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OEm Conversations With
OEm Conversations With is a periodical publication of interviews with specialists in international migration and Portuguese emigration. Each issue presents a conversation centered on the biography and work of the interviewee, thus seeking to promote knowledge about the state of the art of research and reflection on migration in general, and on Portuguese emigration in particular, in terms accessible to anyone interested in the themes addressed.

Coordination  Carlota Moura Veiga
Periodicity  Four-monthly
ISSN  2183-718X (online)

Dora Sampaio
Dora Sampaio holds a degree in geography from the University of Lisbon, where she specialised in international migration on her MA. She holds a PhD in human geography from the University of Sussex, and did post-doctoral research at the Max Planck Institute. Her work has contributed to uncovering the growing diversity behind the label “ageing migrant populations”, but also the plurality of their transnational practices, feelings of belonging, ways of looking at life and feeling at home in a migratory context. She is currently a professor of transnational mobilities at Utrecht University. She is the author of the book Migration, Diversity and Inequality in Later Life: Ageing at a Crossroads (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), an ethnography of migrants ageing on the Azores islands.
Lisa Åkesson
Lisa Åkesson is a professor in social anthropology at the Department of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg. Through various research projects in the field of migration and diversity, she has gained long-term experience of ethnographic fieldwork in Cabo Verde, Angola, Mozambique and Sweden. She lectures and participates in public debates on issues related to international migration and diversity. Her research interests include different perspectives on migration, such as everyday diversity practices, postcolonial north-south migration and various aspects of transnational migration.
Asaf Augusto
Asaf Augusto holds an MA in systematic theology and history from North West University-Potchefstroom, South Africa, and a PhD in human geography, with a specialization in immigration studies, from Bayreuth University. He is currently doing post-doctoral research comparing Portuguese emigration to Angola since the 2008 economic crisis with Angolan immigration to Portugal since the 2014-2015 oil crisis. His work has focused primarily on the dynamics of migration from North to South and the intersection of past and present.
Christof Van Mol
Christof Van Mol is a Professor at the Department of Sociology at Tilburg University, where he teaches several courses including Theoretical Perspectives on International Migration, and has been, since 2019, affiliated to the Faculty at the Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation (Catholic University Milan). He chairs the Cost Action “European Network on International Student Mobility: Connecting Research and Practice (ENIS)” (2021-2025), and co-coordinates an IMISCOE Standing Committee on Education and Social Inequality. Van Mol’s scientific interest are mainly focused on international migration processes, patterns, and outcomes, with a specific focus on intra-European mobility flows, and on innovative forms of mixed-method research and online survey methodology. In 2022 he published three articles on student mobility: “An experimental study on the impact of contact design on web survey participation”, “Exploring explanations for the gender gap in study abroad: A case study of the Netherlands”, and “Intra-European student mobility and the different meanings of ‘Europe’”.
Jean-Pierre Cassarino
Professor Jean-Pierre Cassarino has more than twenty years of experience in comparative politics. His research interests and publications focus on patterns of international cooperation and modes of norm diffusion and policy transfers in dynamic regional consultative processes, especially with reference to the management of migration and borders. He is most interested in comparatively analyzing policy design and implementation as well as in how policy transfers are administered, and often readjusted, through processes of bilateral and multilateral consultations between the EU and third countries.
Andrew Geddes
Andrew Geddes is a Professor of Migration Studies and the Director of the Migration Policy Centre. During his career, he has led and participated in a number of major projects on aspects of international migration working with a wide range of academic and non-academic partners. For the period 2014-19 he was awarded an Advanced Investigator Grant by the European Research Council for a project on the drivers of global migration governance. He has published extensively on global migration, with a particular focus on policy-making and the politics of migration and on regional cooperation and integration. Recent publications include The Politics of Migration and Immigration in Europe, The Dynamics of Regional Migration Governance, and A Rising Tide? The Salience of Immigration and the Rise of Anti-Immigration Political Parties in Western Europe.
Bridget Anderson
Bridget Anderson is Professor of Migration Mobilities and Citizenship, at the University of Bristol, and the Director of the Migration Mobility Bristol (MMB), having previously been Research Director at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) and Professor of Migration and Citizenship at the University of Oxford. Her work explores the relations between migration, race, and nation, historically and in the contemporary world, with a particular focus on precarity, labour market flexibilities and citizenship rights. Bridget Anderson is the author of Us and Them? The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Controls (Oxford University Press, 2013) and Doing the Dirty Work? The Global Politics of Domestic Labour (Zed Books, 2000).
