Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society - REMESO

Man in refugee camp behind the Belgrade Central Station — Abdul Saboor is an Afghan refugee and photographer based in Paris. During 2017 he was stuck in Serbia, due to the new border closure. He lived in an informal camp behind the Belgrade Central Station. There he started to take pictures with his phone and later with a donated digital camera. Photographer: Abdul Saboor

The Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society is a meeting place for researchers who want to develop a multilevel approach to the understanding of migration, ethnicity and society. REMESO鈥檚 research synthesises economic, ecological, technological, social, and cultural dynamics to understand migration and ethnicity.

We seek to explain how migration and displacement are caused by forces such as socioeconomic inequalities, precarious livelihoods, unfair labor conditions, climate change, and armed conflict. We examine how migration processes are met and managed by local, national, international, and geopolitical regimes of inclusion and exclusion.

REMESO鈥檚 research entails the study of our contemporary landscape of borders and border practices. Our research examines the precarisation of work and citizenship, the role of race and ethnicity in healthcare, schools, and urban segregation, and the effects of climate change, wars, and eroding state sovereignty on refugee movement and consequent transformations of the asylum system. Equally important, we study how borders are transformed by the strategies and know-how of migrants who seek access to welfare and rights.

REMESO investigates how regulation of migration are intertwined with discourses of difference and structures of discrimination related to nation, race, class, gender, and sexuality. We analyse the rise of right-wing populism and racism, and explore how everyday ideas, media discourses, cultural expressions, and the arts relate to ethnicity and nationalism.

REMESO also emphasises that research should embrace multiple perspectives and experiences, not least those of migrants and racialised groups. In many of our projects, we study the voices, agency and practices of migrant organisations and social movements.

Research projects

Human migration and mobility are as old as history, and they affect every society in the world.

They also belong to history鈥檚 most changeable phenomena, as they are often linked to political conflicts, economic inequalities, environmental change, ethnic and racial discrimination, and social unrest.

To understand migration and ethnicity, REMESO's research synthesises economic, ecological, technological, social, and cultural dynamics.

Thematic streams

The research projects are organised in five thematic streams:

Citizenship and Ethnic Relations
Globalisation and the Reconstitution of Normative and Legal Frameworks
Migration, Public Service and Health
Migration Welfare and the Political Economy of Labour Market Segmentation
Post-National Strategies for Development/Growth, Inclusion and Diversity

Research concept

Migration and ethnicity require a transdisciplinary outlook and unorthodox methodological approaches. This recognition underlies our common theoretical platform: a dual critical commitment. This theoretical platform accommodates a broad multiplicity of methods, from quantitative sociology and economics to aesthetic analysis and history.

