Journal Articles
Jegen, L.F., 2025. “Protecting” Rights of Smuggled Migrants in the Context of State-Enforced Immobility: Legal Borderwork in Senegal. International Political Sociology, 19(2), p.olaf011.
Jegen, L.F., 2023. ‘Migratising’ mobility: Coloniality of knowledge and externally funded migration capacity building projects in Niger. Geoforum 146, 1–11.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103862
Arhin-Sam, K., Bisong, A., Jegen, L., Mounkaila, H., Zanker, F., 2022. The (in)formality of mobility in the ECOWAS region: The paradoxes of free movement. South Afr. J. Int. Aff. 29, 187–205. https://doi.org/10.1080/10220461.2022.2084452
Adam, I., Trauner, F., Jegen, L., Roos, C., 2020. West African interests in (EU) migration policy. Balancing domestic priorities with external incentives. J. Ethn. Migr. Stud. 46, 3101–3118. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1750354
Invited Publications and Book Chapters
Leonie Jegen, Sara Bellazza, Michelle Pfeifer, Stephan Scheel, Zuzana Uhde, forthcoming. Colonial Continuities, in: Leurs, K., Fill, A., Perret, S., Pollozek, S., Seuferling, P., Meloni, A., Nagy, V. (Eds.), Migration Data Matters. A Keyword Approach to the Datafication of Migration and Border Control. Liverpool Press. Forthcoming
Stephan Scheel, Sara Bellazza, Leonie Jegen, forthcoming. Categorization, in: Leurs, K., Fill, A., Perret, S., Pollozek, S., Seuferling, P., Meloni, A., Nagy, V. (Eds.), Migration Data Matters. A Keyword Approach to the Datafication of Migration and Border Control. Liverpool Press.
Jegen, L.F., 2024. The role of the International Organization for Migration in African–European Union migration, in: Akinola, A.O., Bjarnesen, J. (Eds.), Worlds Apart? Perspectives on Africa-EU Migration. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, London ; New York, pp. 459–484.
Stambøl, E.M., Jegen, L., 2022. Colonial Continuities and the Commodification of Mobility Policing: The Case of French Civipol in West Africa, in: Lemberg-Pedersen, M., Fett, S., Mayblin, L., Sahraoui, N., Stambøl, E.M. (Eds.), Postcoloniality and Forced Migration: Migration Management, Surveillance, Agency. Bristol University Press, Bristol.
“Making migrants in Niger: Externalization and the Making Of Subjectivities”, European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), Lisbon, 21 – 24 July
“Donor influence in the West-African migration governance – To the benefit of whom?,” Guest Lecture, Unviersity of Ghent, 17.03.2020
„Senegal: Lokale und europâische Interessen im Konflikt“, re-Launch Migration.Control Website, Suedblock Aquarium, Berlin 06.02.2020
“Externalization and the making of subjectivities in Niger and its integration into the international mobility regime”, Conference/Workshop: Postcoloniality and Forced Migration, Aalborg University Campus Copenhagen, 12.12.2019
“The external dimension of EU migration policy”, Guest Lecture of the MA course EU External Policies, University of Ghent, 06.12.2019
“The Political Economy of Migration Governance in Senegal”, WAMIG Dissemination Event, FES Senegal, 26.11.2019
„Migrationspolitik in Westafrika: Lokale und europäische Interessen im Konflikt“, MEDAM-Workshop, Berlin, 29.10.2019
“The Political Economy of Migration Governance in Niger”, WAMIG Dissemination Event, LASDEL Niamey, 18.09. 2019
„The People and the Donors. Drivers of Migration Policy interests in West-African Democracies“ IMISCOE Conference, Malmo, 26.06.2019
„Strategie für die “Festung Europa”? Externalisierung in der europäischen Migrationspolitik”, Workshop mit Meral Zeller (Pro Asyl), Volkshochschule Essen, 23.05.2019
“Stakes, impacts and research gaps of the IOM in West Africa”, Workshop, University of Oxford, 02.02.2019
“The external dimension of EU migration policy”, Guest Lecture of the MA course EU External Policies, University of Ghent, 14.12.2018
“Externalization inside out: Senegal and Ghana and the making of the nation migration policy” Kritnet Netzwerktreffen. Berlin, 5.11.2018
“Europaeisches Grenzregime.” Workshop mit Meral Zeller (Pro Asyl). Attac Europakongress. Kassel, 6.10.2018
“Externalizatoin inside out: The cases of Ghana and Senegal.” Brown Bag Lunch at the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), Brussels, 26.09.2018
“EU Cooperation and Migration Policy Development in West-Africa.” European Consortium for Political Research (ecpr) Conference. Hamburg, 25.08.2018
Leonie Felicitas Jegen is a Doctoral Candidate at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and an ALMA Research Fellow at the Arnold-Bergsträsser Institute of the University of Freiburg. Her doctoral research is funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.
Leonie’s research lies at the intersection of International Political Sociology, Critical Security and the emerging field of “Externalisation Studies.” It focuses on the external dimension of EUropean migrant smuggling governance, multiscalar borderwork linked to donor funded so-called capacity building projects, and the question of the contingent reproduction of coloniality in this field. Much of her work has explored the colonial continuities in EUropean financed migration capacity building projects in West Africa, the multi-scalar negotiation processes in West African migration governance at the intersection of internal and external driven political agendas, and the role of non-state actors. She has explored these topics through interviews and participant observation in Senegal, Niger, Ghana and EU institutions in Brussels as well as relevant state and non-state actors in The Hague. Leonie’s research has been published in International Political Sociology, the Journal for Ethnic and Migration Studies, Geoforum, The South African Journal for International Affairs, Bristol University Press, and Routledge. She is currently co-editing a special issue for Movements. Her writing has also appeared in non-academic outlets such as The Conversation, The ECRE Weekly Bulletin, ECDPM Blog, migration-control.info and has been published by research institutions including Clingendael, ECDPM, MEDAM, and UNU-Cris.
Alongside her research, Leonie has served as an Adjunct Lecturer at the Free University of Berlin and conducted consultancy work, among others for the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s Africa Migration Hub, Brot für die Welt, and the German Ministry of Development. Leonie holds a MA in Migration Studies from the University of Sussex and a BA in International Relations and International Organisations from the University of Groningen. Prior to her doctoral research Leonie has worked as a researcher at the Institute of European Studies at the Free University of Brussels, and the Arnold Bergsträsser Institute of the University of Freiburg. She has also held the position of Communication Officer at the European Council for Refugees and Exiles (ECRE).