maastricht University. I was living, studying, and working in many European countries, among others in Moldova, Romania, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. The periods spent in these countries enriched my cultural views and made me realize the diversity of the world we are living in. Although, I am now living in the Netherlands, most of my family is based far away in the other side of Europe. This makes family reunions rare but very much wished and sparkling. The experience of being part of the migrant and transnational family world is a print-mark of my life and the flavor of my current academic career.
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Dr. Karlijn Haagsman
Maastricht University
Lecturer in Globalisation and Development
My name is Karlijn Haagsman and I did my Ph.D. in this project at Maastricht University . In my new job as lecturer I still work with the data that came out of this project, investigating the lives of families which live dispersed over two or more countries. Throughout my studies of Cultural Anthropology I developed a growing interest in migration and the consequences of migration for those involved, including those left behind in the country of origin. During my childhood I experienced being in a migrant family myself, as my family and I moved to San Francisco for two years. My grandmother used to send us taped messages and stories by post. Nowadays, with modern technology contact with family members overseas is very different from when I was growing up, although that’s only 20 years ago. Something I also experienced while being away from my family during my studies, spending extended periods of time in Ecuador and Tonga with host families.
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Dr. Cecilie Øien
Fafo Institute for Applied International Studies
Researcher Coordinator
My name is Cecilie Øien and I am the research coordinator for Fafo’s research on international migration. My research interests are irregular migration, return migration, children and mobility, unaccompanied minors, transnational families, care practices, nationalism, migration management and visual anthropology. I hold a PhD in Social Anthropology with visual media from the University of Manchester (2008). The title of my dissertation was: Pathways of Migration: Perceptions of Home and Belonging among Angolan Women in Lisbon, Portugal. As part of my dissertation I also made an ethnographic documentary, Growing Pains, about a young Angolan migrant coming to terms with the effects migration had had on her life. I worked as a researcher at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo 2006-2008, related to the research programme Informal Child Migration in Europe (N-ICME) (2006-2012). My project is about the migration of Angolan children to Portugal, and since 2007 I am also coordinator for this programme. I have done projects for the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration and the Ministry of Justice and the Police.
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Dr. Marzia Grassi
University of Lisbon
Researcher Fellow
My name is Marzia Grassi, I am Italian, living in Portugal since 1991. Presently I am a senior research fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences – University of Lisbon in Portugal. I am the coordinator of the project “Transnational child-raising arrangements between Angola and Portugal” under the TCRAf-Eu programme. I am an unorthodox economist, holding a PhD in Development Economics and a interdisciplinary Master in African Studies and since 1995 my research field has been mostly in Portuguese speaking African countries namely in Angola and Cape Verde. I coordinated several projects on informal economy, mobility and social networks with a transnational gendering approach. Since 2002 I also coordinate projects related with African diasporas in European countries (Portugal and Italy). My present research interests are related with transnational lives and families between Africa and Europe, Mobility, borders, gender, global economy and development. Social capital and networks, illegality, human rights, citizenship and political integration of African2 migrants in contemporary Europe.
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Jeanne Vivet
University of Lisbon
Post-doctoral researcher
My name is Jeanne Vivet and I am currently working at the ICS (Institute of Social Science) in Lisbon as a post-doc researcher. Since 2002, I have a particular interest in migration, African cities and development studies: after completing a MA in Dakar, I worked as a research assistant in Cape Town in 2005 and since 2006, I specialized in PALOPs (Mozambique and Angola) for my PhD research. During my extensive fieldwork in Senegal, South Africa, Mozambique and Angola, I developed the ability to adapt to different cultural and social contexts and cross-cultural skills. I achieved my PhD in Geography on displaced people in Maputo (Mozambique), this research program is in continuity with my interest on migration and African studies. Now, I am a French migrant working in Portugal on Angolan transnational families and thus re-experiencing myself a transnational life: most of my family is living in France, my young brother is in India and my cousins in the USA.
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Luena Marinho
University of Lisbon
Ph.D. researcher
My name is Luena Marinho and at present I am working at ICS -UL as a Ph.D. Candidate. I was born in Angola, but I have been living in Portugal most of my life. I am part of a transnational family, with members in Africa (Angola) and in several European countries. Participating in this research allowed me to return to my home country and gave me the possibility of contact with their culture and ways of life. My research project aims to investigate how the separation of children and their parents influences the lives of children and how children, parents and caregivers reconfigure their roles in the web of transnational social relations and redefine the concept of family and parenting.
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Dr. Angela Veale
University College Cork
Researcher Fellow
My name is Angela Veale and I am a lecturer in Applied Psychology at the National University of Ireland, Cork. My research and publications focus is on children and youth in particular juvenile justice, asylum seekers, refugee families and separated children in Africa. I am particularly interested in children and conflict, post-conflict reintegration, psychosocial integration of refugee and asylum seekers, Muslim youth, participatory action research, child psychoanalytic psychotherapy. In 2006, I was a visiting professional to the Victim Participation & Reparation Unit, International Criminal Court. I was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to the Program on Forced Migration & Health, Columbia University in 2007.
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Allen White
University College Cork
Post-doctoral researcher
My name is Allen White and I have been part of the UCC Geography Department since 2006. Previously I worked in Nottingham Trent University (2001-2006) and the University of Wales, Lampeter (1998-2001). In UCC I was a postdoctoral research fellow on a Marie Curie Excellence Grant Funded Migrant Children Project. I am an active member of the Geography Department’s Migration and Integration Research Cluster. I am also a member of the UCC’s ISS21 Migration and Integration and Children and Youth research clusters. My research interests lie in transnational migration, children, asylum and social and political geographies. In the UCC team I am currently the national co-ordinator and postdoctoral researcher on the TCRAf-Eu Transnational Childcare project. I played a central role developing and co-ordinating the Irish input into this funding bid. I have presented at international and national conferences and been invited to present research seminars in Cork, Worcester, London, Dublin and Galway. I am married to Letitia and we have three sons Max, Ben and Joe. I think my proudest achievement to date has been to construct a tree house for my sons.
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Camilla Andres
University College Cork
Researcher
My name is Camilla Andres; presently, I work as a research assistant at the Department of Applied Psychology at the University College of Cork in Ireland. I received my M.A in Social Anthropology from the University of Oslo in 2009. My thesis focused on children in fosterage in Ghana and consolidated my interest in fosterage, children and migration. My special interest in Africa started back in 1995 when I travelled to Kenya and was reluctant to return to Europe. Being part of the TCRAf-Eu project and working with transnational families allows me to expand my knowledge and competence in research on children, fosterage, transnationalism and Africa. While I’m busy trying to understand the transnational life of Nigerian families, I’m also managing my own transnational family. I’m a Norwegian with a Norwegian/German background working and living in Ireland and Nigeria. My son, who is my greatest fieldwork assistant, is both Norwegian and Nigerian and being part of this project has given us an opportunity to build a relationship with his family in Nigeria, and add people and places to our own transnational family.
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