Research areas

Ahlam Chemlali’s research focuses on migration and border politics, violence, transit, undocumented migration, migrants’ everyday lives, death, and European migration politics.

Chemlali’s geographic focus is on North Africa, specifically Tunisia and Libya, the Mediterranean, and Europe's Southern borders.

Current research 

Ahlam Chemlali’s research examines the politics and practices of border violence in contemporary European migration politics. Chemlali explores how the externalization of European border control into North Africa produces the everyday violence of the border and how this shapes gendered experiences. Her research project offers a unique ethnographic perspective on how West African migrant women stuck in transit navigate and negotiate the violent terrains that characterize the North African borderlands, with special attention to Tunisia and Libya.

Projects

Ahlam is a part of the project ‘Women on the Move’ which is concerned with the gendered aspects of irregular migration to Europe. Specifically, the attention is on migrant women in transit, and waiting in transit camps, along the African-European migration route, in Nigeria, Niger, Libya, Tunisia and Italy. 

Find more information about the project here. 

Ahlam is also part of the research project 'Tracing trusted information and key information hubs in West African migration to Europe' which examines the local effects of European-funded information campaigns in Senegal, Guinea, Nigeria, Morocco, and Tunisia.