Publications

The latest publications

2025

Nate Breznau, Eike Mark Rinke, Alexander Wuttke, Muna Adem, Jule Adriaans, Esra Akdeniz, Amalia Alvarez-Benjumea, Henrik K. Andersen, Daniel Auer, Flavio Azevedo, Oke Bahnsen, Ling Bai, Dave Balzer, Paul C. Bauer, Gerrit Bauer, Markus Baumann, Sharon Baute, Verena Benoit, Julian Bernauer, Carl Berning, Anna Berthold, Felix S. Bethke, Thomas Biegert, Katharina Blinzler, Johannes N. Blumenberg, Licia Bobzien, Andrea Bohman, Thijs Bol, Amie Bostic, Zuzanna Brzozowska, Katharina Burgdorf, Kaspar Burger, Kathrin Busch, Juan-Carlos Castillo, Nathan Chan, Pablo Christmann, Roxanne Connelly, Christian S. Czymara, Elena Damian, Eline A. de Rooij, Alejandro Ecker, Achim Edelmann, Christina Eder, Maureen A. Eger, Simon Ellerbrock, Anna Forke, Andrea Forster, Danilo Freire, Chris Gaasendam, Konstantin Gavras, Vernon Gayle, Theresa Gessler, Timo Gnambs, Amelie Godefroidt, Max Gromping, Martin Gross, Stefan Gruber, Tobias Gummer, Andreas Hadjar, Verena Halbherr, Jan Paul Heisig, Sebastian Hellmeier, Stefanie Heyne, Magdalena Hirsch, Mikael Hjerm, Oshrat Hochman, Jan H. Hoffler, Andreas Hovermann, Sophia Hunger, Christian Hunkler, Nora Huth-Stockle, Zsofia S. Ignacz, Sabine Israel, Laura Jacobs, Jannes Jacobsen, Bastian Jaeger, Sebastian Jungkunz, Nils Jungmann, Jennifer Kanjana, Mathias Kauff, Salman Khan, Sayak Khatua, Manuel Kleinert, Julia Klinger, Jan-Philipp Kolb, Marta Kolczynska, John Kuk, Katharina Kunissen, Dafina Kurti Sinatra, Alexander Langenkamp, Robin C. Lee, Philipp M. Lersch, David Liu, Lea-Maria Lobel, Philipp Lutscher, Matthias Mader, Joan E. Madia, Natalia Malancu, Luis Maldonado, Helge Marahrens, Nicole Martin, Paul Martinez, Jochen Mayerl, Oscar J. Mayorga, Robert McDonnell, Patricia McManus, Kyle McWagner, Cecil Meeusen, Daniel Meierrieks, Jonathan Mellon, Friedolin Merhout, Samuel Merk, Daniel Meyer, Leticia Micheli, Jonathan Mijs, Cristobal Moya, Marcel Neunhoeffer, Daniel Nust, Olav Nygård, Fabian Ochsenfeld, Gunnar Otte, Anna Pechenkina, Mark Pickup, Christopher Prosser, Louis Raes, Kevin Ralston, Miguel Ramos, Frank Reichert, Arne Roets, Jonathan Rogers, Guido Ropers, Robin Samuel, Gregor Sand, Constanza Sanhueza Petrarca, Ariela Schachter, Merlin Schaeffer, David Schieferdecker, Elmar Schlueter, Katja Schmidt, Regine Schmidt, Alexander Schmidt-Catran, Claudia Schmiedeberg, Jurgen Schneider, Martijn Schoonvelde, Julia Schulte-Cloos, Sandy Schumann, Reinhard Schunck, Julian Seuring, Henning Silber, Willem Sleegers, Nico Sonntag, Alexander Staudt, Nadia Steiber, Nils D. Steiner, Sebastian Sternberg, Dieter Stiers, Dragana Stojmenovska, Nora Storz, Erich Striessnig, Anne-Kathrin Stroppe, Jordan W. Suchow, Janna Teltemann, Andrey Tibajev, Brian Tung, Giacomo Vagni, Jasper Van Assche, Meta van der Linden, Jolanda van der Noll, Arno Van Hootegem, Stefan Vogtenhuber, Bogdan Voicu, Fieke Wagemans, Nadja Wehl, Hannah Werner, Brenton M. Wiernik, Fabian Winter, Christof Wolf, Cary Wu, Yuki Yamada, Bjorn Zakula, Nan Zhang, Conrad Ziller, Stefan Zins, Tomasz Zoltak, Hung H. V. Nguyen (2025) Royal Society Open Science, Vol. 12, Article 241038 (Article in journal)

Minoo Alinia, Claudia Tazreiter, Vanessa Barker (2025) Frontiers in Sociology, Vol. 10, Article 1577768 (Article in journal)

Gustav Liden, Emma Holmqvist, Joel Jacobsson, Kristoffer Peter Jutvik, Jon Nyhlen (2025) Journal of Public Policy (Article, review/survey)

Sofia Morberg Jämterud, Anna Bredström, Kristin Zeiler (2025) Journal of Medical Humanities (Article in journal)

Maria Eriksson Baaz, Paula Mählck (2025) Decolonial Sweden, p. 250-268 (Chapter in book)

Quote

REMESO has become a leading centre for research on migration and ethnicity, with a growing reputation for the quality of its research both in the Nordic context, and more broadly in Europe and internationally.

Seminars and conferences

REMESO SEMINARS

Seminars are held on Wednesdays 13:15 - 15:00 (1:00-3:00 pm). Everyone is welcome to our Open seminars. Most often our seminars are conducted in English.

Film meets research: Moving Worlds

Moa Martinson Professor, Neferti X. M. Tadiar, and film and media scholar Jonathan Beller presents eight films about migration, racism, discrimination, and diversity - free of charge at CNEMA, Norrköping.

REMESO Conference archive

Information about past conferences and workshops organised by the Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society.

Ongoing

Calendar

Cooperation and outreach

REMESO cooperates with civil society organisations, social movements, cultural institutions, businesses, and authorities on local, national and transnational levels.

These collaborations involve education and knowledge exchange as well as project development and evaluation. By collaborating in research, education, and dissemination, REMESO has built a network of affiliated researchers and experts. These networks connect us to ongoing outreach activities involving think tanks, popular publications, pod casts and public events. Exchanges with visual artists, writers and public intellectuals will continuously be a strong interest and commitment for the Institute.