Giuseppe Sciortino
Giuseppe Sciortino received his PhD from the University of Bologna. He is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Trento, Italy. His teaching and research activity unfolds by sociological theory, cultural sociology, international migration, development sociology and sociology of sexuality. He recently edited The Cultural Trauma of Decolonization (with Ron Eyerman) and Populism in the Civil Sphere (with Jeffrey C. Alexander and Peter Kivisto), published Rebus Immigrazione and Great Minds: Encounters with Social Theory (with Gianfranco Poggi), among many other participations in articles and books.
Jorge Arroteia
Jorge Arroteia, currently retired, was a Full Professor at the University of Aveiro. With a background in geography, and a PhD in social sciences, the study of Portuguese emigration has always been present in his research career. He coordinated the Emigrateca project. The interview focused on the researcher's career and the projects in which he has been involved, as well as reflections on recent Portuguese emigration.
Giuseppe Formato
Giuseppe Formato is a Senior Lecturer at Lesley University (USA), where he teaches Portuguese, Italian and Cinema. In 2018, he obtained his PhD in Educational Studies: Adult Learning and Development with a thesis on The Impact of Language Variety and Motivation on Language Acquisition in Adult Heritage Learners of Portuguese. He was a Camões Fellow at the Consulate General of Portugal in Boston where he worked on projects to disseminate the Portuguese language. He is also a visiting researcher at CIES-Iscte where he is developing a post-doc research project on Heritage Learners' Portuguese. An exploration of Language Attitudes in the Portuguese-Speaking Diaspora of Southeastern New England.
Thomas Faist
Thomas Faist (PhD, New School for Social Research) is Professor of Transnational, Migration and Development Sociology at Bielefeld University in Germany. He directs the Center on Migration, Citizenship and Development (COMCAD). Thomas Faist has contributed to ongoing debates about citizenship, transnationality, migration and social policy in Europe and beyond. He has authored and co-authored numerous books including The Transnationalized Social Question: Migration and the Politics of Social Inequalities in the Twenty-First Century (2019), Disentangling Migration and Climate Change (2016), Transnational Migration (2013), as well as Citizenship: Discourse, Theory and Transnational Prospects (2007), and Dual Citizenship in Europe (2007). Thomas Faist is a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts.
Alan Gamlen
Alan Gamlen is professor of geography at Monash University, Melbourne, and a research fellow at the Centre for Migration, Politics and Society at Oxford University. He was formerly director of the Australian Centre for Population and Migration Research. He is the author of Human geopolitics: states, emigrants and the rise of diaspora institutions (Oxford University Press, 2019), winning book of the Distinguished Book Award for Best Book on Ethnicity and Migration, da International Studies Association.
Duval Fernandes
Duval Fernandes holds a degree in Economics from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (1975), a master's degree in Economics from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (1977) and a PhD in Demography from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (1996). He has a post-doctoral degree from the Instituto Universitario de Investigación Ortega Y Gasset of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He is a visiting professor at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, a researcher at Socius - Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão (ISEG) of the University of Lisbon and an adjunct professor IV at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, in the Postgraduate Program in Geography and in the Department of Economics. He has experience in the area of Demography, with emphasis on Mortality and International Migration. Research Productivity Fellow - CNPq.
Diego Acosta
Diego Acosta is a leading international expert on International, European and comparative Migration law. The core of his research is an interdisciplinary, practically significant and theoretical inquiry into International, Human Rights, European and comparative Migration law to offer a novel defence of a rights-based approach to migration regulation. His work discusses Migration law as a central aspect of globalisation and analyses various processes of inclusion and exclusion and their profound implications for the rule of law in Europe, South America and elsewhere. His latest monograph is entitled The National versus the Foreigner in South America. 200 Years of Migration and Citizenship Law.
Sharvari Karandikar
Sharvari Karandikar began her career practicing as a social worker for sex workers and victims of sex trafficking in Mumbai, India. During her Ph.D. program in Social Work at University of Utah, and through her work at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai and later at the Ohio State University, she has focused her research efforts on issues related to the female sex workers and victims of sex trafficking particularly on gender-based violence, health and mental health issues. Dr. Karandikar’s current research relates to sex work and sex trafficking in Asia, egg donation, international gestational surrogacy, medical tourism and its impact on women.
João Sardinha
João Sardinha has a PhD in migration studies from the University of Sussex, with previous training in geography. His research interests are the return of the second generation emigrant, associativism in a migratory context, transnationalism and social space and migration to rural areas. Since completing his PhD in 2008 he has held various positions as a scientific researcher in various research centres in Portugal, among them: CES-Universidade de Coimbra, CEMRI-Universidade Aberta, IGOT-Universidade de Lisboa, ICS-Universidade de Lisboa, CICSNOVA-Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
Rob McNeil
Rob McNeil is a Researcher for COMPAS examining the social environments from which news stories and narratives about migration and migrants emerge; how media debate affects migration policy decisions (and vice versa); and how information gaps affect the way these issues are discussed. He lectures on migration and the media for the MSc in Migration Studies. Rob is also the Deputy Director and Head of Media and Communications at the Migration Observatory. He was part of the team who launched the Migration Observatory in 2011 and, since then, has been working to embed Migration Observatory analysis in public debates. He is responsible for public relations strategy, parliamentary and community outreach and news and commentary work. Rob is a former journalist and joined COMPAS in November 2010 after two years as the Media Director for the US environmental organisation Conservation International.
