School of Social & Political Sciences

Dr Karolina Benghellab

  • Lecturer (Sociological & Cultural Studies)

Biography

I joined the University of Glasgow as a lecturer in Sociology in 2023. Before that, I was a lecturer in Sociology and International Relations at Northumbria University, an ESRC postdoctoral fellow at Aston University, and an IPC-Mercator fellow at the Istanbul Policy Centre (Sabanci University). I started asking questions about inequalities, migration, and violence one decade ago when being part of voluntary groups working with homeless women in Czechia, children with disabilities in Ukraine, and migrant communities in the UK and Serbia. Volunteering with people facing numerous discriminations has shaped my academic journey, which later took me to live in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lebanon and Turkey.

Research interests

My research combines sociology, international relations, criminology, and human geography perspectives, and mainly contributes to critical migration, border, and security studies. I conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in makeshift camps and borders where I lived with people on the move and activists (Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kurdish region in Turkey), and interviews with people smugglers, humanitarian workers, residents, border security officials, and policy makers. Firstly, my research has shed light on how international migration measures overlap with the local political, social, and environmental realities in borders, and how these produce the everyday violence for people on the move, people smugglers, and residents equally. Secondly, my research has been concerned with how these diverse groups of people develop strategies of resistance against complex border security when crossing borders or smuggling people. Thirdly, my work combines security and violence theories with feminist and postcolonial literature to understand the racists and sexist logic of border security that draws upon colonial histories, and together determine who can move across dangerous border environments with ease and who is deterred and exposed to environmental hazards in borders.

I have collaborated with diverse activist-led humanitarian groups (namely, BVMN and No Name Kitchen), members of the EU Parliament, the Council of Europe, and think tanks (Istanbul Policy Centre and Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung Afghanistan). My media articles and commentaries can be found in the Guardian, Aljazeera, Politico, VICE News, Open Democracy, the New Humanitarian, and other platforms.

I am an active member of the Glasgow, Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network (Uni of Glasgow) and the Beyond Smuggling and Criminalisation research group (University of Oxford). I am also a member of the ESRC Assessor College, and advisory board for the ESRC-funded project "the Peripheralisation of Asylum Accommodation".

Research groups

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2021 | 2020
Number of items: 11.

2026

Benghellab, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074, Fisher, Dan, Botterill, Kate ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2492-6591, Piacentini, Teresa ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9180-7752, Wishart, Meg, Mulvey, Gareth ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9132-1672, Fassetta, Giovanna ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5661-4429, Solic, Mirna ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5704-7091 and Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network (GRAMNet) (2026) What the research says about the UK’s proposed immigration reforms. Open Democracy, 27 Mar.

2025

Benghellab, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074, Davies, Thom and Isakjee, Arshad (2025) Four seasons of border violence: the co-option of the seasons into the management of migration. Geoforum, 160, 104207. (doi: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2025.104207)

2024

Augustova, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074, Ilbiz, Ethem and Carrapico, Helena (2024) Complex harms of migration externalisation: EU policy 'creep' processes into domestic counterterrorism at the Turkey-Iran border. Journal of International Relations and Development, 27(1), pp. 25-45. (doi: 10.1057/s41268-023-00319-w)

2023

Augustova, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074, Farrand-Carrapico, Helena and Obradovic-Wochnik, Jelena (2023) Push and back: The ripple effect of EU border externalisation from Croatia to Iran. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 41(5), pp. 847-865. (doi: 10.1177/23996544231163731)

Augustova, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074, Carrapico, Helena and Obradović-Wochnik, Jelena (2023) Becoming a smuggler: migration and violence at EU external borders. Geopolitics, 28(2), pp. 619-640. (doi: 10.1080/14650045.2021.1961223)

Augustova, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074 and Leone Suber, David (2023) The Kurdish kaçakçı on the Iran-Turkey border: corruption and survival as EU sponsored counter-smuggling effects. Trends in Organized Crime, 26, pp. 48-63. (doi: 10.1007/s12117-023-09484-3)

Augustová, Karolína ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074 (2023) Replay of torture across ‘Other’ places and ‘Europe’: the case of migration at the Bosnian-Croatian border. In: Perocco, Fabio (ed.) Migration and Torture in Today’s World. Venice University Press, pp. 139-160. ISBN 9788869696367 (doi: 10.30687/978-88-6969-635-0/006)

Augustova, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074 (2023) Everyday Violence at the EU’s External Borders: Games and Push-backs. Routledge. ISBN 9781032312118 (doi: 10.4324/9781003308614)

