The IRTG Welcomes Birte Nienaber

Birte Nienaber received her PhD in Geography from the University of Münster in 2005 and her habilitation from Saarland University in 2012. Since 2013, she has worked as an associate professor at the University of Luxembourg. As a political geographer, she specialises in migration and border studies and publishes on youth mobility and migration, integration, asylum, and border studies. She coordinates numerous EU-funded projects in the area of migration, such as the H2020 projects MIMY “EMpowerment through liquid Integration of Migrant Youth in vulnerable conditions” and MOVE “Mapping mobility - pathways, institutions and structural effects of youth mobility in Europe”. She is/was also a work package leader in the FP7 project DERREG “Developing Europe's Rural Regions in the Era of Globalization”, and in the H2020 projects CEASEVAL
“Evaluation of the Common European Asylum System under Pressure and Recommendations for Further Development” and RELOCAL “Resituating the Local in Cohesion and Territorial Development” (which deals with spatial integration of marginalized people). Birte Nienaber further coordinates the national EU contact points EMN and FRANET. She is also actively involved in the
University of Greater Region- Center for Border Studies as a member of the Steering Board. Additionally, Nienaber is the course director of the trinational Master in Border Studies at the University of Luxembourg.


Description of research at the IRTG:

People who experienced displacement/flight (i.e. violence, war, natural disasters, climate change) find themselves very often in vulnerable conditions, in the labour market, in education, in the political system, in the health care etc. of the destination countries. The collaboration together with the IRTG Diversity will explore the participation and empowerment of migrants during and after their displacement/flight experience, focussing on asylum seekers, recognised refugees and irregular migrants from the European and North American perspective. Through an open and academic exchange with different scholars, I will be able to contextualise the different forms of participation and empowerment of migrants who have been displaced.

Please find more information about Birte Nienaber and her research projects on: https://wwwen.uni.lu/research/fhse/dgeo/people/birte_nienaber