Janet Carter Anand is an academic, educator and practitioner in social work. Currently a Professor in International Social Work, UEF, she has researched and published on global mindedness, cultural diversity, human rights and ageing and migration and quality of life. Janet is affiliated with the UEF Centre for Borders, Mobilities and Cultural Encounters, leads the IAASW Baltic Nordic Regional Resource Centre and is Editor of the Journal of Nordic Social Work Research and course director Sosnet Global Perspectives in Social Work of a new YUFE program on Global Migration and European Identity.

I am a doctoral candidate in the Political, Societal and Regional Change programme experienced in qualitative research and implementation of development cooperation projects in Finland and Latin America. My doctoral research focuses on how the focus of women’s empowerment shifts when Finland’s development aid has been increasingly transferred from traditional development cooperation to the private sector through cross-sectoral partnerships with Kenya. My professional work has been focused on using research to inform project design and implementation in development cooperation initiatives for gender-based violence, gender equality, peacebuilding, psychosocial support, and migration. Previously I have conducted research on Women, Peace and Security, and feminism in Colombia, and refugees, agency, and gender-based violence in Norway.

My research interests include internal and cross-border displacement in Sub-Saharan Africa, politics of belonging, identity building and state formation. In my ethnographic Doctoral Study I use the return migration of Zimbabweans from neighbouring Southern African countries as an avenue for exploring the dynamics of returnee urban emplacement.

Eurídice, a versatile social scientist with an interdisciplinary foundation, is dedicated to unraveling the intricate links between public spaces, migration dynamics, and identity development. Drawing on her multifaceted background built between Brazil and Finland, Eurídice engages in cutting-edge explorations of urban design to foster social mixing and combat prejudice, leveraging her early proficiency in public management and legal studies. Her research agenda focuses on cultural public spaces and the dynamics of identity development in mixed-background individuals, a topic directly connected to her activist work at Ninho ry. Additionally, Eurídice has contributed to research projects centered around public spaces and deradicalization, smart mobility to counteract inequalities, and establishing daycare centers catering to children of informal female workers.

UN WOMEN Project (Preventing Forced Migration and Trafficking of Women and Girls in Nigeria: Build Resilience, Promote Sustainable Development), Development of a NAPTIP Gender Policy and Capacity building on the Implementation of the Policy. February– August 2021. UNHCR Global Compact on Refugees (National Focal Person), February 2019– December 2020. Kolo, L. Ladidi (2009) “Building more effective work teams at Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons”. A thesis written in fulfillment of an MSc in Human Resources Development (International Development). University of Manchester, United Kingdom. Published by University of Manchester Press Kolo, L. Ladidi (2019) “Statelessness. Nigeria’s realities and implications”. A paper presented at the Regional Strategic Meeting on Statelessness in Abidjan, 9th May 2019. Kolo, L. Ladidi (2019) “Mitigating Protection Concerns in Mixed Movements”. A paper presented at the UNHCR Regional Protection Dialogue 2 held in Abuja, 29th January 2019. https://reliefweb.int>report>niger Kolo, L. Ladidi (2020) “Implementing a Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework in Nigeria”. A paper presented at the Country Meeting for the Implementation of the Global Compact on Refugees, 9th December 2020.

Quivine Ndomo is working on her PhD in Social Policy on the labour market integration of highly educated African migrants in Finland, using biographic methods to research workplace discrimination and labour market segmentation. She has successfully authored or co-authored a number of peer reviewed book chapters on labour market experiences of migrants and internationalisation of higher education in Finland. Ms. Ndomo has worked in national and international research consortia on internationalisation, mobilities, and migration, including projects of ministry of Education and Culture Finland, and the European Commission, as a project assistant in the DG Employment funded SMUG project. She also worked on the H2020 SIRIUS project, and from this has substantial experience in interviewing and managing stakeholder relations.

Projects

PREparing for a Long-Term Joint EU-AU Research and Innovation Partnership on Renewable Energy (PRE-LEAP-RE)

Internationalizing Finnish Science: Building Sustainable Bridges to Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean (BRIDGES)

Frank is the Project Coordinator for the Africa Networks at the University of Jyväskylä. He coordinates three networks (FAPI, SAFINET, EDUCASE) that are part of strategic funding by the MEC. Frank is a doctoral researcher at the University of Lapland where his research focuses on integration of migrants with focus of his research on migrants from Sub Sahara Africa. He has written articles and contributed book chapters on human rights, Covid-19, social justice and education.

I am interested in the law on statehood, statelessness, climate-induced migration and small island states.

Dr. Tiina Seppälä is a university lecturer in Global Development Studies at the University of Helsinki and adjunct professor of International Development Studies at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She has engaged with women’s rights and slum activists in Nepal and Bangladesh, anti-eviction movements in India, asylum seekers in Finland and anti-war activists in the UK. She is interested in development, displacement, social movements, post/decolonial and feminist theory, ethnographic research and arts-based methods.

Projects

Governance, Resistance and Neoliberal Development: Struggles against Development-Induced Displacement and Forced Evictions in South Asia

I have had a background in International Relations with bachelor's and master's degrees as I wrote my MA thesis on the role of local non-state actors in the integration of refugees. Currently, I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at Middle East Technical University and a visiting doctoral researcher in the Discipline of Global Development Studies at the University of Helsinki. My major research area is the sociology of migration, and my minor is environmental sociology. At the nexus of these two main areas, I have specifically focused on the nexus of the climate crisis, neoliberal governance, and migratory movements along with the urban-rural dynamics, socio-ecological and political-economic transformations in the web of life. In addition to that, I have an interest in decolonial philosophy, which lead me to investigate each phase of climate crisis and migration processes through the relations of power, capital, nature, and coloniality.