Book cover placeholder

Copyright

Ladan Rahbari; Olga Burlyuk. Copyright of individual chapters are maintained by the chapter author(s).

ISBN

Paperback978-1-80511-786-5
Hardback978-1-80511-787-2
PDF978-1-80511-788-9
HTML978-1-80511-790-2
EPUB978-1-80511-789-6

Language

  • English

THEMA

  • JBFH
  • JHB
  • JHBA
  • JN
  • JBFA

BISAC

  • SOC007000
  • SOC026000
  • SOC026040
  • SOC008000
  • EDU015000

Keywords

  • migrant academics
  • academic precarity
  • academic mobility
  • autoethnography
  • postcolonial academia
  • global higher education

    From the Margins

    Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity

    FORTHCOMING
    This book is part of a 2-volume set. The other volume in the set is:
    'From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity' is the much-anticipated second volume following 'Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity and Resilience in Europe' published in 2023, and available at https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0331. This new collection deepens and expands the conversation on the lived experiences of migrant academics navigating global academia. Maintaining the autoethnographic and narrative approach of the first volume, From the Margins brings together diverse voices that challenge the Eurocentric framing of academic mobility by extending the focus beyond Europe to contexts such as the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Africa, and the Middle East.

    Through deeply personal, creative, and reflexive narratives, the contributors delve deep into the notions of privilege, migration, and precarity, revealing how academic hierarchies and colonial legacies shape everyday experiences of belonging, vulnerability, and resilience. Bridging scholarship and storytelling, this volume offers an intellectually rich and emotionally resonant exploration of academia’s margins, inviting readers to rethink what knowledge, care, and solidarity mean within and beyond institutional borders.

    This volume appeals to scholars and students across migration, sociology, postcolonial, gender, race, and border studies, as well as to university leaders and diversity officers. Its interdisciplinary and creative format—including poetry and prose—makes it both accessible and engaging for academic and general audiences alike.

    Endorsements

    Innovative in both form and concept, this book blends storytelling and analysis to illuminate the everyday realities of academic migration. Through authentic and creative narratives, it continues the dialogue begun in the editors’ previous volume, expands a growing community of voices reflecting on what it means to be a migrant academic today, and offers a timely and insightful contribution to how we understand mobility in academia.

    Dr Toma Pustelnikovaite

    Cardiff University

    Contributors

    Ladan Rahbari

    (author)
    Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology at University of Amsterdam
    https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3840-708X
    https://www.uva.nl/en/profile/r/a/l.rahbari/l.rahbari.html

    Ladan Rahbari (PhD Mult.) is a political sociologist and writer, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam, and a senior researcher at the International Migration Institute (IMI). She was formerly based at Ghent University, Belgium, as the recipient of an FWO postdoctoral fellowship (granted by the Research Foundation Flanders) (2019–2022). She is a member of the Amsterdam Young Academy (2021–2026). Rahbari is co-director and a board member of the Amsterdam Research Centre for Gender and Sexuality (ARC-GS) and a member of the board of the Amsterdam Research Centre for Migration (ARC-M). Her research interests include gender politics, migration, the body, and decoloniality, with a focus on Iran and Western Europe, within the frameworks of postcolonial, feminist, and critical theories. Between September 2019 and September 2020, Rahbari served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies (DiGeSt), where she is currently a board member. In 2025, she published her first novel, Exilium.

    Olga Burlyuk

    (author)
    https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7477-1655
    https://www.uva.nl/en/profile/b/u/o.burlyuk/o.burlyuk.html

    Olga Burlyuk (PhD) is an Associate Professor of Europe's external relations at the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Olga conducts research at the intersection of international relations, European politics, gender studies, migration studies and cultural policy studies, and employs critical theories and interpretive methods in social sciences. Olga has co-edited several publications, including The responsibility to remain silent? On the politics of knowledge production, expertise and (self-)reflection in Russia’s war against Ukraine (JIRD, 2023), Migrant academics’ narratives of precarity and resilience in Europe (OBP, 2023), Unintended consequences of EU external action (Routledge, 2020), and Civil society in post-Euromaidan Ukraine (CUP, 2019). Olga is affiliate at the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies (ACES), Amsterdam Research Centre for Gender and Sexuality (ARC-GS), Amsterdam Research Centre for Migration (ARC-M) and Amsterdam Centre for Conflict Studies (ACCS). She holds a PhD in International Relations (University of Kent, UK) and Master’s in Law (Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine) and European Studies (University of Maastricht, the Netherlands).