CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS
My ongoing larger project “Xenophobic Dialogue and Exclusion: The Making of the Refugee/Asylum-Seeker and the Citizen,” examines the making of the undocumented refugee and illegal immigrant in societies in the Global North, and especially, vis-a-vis citizen of the USA and Europe. Important elements of identities are produced and preserved through the politics of fear and differentiation. Domestically, we find scapegoating by both individual politicians and the media; internationally we see the creation of powerful border regimes seeking to keep out the “undesirables.”
Another project I’m currently researching is “Identity Politics and Precarity in the Rise of Youth Extremism: An International Comparison.” Over the last half decade the far right has made a concerted effort to recruit and proselytize young people, especially at college campuses, which—in the words of Christina Schori Liang and Matthew John Cross (2020:8)—have become the “new battleground for hate.” In America, right-wing groups such as the Proud Boys, Turning Point USA, and the Patriot Front promote their extremist views online and in the real world. While these movements are still in the process of growing in the U.S, in a number of Central European countries such as Hungary, Poland and Austria, young people have already turned en mass to similar extremist movements and we can identify mature trends toward right-wing extremism. Why is this the case and what can we learn from the development in Europe? This is the central question of my comparative study of youth extremism in Hungary and the U.S. I expect that we might be able to gain considerable insights about extremist youth’s motivations by studying their involvement in far-right groups such as Hungary’s Magyar Gárda, Mi Hazánk, and Identitiás Generáció. The objective of this project is to compare the political sympathies and motivations of young people who are interested in right-wing extremist movements in Hungary and the U.S.
I’m also in the early stages of working on a textbook on border policies.
implying superiority of one group of humans over another
SELECTED PRESENTATIONS AND CONFERENCES
“Youth Extremism in Hungary: Activism based on instrumentality, identity, and ideology” Paper presented at the International Studies Association Convention, Montreal March 17, 2023
“Quiet Resistance: Refugee work by regional, community-based nonprofit groups during the Trump Administration” Paper presented Eötvös Loránd University, Institute of Political and International Studies, Budapest, Hungary, November 21, 2022.
“Afghans in the USA: Resettlement under a retreating neoliberal state and a dysfunctional political system” Paper presented at CARFMS22: Crisis & Forced Migration: Manifestations of Power in a changing world (remove) November 2, 2022
“Afghans in America: An Institutional & Qualitative Analysis” Paper presented at the IASFM 19, Universidade Catolica de Santos, Brasil (remote) August 4, 2022
“Making Refugee Resettlement Great Again: The Rise of Regional Community-Based Non-profit Groups in Refugee Work” Annual Convention of the International Studies Association in Nashville, TN (and remote) March 28, 2022
“The Eroding of Asylum and Refugee Resettlement Policies in America” 67th AWR International Migration Conference: Global Migration: Trans-cultural, Trans-disciplinary and Intersectional Perspectives (Remote) February 9, 2022
“The Future of Refugee Resettlement in the United States: A Bottom-Up Analysis” Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, San Antonio, Texas (Remote), January 13, 2022“Responding to Trump and COVID-19: Resistance & Solidarity in (Forced) Migration Grass-roots Organizations” International Studies Association North East Annual Conference (Virtual) November 6, 2021
“The post-Pandemic Future of the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program: A Qualitative Analysis” Paper presented at the Canadian Association for Refugees and Forced Migration Studies (CARFMS) Conference: Utopias as Practice, University of Regina and University of Saskatchewan, Canada (Remote), October 29, 2021.
“COVID-19 & the Future of Refugee Resettlement in the United States:
A Bottom-up Analysis” Paper presented at the 18th Biannual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM): Disrupting Theory—Unsettling Practice: Towards Transforming Forced Migration Scholarship and Policy, University of Ghana, Accra (Remote) July 27, 2021.
“A Story of Walls: Physical, Ideological and Emotional Walls and the Politics of American Immigration” Paper Presented at the CEEISA-ISA 2019 Joint International Conference, June 18, 2019 in Belgrade, Serbia
“Technology and Youth—Tools for Societal Inclusion or Radicalization?” paper presented at the International Studies Association Northeast, November 3, 2018, Baltimore, Maryland.
“Life in Bigotry—American Immigration Policy under Trump” paper presented at the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) Meeting “Whither Refugees? Restrictionism, Crises and Precarity Writ Large,” July 25, 2018, in Thessaloniki, Greece.