2021

Augustová, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074 (2021) Photovoice as a research tool of the “game” along the “Balkan Route”. In: Visual Methodology in Migration Studies. Series: IMISCOE research series. Springer: Cham, pp. 197-215. ISBN 9783030676070 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-67608-7_11)

2020

Isakjee, Arshad, Davies, Thom, Obradović‐Wochnik, Jelena and Augustová, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074 (2020) Liberal violence and the racial borders of the European Union. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, 52(6), pp. 1751-1773. (doi: 10.1111/anti.12670)

Augustová, Karolína ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074 and Sapoch, Jack (2020) Border violence as border deterrence: condensed analysis of violent push-backs from the ground. Movements: Journal for Critical Migration and Border Regime Studies, 5(1),

This list was generated on Sat Apr 4 02:20:09 2026 BST.
Jump to: Articles | Books | Book Sections
Number of items: 11.

Articles

Benghellab, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074, Fisher, Dan, Botterill, Kate ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2492-6591, Piacentini, Teresa ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9180-7752, Wishart, Meg, Mulvey, Gareth ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9132-1672, Fassetta, Giovanna ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5661-4429, Solic, Mirna ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5704-7091 and Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network (GRAMNet) (2026) What the research says about the UK’s proposed immigration reforms. Open Democracy, 27 Mar.

Benghellab, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074, Davies, Thom and Isakjee, Arshad (2025) Four seasons of border violence: the co-option of the seasons into the management of migration. Geoforum, 160, 104207. (doi: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2025.104207)

Augustova, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074, Ilbiz, Ethem and Carrapico, Helena (2024) Complex harms of migration externalisation: EU policy 'creep' processes into domestic counterterrorism at the Turkey-Iran border. Journal of International Relations and Development, 27(1), pp. 25-45. (doi: 10.1057/s41268-023-00319-w)

Augustova, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074, Farrand-Carrapico, Helena and Obradovic-Wochnik, Jelena (2023) Push and back: The ripple effect of EU border externalisation from Croatia to Iran. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 41(5), pp. 847-865. (doi: 10.1177/23996544231163731)

Augustova, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074, Carrapico, Helena and Obradović-Wochnik, Jelena (2023) Becoming a smuggler: migration and violence at EU external borders. Geopolitics, 28(2), pp. 619-640. (doi: 10.1080/14650045.2021.1961223)

Augustova, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074 and Leone Suber, David (2023) The Kurdish kaçakçı on the Iran-Turkey border: corruption and survival as EU sponsored counter-smuggling effects. Trends in Organized Crime, 26, pp. 48-63. (doi: 10.1007/s12117-023-09484-3)

Isakjee, Arshad, Davies, Thom, Obradović‐Wochnik, Jelena and Augustová, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074 (2020) Liberal violence and the racial borders of the European Union. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, 52(6), pp. 1751-1773. (doi: 10.1111/anti.12670)

Augustová, Karolína ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074 and Sapoch, Jack (2020) Border violence as border deterrence: condensed analysis of violent push-backs from the ground. Movements: Journal for Critical Migration and Border Regime Studies, 5(1),

Books

Augustova, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074 (2023) Everyday Violence at the EU’s External Borders: Games and Push-backs. Routledge. ISBN 9781032312118 (doi: 10.4324/9781003308614)

Book Sections

Augustová, Karolína ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074 (2023) Replay of torture across ‘Other’ places and ‘Europe’: the case of migration at the Bosnian-Croatian border. In: Perocco, Fabio (ed.) Migration and Torture in Today’s World. Venice University Press, pp. 139-160. ISBN 9788869696367 (doi: 10.30687/978-88-6969-635-0/006)

Augustová, Karolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-1074 (2021) Photovoice as a research tool of the “game” along the “Balkan Route”. In: Visual Methodology in Migration Studies. Series: IMISCOE research series. Springer: Cham, pp. 197-215. ISBN 9783030676070 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-67608-7_11)

This list was generated on Sat Apr 4 02:20:09 2026 BST.

Grants

  • British Sociological Association Early Career Event Fund 2022
  • UK Economic and Social Science Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship 2021/2022
  • Mercator-Stiftung Fellowship 2020/2021
  • Aston Prize PhD Studentship 2017/2020

Supervision

I am open to support PhD proposals in the following areas:

- migration

- people smuggling

- borders

- violence

- environmental and climate change security

Teaching

I am currently convening and teaching Global Borders & Border Crossings (SOCIO5126), Sociololgy 1A: Self & Society and 1B: Critical Reserach in Contemporary Societies.

I am also contributing to teaching to diverse courses on migration, borders, and social science methodologies (namely, activist-led and participatory research methods).


Karolina Benghellab