Jean-Michel Lafleur
Jean-Michel Lafleur is Research Professor at the University of Liège and the Associate Director of its Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies (CEDEM). He is also a Research Associate with Belgium’s National Science Foundation (FRS-FNRS). He currently holds a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) to work on a project entitled “Migration and Transnational Social Protection in Post-crisis Europe”.
Ana Saraiva
Ana Saraiva is an anthropologist with a doctorate in anthropology and a master's degree in museology and heritage from the New University of Lisbon. In 1999 she was an anthropologist in the municipality of Góis; in 2000 she practiced in the municipality of Gavião (team of the Local Action Plan and the Detailed and Safeguard Plan of the Historic Centre of Belver). Since 2001 she has been an anthropologist in the municipality of Ourém, and is currently head of the Cultural Action Division. She programmed and directs the Municipal Museum of Ourem. She participates in research and programming projects focused on the areas of anthropology and museology, with publications linked to discourses of cultural representation. In 2017, her doctoral thesis Casas (pós-)rurais entre 1900 e 2015: Expressões arquitetónicas e trajetórias identitárias, was published in book.
Cláudia Pereira
Cláudia Pereira is a professor at Iscte, University Institute of Lisbon, a researcher at the Center for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-Iscte), and executive coordinator of the Emigration Observatory. In 2012, she started a post-doctoral project in sociology on the relationship between the financial crisis and qualified Portuguese emigration to London, in particular nurses. She was secretary of state for integration and migration between 2019 and 2022. Her research interests include emigration and immigration, labour trafficking and skilled migration. Among other publications, he co-organized the open access book New and old routes of Portuguese emigration: uncertain futures at the periphery of Europe.
Sónia Ferreira
Sónia Ferreira is an integrated researcher at CRIA where she co-coordinates the Research Group "Circulação e Produção de Lugares" and "membre associé" of the Unité de Recherche Migrations et Société (University of Paris) where she co-ordinates the "Groupe de travail Migrations dans les mondes lusophones: identités, altérités et circulations". She is currently a contract researcher at CRIA-NOVA FCSH with the project "(Re)Contar o império: narrativas póscoloniais e produção mediática na "diáspora" portuguesa e cabo-verdiana" and an invited assistant professor of the anthropology department of NOVA-FCSH. Since 2019 she coordinates the European project "#ECOS. Exílios, contrariar o silêncio: memórias, objectos e narrativas de tempos incertos".
Jacquelyn Meshelemiah
Jacquelyn C. A. Meshelemiah is a professor of social work at Ohio State University, USA. She is the author and co-author of numerous publications, such as Human sex trafficking and Human rights perspectives in social work education and practice. Her main research interests focus on social justice, human rights and anti-trafficking work. She conducts comparative analysis of human trafficking in Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda, England, Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica and the USA.
Pamila Gupta
Pamila Gupta is na Associate Professor at WISER (Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research) at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She holds a PhD in Socio-cultural Anthropology from Columbia University. Her research explores Lusophone (post)colonial links and legacies in India and Africa. She has published in Interventions, the South African Historical Journal, African Studies, Critical Arts, the Journal of Asian and African Studies, Ler História, Ecologie & Politique, and Public Culture, and is the co-editor of Eyes Across the Water: Navigating the Indian Ocean with Isabel Hofmeyr and Michael Pearson (UNISA, 2010). Her monograph entitled The Relic State: St. Francis Xavier and the Politics of Ritual in Portuguese India was published in 2014 by Manchester University Press. Her newest collection of essays entitled Portuguese Decolonization in the Indian Ocean World: History and Ethnography was published by Bloomsbury Press in 2018.
Caroline Brettell
With a PhD in anthropology from Brown University, USA, Caroline Brettell also did the Master of Arts. She holds a BA in Latin American Studies from Yale University. In 2009 she was named University Distinguished Professor of Southern Methodist University, USA, where she teaches. She is the director of the Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute. Her main research interests are centered on migration, the intersection between anthropology and history, historical demography, gender and transnationalism. Since the 1970’s she has been developing fieldwork among Portuguese emigrants in Canada, France, the USA and in Minho, among their families, in this case to analyze the impacts of emigration in the country of origin.
José Carlos Marques
José Carlos Marques, Ph.D. in Sociology by the University of Coimbra, is a professor at the School of Education and Social Sciences of the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria and researcher at the CES and in the Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. His research interests have focused on contemporary Portuguese emigration, migration policy, Portuguese immigration flows, highly skilled migration and the integration of immigrants in the Portuguese society.
