Network Members

Tanja Kleibl is Professor for Social Work, Migration and Diversity at the Technical University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt (THWS) and Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg. She is Director of the THWS Master's Programme "International Social Work with Refugees and Migrants". Her research and teaching promotes debate about discourses and concepts of development, migration and civil society from postcolonial perspectives. Her emphasis is on social development and social work in the Global South whilst applying a political economy lens when it comes to enquiring differences and contestations in the Global North.

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Tanja Kleibl

tanja.kleibl[at]thws.de

Ronaldo Munck is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for Engaged Research at Dublin City University and a member of the Council of Europe Task Force on The Local Democratic Mission of Higher Education.  Professor Munck has written widely on the impact of globalisation on development, changing work patters and migration. Recent works include Migration, Precarity and Global Governance; Rethinking Global Labour: After Neoliberalism and Social Movements in Latin America: Mapping the Mosaic.

View full profile of Ronaldo Munck.

Contact:
ronnie.munck[at]dcu.ie

Petra Daňková is a junior professor for International Social Work at the Technical University of Applied Sciences Würzburg – Schweinfurt. Her research, teaching and practice experiences lie at the intersection of (transnational) Social Work and migration. She holds a B.A. in Political Science (University of Notre Dame, USA) and a Master of Social Work (Boston College, USA).

Contact:
petra.dankova[at]thws.de

Maria do Carmo dos Santos Gonçalves recently completed her PhD thesis on the Senegalese religious diaspora in southern Brazil. She has a long experience in the field of social work in Brazil, working in the care of migrants and refugees and is currently the director of the Scalabrinian Center for Migration Studies (CSEM), Brazil. Her main research interests include public policies for migrants and refugees, studies on contemporary diasporas, migration and Islam, and the combination of ethnographic and biographical approaches.

Contact:
diretora[at]csem.org.br

Ngozi Chukwu is Nigerian. She holds a PhD in Medical/Family Social work; and MA in English/Literature. She is a senior lecturer in Social Work, University of Nigeria, Nsukka and co-editor of Social Work in Nigeria: Book of Readings. Her areas of research include public health, disabilities and migration. She is married with children.

Nikos Xypolytas was born in 1979 in Athens and works as an Assistant Professor at the University of the Aegean who specializes on migration and labour. He studied Sociology at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne (2001-2004) and he received his Masters from University of Oxford (2005) in Economic Sociology. He completed his PhD in Greece at Panteion University, (2012) and looked at the consequences of migrant domestic work on the familial and social relationships of migrants. He teaches Sociology of Migration at the University of the Aegean and has taught at Panteion University (Greece), at the University of Cyprus (Cyprus) as well as private institutions of higher education in Greece and abroad. His academic focus is on the reproduction of migrant labour and his recent research activity looks at refugees’ long processes of marginalization which undermine their future social position in host countries.

Recent Publications:
Xypolytas, N. (2019) Refugees in Moria: Consequences of a Deterrent Migration Policy. Athens: Dionikos (in Greek)

Xypolytas, N. (2018) “The Refugee Crisis as a Preparation Stage of Future Exclusion: The Effects of the Country of Origin Turmoil and Refugee Management on Work Orientations”. International journal of Sociology and Social Policy 38 (7/8): 637 - 650

Rose Jaji is senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Zimbabwe. Her research areas of interest are migration/refugees, gender, and conflict and peacebuilding. Her research on migration also focuses on global migration trajectories and inequalities. She has published peer-reviewed articles on migrant/refugee masculinities and femininities, refugees and social technology, identity and refugee hosting, asylum seekers and border crossing, return migration as well as gender, conflict and peacebuilding. Among her publications is also the book Deviant Destinations: Zimbabwe and North to South Migration.

Uzoma Odera Okoye, a Professor in the Department of Social Work, University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) was once a Fulbright Scholar, Boston College, and a Dick Splane Scholar, University of British Columbia. She is a founding faculty member and a two-tenure Head of Department of Social Work, UNN. She is also the founding Head of the Department of Social Work, University of Benin. Prof Okoye has attended many conferences, workshops, and authored over hundred journal articles and book chapters on various social issues. She has graduated over fifty MSc and Ph.D students. Her current research interests include migration, internal displacement, public health, climate change and child protection. She is married with four children.

Robel Afeworki Abay is a Black Queer Disability Justice Activist. He is currently working as a guest professor of participatory approaches in the social and health sciences at Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin. Previously, he has worked as a research associate at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Germany. He holds a PhD from the Center for Inclusion Research Berlin (ZfIB) at Humboldt University of Berlin on intersectional colonialities of racism and ableism. Previously, he has studied Sociology and Political Science at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia and Cardiff University, Wales, UK, and Social Work in Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Kassel, Germany. His research and teaching interests include: Intersectional Disability Justice; Racism & Ableism; Gender & Queer Studies; Diversity & Intersectionality; Migration & Mobility; Postcolonial & Decolonial Theories; Climate & Social Justice; Participatory Research. In addition, Robel is spokesperson for the expert group "Refuge, Migration, Critique of Racism and Anti-Semitism (Migraas)" of the German Society for Social Work (DGSA).

View full profile of Robel Afeworki Abay

Contact: 
robel.abay[at]hu-berlin.de

Roberta Teresa Di Rosa, PhD, is social worker and sociologist. Associate professor of Sociology of Migration and International Social Work. Coordinator of Master and Degree in Social Work, Department Cultures and Societies, University of Palermo. Member of Council of Professor of the PHD course in “Estudios Migratorios” Instituto de Migraciones of the University of Granada and the in the PHD course in “Dinamica dei sistemi”, Università di Palermo. She is currently engaged in national and international research programs on social work, social integration of migrants and community cohesion. ORCID: 0000-0002-6062-8559.