Partners

Our partners include:

The Swedish Migration Agency, Regional Board Östergötland, European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, Swedish National Agency for Education, Public Health Agency of Sweden, Swedish Employment Agency, Swedish Association for Sexuality Education, Global Challenge, PGA – Peoples’ Global Action for Migration, UN High Level Political Forum on Migration, UNESCO Council's Social Science Program MOST, Ericsson, Tensta Art Center, Norrköping Art Museum and various Swedish Municipalities.

An exhibition space

On Campus Norrköping REMESO runs since 2017 an exhibition space – LOBBY – in which contemporary artists are invited to address and confront issues linked to our research.

Education

REMESO offers a Bachelor鈥檚 programme in Social and Cultural Analysis and an international Master鈥檚 programme in Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Social and Cultural Analysis

The Bachelor鈥檚 programme in Social and Cultural Analysis (SKA), is an interdisciplinary undergraduate education taught mainly in Swedish with some English courses. Students gain insights into historical conditions, learn to analyse contemporary societal conditions and acquire tools to work with change for the future.

Ethnic and Migration Studies

The Master鈥檚 programme in Ethnic and Migration Studies (EMS) is a two-year campus-based programme taught in English. EMS relates ethnicity and migration to global economic and cultural change, as well as to systems of domination and movements of resistance. Students learn to analyse the causes of migration, as well as its consequences for emerging formations of race, gender, labor, citizenship, health care, welfare and culture.

Social and Cultural Analysis, 180 credits, 180 credits

The Social and Cultural Analysis programme focuses on modern society and its´changes. You will study peoples´ varied living conditions, as well as political, social and ethnic identities and conflicts.

Ethnic and Migration Studies, Master's Programme, 120 credits

Learn to analyse the causes of migration, and consequences for formations of race, gender, labor, citizenship, healthcare, welfare and culture. Relates ethnicity and migration to economic and cultural change, to systems of domination and resistance.

Doctoral studies

REMESO runs a doctoral programme in Ethnic and Migration Studies and an International Graduate School in Migration and Integration.

The PhD programme in Ethnic and Migration Studies gives doctoral students insight into central dimensions of Swedish and international research on ethnicity, migration and society. The courses are interdisciplinary and usually offered in English. Course work and thesis writing are thoroughly integrated throughout the programme.

The Graduate School in Migration and Integration is jointly run by REMESO and the University of Gothenburg’s Department of Sociology and Centre on Global Migration. The school provides Swedish and international PhD students with the opportunity to participate in advanced teaching and research training in the areas of migration and integration.

PhD dissertations in process – with preliminary titles

Haqqi Bahram: Between Statelessness and Refugeehood: Kurds from Syria and the Question of Citizenship

Nicolina Ewards Öberg: Home making in times of changing migration regimes

Asher Goldstein: Indifference to Extraction

Mavis Hooi: Informal learning. Social media activism. Intersectional antiracism

Lisa Karlsson Blom: Måste vi prata om ras? Samtal om rasism och antirasistisk praktik i Sverige på 2010- och 20-talen

Rudeina Mkdad: Navigating ‘Respectability’: The Relationship to the Family Center in Sweden for ‘Racialized Parents’ from Muslim-Majority Countries

Celina Ortega Soto: Cultures of Rejection: rejection of migrants and authorities in the shadow of the corona pandemic in Sweden

Kenna Sim: Movement is Foundational: Cultures of Resistance in the Context of Climate Mobilities

Julia Willén: Futures Lost of South African Whiteness: the Writings of Nadine Gordimer 1953–1979

The Doctoral Programme in Ethnic and Migration Studies

The doctoral programme offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary research education in ethnic and migration studies.

The Swedish Research Council鈥檚 Graduate School in Migration and Integration

The graduate school provide PhD students with advanced teaching, research training and networking opportunities. It aspires to create a unique intellectual milieu for PhD students who write their dissertations on migration and integration.

News

21 April 2025

From Europe to Australia and back

As a child in the 1970s, Claudia Tazreiter emigrated from Austria to Australia with her family. For more than three years now, she has been back in Europe. Now as a professor at LiU. It is not a coincidence that migration is her field of study.

10 April 2025

An unique Exchange within Austria and Sweden

A group of LiU PhD candidates took part in a research exchange programme in Vienna. The programme is a collaboration in philosophy, sociology, and migration studies, that strengthens the research and the academic ties between Austria and Sweden.

