People - Contesting Migration

Olga Demetriou

Durham University

Olga Demetriou is Professor in Political Anthropology at the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University. She is the author of Refugeehood and the Postconflict Subject and Capricious Borders and co-editor of The Political Materialities of Borders. She is the PI of Contesting Migration and Co-PI of MedReceptions.

Read Bio

Antonis Ellinas

University of Cyprus

Antonis A. Ellinas is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Cyprus. He is the author of Organizing against Democracy and The Media and the Far Right and co-author of The European Commission and Bureaucratic Autonomy. He is the PI of MedReceptions and Co-PI of Contesting Migration.

Read Bio

Maria Kenti Kranidioti

University of Cyprus

Maria Kenti-Kranidioti conducted post-doctoral ethnographic research in Cyprus, Evros, and Chios. She is interested in the state, materiality, authenticity, history, and memory. Her monograph, Rethinking a Radical Reputation: An Athens Neighbourhood between Media Hype and Social Experience was published by Berghahn in 2025.

Theodoros Kouros

University of Cyprus

Theodoros Kouros is a Lecturer in the Department of Communication and Internet Studies and a social anthropologist. He conducted ethnographic research on the islands of Lesbos and Samos (Greece) and the MEDRECEPTIONS project, and along the Greek-Albanian border (Epirus, Gjirokastër and Korçë) and in Limassol, Cyprus in earlier work.

Read Bio

Janina Pescinski

Durham University

Janina Pescinski conducted postdoctoral ethnographic research in Lampedusa and Trieste, Italy. She is interested in activist scholarship on migration, citizenship, borders and rights. Her thesis had explored “Acts of Passage: Making Rights Claims in the Franco-Italian Borderzone” and was funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

Bernardo López Marín

Durham University

Bernardo López Marín conducted postdoctoral ethnographic fieldwork in Ceuta and Melilla, Spain. His PhD at La Trobe University Australia, was a comparative study on emotions, feelings and sentiments of people in transit through Mexico and Morocco.

Demetris Comodromos

University of Cyprus

Demetris Comodromos is Research Assistant at the University of Cyprus and the project’s research officer, undertaking data collection, data coding, fieldwork and website management. He holds a BA in Political Science and History from Panteion University and MA in International and European Studies from University of Piraeus.

Efi Savvides

Efi Savvides is the project’s art consultant working on four films on Cyprus, Samos, Lampedusa and Melilla. In her work, she uses various media, such as hand silk screen printing, drawing, photography and video to investigate conditions of exclusion of migrants and refugees through ethnographic-like approaches.

Read Bio

Beatriz Pedrosa Vico

University of Granada

Beatriz Pedrosa Vico is the project’s local contact in Ceuta. She is interested in participatory research methods and uses experiential and performative approaches in her research. She has conducted research with asylum seekers and activists in Ceuta, Melilla, and the Canary islands.

Marion Bouchetel

Marion Bouchetel, the project’s legal consultant on Greece, is a qualified lawyer from France specialising in migration, asylum and human rights. She has been engaged in legal assistance, advocacy and litigation work in Greece, particularly in Lesvos, since 2017. She focuses on border regimes, criminalisation, anti-racism and civic space.

Antonina Albanese

Antonina Albanese is the project’s legal consultant on Italy. She is a PhD candidata at the University of Palermo, researching informal financial networks in the Mediterranean and SWANA regions focusing on space, structural discrimination, and migratory trajectories. She is also a Board Member and Secretary General of Refugees Welcome Italia.

Daisy Vaughan Liñero

Daisy Vaughan Liñero is the project’s legal consultant on Spain. She specialises on migration and asylum programme and policy with experience across UK local government, humanitarian organisations and international protection systems. She published research on SOGI asylum claims, externalisation policies, and led national participatory policy work with British Red Cross.