“Populist Narratives and Anti-immigration politics: White Identity Politics and the Desire for Vengeance and Security” paper presented at the Transatlantic Connections 5 Drew University Conference, January 13, 2018, Bundoran, Donegal, Ireland.
“The Decline of Democracy and the Re-nationalization of Politics: The Rise of the New Right in Europe and the USA” Caucus for a New Political Science 50th Anniversary Conference, February 27, 2017, South Padre Island, Texas, USA
“The New Populist Right—Its Roots and its Potential Consequences” Southern Political Science Association, January 12, 2017, New Orleans, USA.
“Punitive Refugee Policy and Corruption in the EU” IPSA’s 24th World Congress of Political Science, July 27, 2016, Poznan, Poland.
“Social Response to Europe’s Refugee Crisis” paper presented at the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration 2016 (IASFM16): Rethinking Forced Migration and Displacement: Theory, Policy and Practice, July 14, 2016, Poznan, Poland.
“The Politics of Provocation, Machismo and Feminism: Some Peculiarities of Turkish Underground Rap in Vienna, Austria” paper presented at the 11th Annual Trinity International Hip-Hop Festival, Trinity College, April 8, 2016, Hartford, CT
“The Bosnian Diaspora in Central Europe and the USA in the 1990s: Some Comparative Observations” paper presented at The Refugee Crisis: Historical Perspectives from Europe and North America, 1945–2000, Symposium at the German Historical Institute, March 17, 2016, Washington DC
“Refugees and Migrants in the European Union” paper presented at the Global Symposium of the International Awareness Day at Rider University, February 25, 2016, Lawrenceville, NJ.
“Corruption Biographies: Or How Corruption Can Grow Best–Studying FIFA’s ExCo Members” paper presented at the Congrès de Association française de science politique (AFSP) June 22-24, 2015, Aix-en-Provence, France.
“Young Turks: The Marginalization of Migrants and other Second Generation Problems in Europe Today” paper presented at the Symposium Global Travelers: Migrant, Exiled, and Displaced Communities at Loyola University, April 3, 2013, Baltimore, Maryland.
“Young, Female and Turkish in Europe Today: Questions of Ethnicity, Gender, Class and the New Media” Paper presented at Gender, Bodies & Technology Conference April 26-28, 2012, Roanoke, Virginia
“Returnees, Remittances and Reconstruction—Bosnia Today” presented at Fields of Opportunity: Commemoration of 15 Years of Bosnian Resettlement in Cedar Valley, March 26, 2010 Waterloo, IA, USA.
“Immigrant Cultures and the Use of The Internet: The Communications and Friendship Structures of Young Turks in Vienna, Austria” Paper presented with Gerit Gӧtzenbrucker at the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECRA)-Diaspora, Migration and Media: Crossing Boundaries, New Directions, November 6, 2009, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands.
“Second Generation Turkish Immigrants- the Development of a Permanent Underclass or a Story of (Partially) Successful Integration? An International Comparison” Paper presented at the ABRI-ISA Joint International Meeting, July 23, 2009, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“Wading through Muddy Water: An Exploration of Liberian Refugee Family Challenges in Resettlement” Paper presented with Nicole Ives at 2008 International Study Association Convention, March 25-28, 2008, San Francisco, USA.
”Immigration Policy Reconsidered: Immigrants in America in the 21st Century” Paper presented at the CLAES Faculty Lecture Series 2007-2008, February 18, 2008, Rider University, Lawrenceville, NJ, USA.
“Inconsistencies in U.S. Refugee Policy: The Healthy Marriage Act, Family Reunification and the Liberian Experience in the USA” Paper presented with Nicole Ives at the 11th Conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration, January 6-10, 2008 Cairo, Egypt.
“Muslims in Europe: The Development of a Parallel Society?” Paper presented at the Oxford Round Table on Global Security in the 21st Century, August 6-11, 2006, Lincoln College, University of Oxford, Oxford, England.
SELECTED RESEARCH GRANTS
Fulbright Country Specialist—Local Integration and Governance, Scalabrini Refugee Center, Cape Town, South Africa, June 2019
Fulbright Country Specialist for the Peace and Conflict Resolution Program in Lithuania, May 2017
Principal immigration specialist for the project Serious Beats (2010-12) received award by the WWTF (Science and Technology Fund) for innovative research, design and inter disciplinary work (in cooperation with Gerit Götzenbrucker, University of Vienna, Austria, financed by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF) under the project title “Internet Use and friendship structures of young migrants in Vienna: the Question for Diversity within Social Networks and Online Social Games” € 302.000,—