Fazila Mat, Konrad Adenauer Foundation Canada / Borders in Globalization Fellow
Fazila Mat, PhD Candidate in Political Science, is Konrad Adenauer Foundation Canada (KAS)/ Borders in Globalization (BIG) fellow
With her scholarly expertise on migration and civil society, Fazila Mat has contributed to the second pillar of the BIG project that is concerned with human mobility and the relationship between bordering processes and states’ territoriality. Of particular interest to Fazila’s work are the policy and broader societal implications of academic research. In her previous professional career as a journalist and policy analyst, she also carried out research and policy analyses on the EU-Turkey refugee agreement. In the joint fellowship, Fazila can build on this expertise in her scholarly inquiry into the externalization of migration and border controls as part of her KAS/ BIG fellowship.
In the context of the KAS project on Governing irregular migration and refugees, Fazila Mat has analyzed transborder mobility in the Mediterranean Sea and its implications for refugees as well as the receiving societies. A particular focus of Fazila’s work is how civil society reacts to the influx of irregular migrants and asylum seekers in particular in an environment that is shaped by the rise of right-wing populist, staunchly anti-immigrant parties. Her current publications on this topic are the following:
- Chiodi, L., Mat, F. and O. Schmidtke, Seizing Transnational Opportunities in Times of Populism: The Transformation of Civil Society Organizations’ Activism in Italy. In: C. Milan and H.J. Trenz (eds.). Mobilizing Across Borders: The Transnationalization of Political Contention in Europe and its Wider Neighborhood (Palgrave Studies in Political Sociology), London: Palgrave (in press, 2024).
- Mat, F.; Chiodi, L.; Schmidtke, O. “Europeanization as Pragmatic Politics: Italy’s Civil Society Actors Operating in the Face of Right-Wing Populism”, Social Sciences. 13, 205, 2024. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13040205
As a KAS/ BIG fellow, Fazila Mat participates in the weekly CFGS Global Talks and the monthly BIG student seminars presenting research findings and providing training in collaborative research. Fazila also took the introductory BIG course designed to develop a common theoretical and transdisciplinary methodological foundation on borders and border studies. Furthermore, Fazila Mat has been involved in a number of knowledge mobilization activities including media appearances, social media outreach and publications.