Dulce Maria Scott
Dulce Maria Scott was born in São Miguel, Azores, and migrated to the United States at the age of 18. She holds a bachelor's degree in sociology and political science from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. She later completed a master's degree in political science and a PhD in sociology from Brown University, Rhode Island. She is currently a professor at Anderson University, Indiana, and a researcher at the Institute for Portuguese and Lusophone World Studies, at the Rhode Island College. She is the founder of the scientific journal Interdisciplinary Journal of Portuguese Diaspora Studies. Her research interests include immigration, ethnicity and race in America and her most recent studies have focused the Lusodescendants.
Marcelo Borges
Marcelo Borges was born in Argentina. He holds a Ph.D. in History from Rutgers University, New Jersey (USA), where he studied the Portuguese emigration to Argentina, particularly from the Algarve, between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. He is an associate professor of history at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania (USA), and his research interests are the history of Latin America, transatlantic migrations to the Americas, the history of Portuguese migration and oral history and memory.
Jorge Malheiros
Jorge Malheiros is a geographer and a researcher at the Center for Geographical Studies of the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning at the University of Lisbon, where he is also an associate professor, teaching subjects in the field of theory and methodologies of geography, social geography, migration and geopolitics. In addition to other institutional functions, Jorge Malheiros is a Portuguese correspondent of OECD. In this interview, the researcher tells us about his personal and academic trajectory, with special emphasis on the work carried out in the area of international migration and social and spatial segregation. It also discusses its collaboration in the REMIGR project on Portuguese emigration.
Paulo Filipe Monteiro
Paulo Filipe Monteiro holds a degree in Sociology from the ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon. While student in 1980´s, he began to research on the emigration from villages in Serra da Lousã (Portugal) to the USA. He developed later the topic of the Portuguese emigration, but from the perspective of the destination country, namely in Connecticut, USA. Paulo Monteiro is the author of many books, including Luso-Americanos no Connecticut. Questões de Etnicidade e de Comunidade [Portuguese-Americans in Connecticut. Issues of Ethnicity and Community] and Emigração. O Eterno Mito do Retorno [Emigration. The Eternal Myth of Return] . He holds a PhD in Communication Sciences from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, where he teaches drama, cinema and fiction.
João Peixoto
João Peixoto is Full Professor at ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa (Lisbon School of Economics & Management). He belongs to the Research Centre in Economic and Organizational Sociology (SOCIUS/CSG). His main research interests are international migration, demography and economic sociology. Within the conversation with João Peixoto we discussed how all along his academic studies the Portuguese emigration was a constant focal interest. In a detailed way he tells us about the REMIGR project, which gave rise to a published book in April 2016, co-coordinated by him: Regresso ao Futuro. A Nova Emigração e a Sociedade Portuguesa (Return to the Future. The Portuguese Society and it’s New Emigration). +
Miriam Halpern Pereira
Miriam Halpern Pereira holds a Ph.D. in History by Sorbonne and is Professor Emeritus of History at ISCTE-IUL and Founding Director of Center for Studies in Modern and Contemporary History. One of her main research interests has been the Portuguese emigration, about which the interviewee wrote several papers and books, such as A Política Portuguesa de Emigração (1850-1930) [The Portuguese Politics of Emigration (1850-1930)]. Edited by José Vicente Serrão, Magda Avelar Pinheiro and Maria de Fátima Sá e Melo Ferreira, the book Desenvolvimento Económico e Mudança Social. Portugal nos Últimos Dois Séculos [Economic Development and Social Change. Portugal in the Last Two Centuries] was published in 2009 in honour of Miriam Halpern Pereira.
Catherine Wihtol de Wenden
Catherine Wihtol de Wenden is research director emeritus at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, an expert on international migration, and a researcher at the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, Sciences Po Paris University. Her research interests focus on international migration, international relations, and the exploration of a citizenship and political science approach to migration. She has published more than 20 books, including La question migratoire au XXIe siècle (Presses de Sciences Po, 2017), Immigration: chance ou menace ? (Editions First, 2020), and Atlas des migrations. De nouvelles solidarités à construire (Editions Autrement, 2021).
Marie-Christine Volovitch-Tavares
Marie Christine Volovitch-Tavares is a historian. Since the 1990s, she has worked on Portuguese immigration in France. Author of the book Portugais à Champigny, le temps des baraques, her research focuses on topics as varied as the bidonvilles of the 1960s, political exiles, or the role of the Catholic religion in the Portuguese integration. From 2003 to 2007 she was a member of the committee of historians who participated in the creation of the Cité Nationale de l'Histoire de l'Immigration (CNHI-France).

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