Research Interests
I do research on global migration, immobility and transnationalism. My work seeks to explain how migration arises, and how it affects societies, families and individuals. These questions have led me to examine migrant smuggling, remittance transactions, migration aspirations, and other specialized topics. I combine my background in Human Geography with perspectives from other disciplines and use both ethnographic and statistical methods. Beyond my thematic specialisms, I have an interest in academic writing, visualization and research communication. See also my
personal web site.
Background
I am Co-Director of the PRIO Migration Centre (see separate page).
My research primarily addresses these themes:
- Theories of migration and transnationalism
- Migration aspirations and intentions
- Networks and chain migration processes
- Family and gender in migration
- Immigration policy and migration pressure
- Border control and migrant fatalities
- Undocumented migration and human smuggling
- The demography of immigrant communities
- Remittances and migration-development links
I use diverse methods, often in combination:
- Semi-structured interviews
- Participant observation in multi-sited fieldwork
- Purpose-made sample surveys
- Statistical analysis of existing survey data
- Demographic projection from register data
- Discourse and document analysis
Editorial board memberships
I am an Editorial Board member of the
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, the
International Migration Review,
International Migration,
Migration Letters, and
Migration Studies.
Personal profiles on other sites
LinkedIn
Academia.edu
Google Scholar Citations
Language skills
Mother tongue: Norwegian
Fluency: English, and Cape Verdean Kriol
Reading proficiency: Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, German, French
All but forgotten: Esperanto and Japanese
Work experience
2014-current: Research Professor, PRIO.
2012-2014: Research Professor; Research Director, PRIO.
2011-2011: Research Professor; Programme Leader, PRIO.
2009-2011: Senior Researcher; Programme Leader, PRIO.
2007-2009: Senior Researcher, PRIO.
2002-2007: Researcher, PRIO.
1999: Research assistant, Statistics Norway
1998: Research assistant, Institute for Social Research
1997: Research assistant, Statistics Norway
Academic visitorships
2016: UNU-MERIT United Nations University and Maastricht University
2010: Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
2005: COMPAS, University of Oxford
2003: Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute
Education
2007. PhD (Human geography)
University of Oslo, Norway.
2001. Cand. polit. (Human geography)
University of Oslo, Norway.
1998. Cand. mag. (Human geography, demography and economics)
University of Oslo, Norway.
1993. International Baccalaureate
United World College of the Atlantic, Wales.