Students taking the course Scholars at risk student led workshop

02 April 2025

Academic freedom in practice

The group of master鈥檚 students on the Ethnicity and Migration programme at LiU are unique. They are the first in Sweden to take a university course in how to create a campaign in support of an imprisoned researcher and for academic freedom.

About REMESO

Research since 2008

Animated by the need for adequate knowledge of international migration and ethnic relations, REMESO was founded in 2008. REMESO has a Board and an International Advisory Board.

The institute was funded by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (FORTE), Linköping University and Norrköping Municipality. REMESO is today a university-wide institute and part of the Department of Culture and Society (IKOS).

Situated at Campus Norrköping, REMESO has about 30 faculty members and PhD students and collaborates with some 20 affiliated researchers.

Brochure about the institute

The Board of REMESO and the REMESO International Advisory Board

The board and international advisory board consist of researchers who, from a strategic perspective, can support REMESO鈥檚 development as an institute and as an intellectually creative research environment.

REMESO's 15th anniversary

REMESO 15

REMESO celebrated 15 years with panel discussions and seminars together with colleagues, board members, alumni, and affiliates. February 8, 2023. Take part of some of the discussions here!

Introduction by Anders Neergaard, Professor, Director of REMESO and Carl-Ulrik Schierup, Professor emeritus, former Director of REMESO.

A Modern Migration Theory

Book discussion with Peo Hansen, Professor, REMESO, author of A Modern Migration Theory and Lisa Pelling, Chair of REMESO Board and Director of Arena Id茅.

The Tidö Agreement

New Challenges for Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Panel discussion with Rudeina Mkdad, PhD student, REMESO; Anders Neergaard, Professor, Director of REMESO; Kitimbwa Sabuni, REMESO board member, County Admin., Board of Stockholm; Per Wirtén, REMESO board member, author and political commentator and Lisa Pelling (moderator), chair of REMESO board, Director Arena Idé.

Ethnic and Migration Studies: Systems of Knowledge

Panel discussion with Aleksandra Ålund, Professor emerita, REMESO; Haqqi Bahram, PhD student, REMESO; Branka Likic-Brboric, Senior associate professor; Xolani Tshabalala, Postdoc, REMESO; Claudia Tazreiter (moderator), Professor, REMESO.

REMESO talks

Ambivalent Solidarities: Migrant Labour and Trade Unions in South Africa, USA and Sweden

Seminar 16/2 2021

Speakers: Janet Munakamwe, Els de Graauw, Shannon Gleeson, Anders Neergaard

Commentators: Bridget Anderson and Ronaldo Munck

Moderator: Carl-Ulrik Schierup

Unionizing the precarized, syndicalism and the contemporary working class - panel discussion

Panel discussion 25/11 2020

Speakers: Eli Adekur, Marissa Begonia, Daria Bogdanska, Frank Iyanga Makelo

Moderator: Asher Goldstein

Doors Close! Social Polarization and the Rise of Cultures of Rejection across Europe

Seminar 12/12 2019

Manuela Bojadzijev, Professor of Sociology, Leuphana University/Berlin Institute for Migration and Integration Research, Humboldt University; Benjamin Opratko, Researcher, Department of Political Science, University of Vienna; Gazela Pudar Drasko, Professor, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade; 脡ric Fassin, Department of Sociology, University of Paris 8鈥揝aint-Denis.

Moderator: Stefan Jonsson, professor, Institute for research on migration, ethnicity and society (REMESO)

News letter and Blog

Contact

Director of research

Deputy director of research

Head of doctoral studies

Researchers

Senior Associate Professor

Pouran Djampour

Emma Dominques

Lecturer

Nicolina Ewards Öberg

Professor, Head of Division

Senior Associate Professor

Affiliated Researchers

Robert Aman

Senior Associate Professor

Eva Bolander

Associate Professor

Aliaksei Kazlou

Associate Professor

Martin Klinthäll

Associate Professor, Head of Division, Docent

Madina Tlostanova

Professor

Organisation

Division of Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO)

REMESO pursues research and education on transnational migration, ethnic diversity and citizenship in relation to changes in labour and welfare.

Department of Culture and Society (IKOS)

At the Department of Culture and Society (IKOS), social sciences and the humanities gather in environments where research and education work together.

Groups of students at tables in Studenthuset

Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FILFAK)

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences provides education and research in humanities, social- and behavioral sciences, commercial law, art disciplines and thematic science.

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