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Ruben Andersson

Contact

ruben.andersson@qeh.ox.ac.uk
+44 (0)1865 271902
College

Research interests

Migration; borders; West Africa; Europe; security; mobility; conflict; displacement

Ruben Andersson

Professor of Social Anthropology

Ruben Andersson is an anthropologist working on migration, borders and security with a focus on the West African Sahel and southern Europe. His first book Illegality, Inc.: Clandestine migration and the business of bordering Europe (University of California Press 2014), an ethnographic account of European efforts to halt irregular migration, accompanies border agencies, aid organisations and migrants along the Spanish-African borders. The book shows how the ‘fight against irregular migration’ has fuelled distress and drama at the borders, which in turns has led to the expansion of a self-reinforcing industry of controls.

Ruben's second book is No Go World: How fear is redrawing our maps and infecting our politics (University of California Press 2019). This book, building on multi-sited research financed by the AXA Research Fund, looks comparatively at remote-controlled interventions and the selective withdrawal of international actors from global 'crisis zones'. Taking as its starting point the conflict in Mali in the West African Sahel, it explores how the mapping of danger, the perception of risk and the politics of fear have all contributed to framing and fuelling security, aid and border interventions in the Sahel as well as in other settings such as Somalia, Libya and Afghanistan.

Ruben's recent work has been concerned with security intervention on a global scale. Some of this research has been published in Wreckonomics: Why it's time to end the war on everything (Oxford University Press, 2023). Coauthored with Professor David Keen of LSE, the book examines why various wars and security interventions have proven so profitable despite their frequently disastrous failures (more details on the OUP website).

Ruben has been awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship for a project entitled 'Apocalypse soon: Security, subversion and the struggle for a human future'. The project runs over 2023-26 and involves multi-sited research for a book on the expansion of global security agendas, under contract with William Collins. Further details will be posted on his personal website.

Ruben has been co-convening and teaching on the MSc in Migration Studies since 2016. He has supervised doctoral research in areas including migration, mobility, displacement and security. During his research leave for a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship over 2023-26, he will not be in a position to take on new doctoral projects.

Doctoral supervision

Ruben is interested in supervising doctoral research in areas including (but not limited to) migration, mobility, security and conflict. As an anthropologist, he is particularly keen on supervising ethnographic research.

  • Chapters

    Andersson, Ruben
    ( ) The anthropological borderlands of global migration . In J MacClancy Exotic no more: Anthropology for the contemporary world , University of Chicago Press
    Andersson, Ruben
    ( ) La lotta all’immigrazione irregolare messa in atto dall’Europa: note etnografiche su un’industria pericolosa . In R Schmitz-Esser Venezia nel contesto globale , Venice: Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani
    Andersson, Ruben
    ( ) Europe’s failed "fight" against irregular migration . In M Kaldor, I Rangelov and S Selchow EU global strategy and human security: Rethinking approaches to conflict , Abingdon: Routledge
    Andersson, Ruben
    ( ) Migration . In T Allen, A Macdonald and H Radice Humanitarianism: A dictionary of concepts , Abingdon: Routledge
    Andersson, Ruben
    ( ) Rescued and caught: The humanitarian-security nexus at Europe’s frontiers . In N De Genova The borders of "Europe": Autonomy of migration, tactics of bordering , Durham: Duke University Press
    Andersson, Ruben
    ( ) In Conversation with Sindre Bangstad About Migrants, Illegality and the Bordering of Europe . In Sindre Bangstad Anthropology of Our Times: An Edited Anthology in Public Anthropology , New York: Palgrave Macmillan
    Andersson, Ruben
    ( ) From radar systems to rickety boats: Borderline ethnography in Europe’s "illegality industry" . In A Elliot, et al Methodologies of Mobility: Ethnography and Experiment , New York: Berghahn books
  • Other publications

    Andersson, Ruben
    David Keen ( ) Success, failure and the relocation of risk in Europe’s "fight against irregular migration" . Siirtolaisuus-Migration
    Andersson, Ruben
    ( ) Beneficios y depredación en la bioeconomía humana . Papeles de relaciones ecosociales y cambio global 145
    Andersson, Ruben
    ( ) Back to the soil. Comment on S. Moland, Sedentary optics: Static anti-trafficking and mobile victims. . Current Anthropology 59 (2) 115-37
    Andersson, Ruben
    ( ) Hic sunt dracones: Cartografía etnográfica del peligro global . Papeles de relaciones ecosociales y cambio global 142 13-28
    Andersson, Ruben
    ( ) Brexit referendum: First reactions from anthropology. Contribution to joint special section . Social Anthropology 24 (4) 478-502
    Andersson, Ruben
    ( ) Why Europe’s border security approach has failed – and how to change it . Policy paper for the LSE/Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Berlin report on human security
    Andersson, Ruben
    ( ) Warum Europas Konzept der Grenzsicherung gescheitert ist . , Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
    Andersson, Ruben
    ( ) La olla a presión: cómo la seguridad fronteriza sigue aumentando el caos . Disparidades: Revista de Antropología 70 (2) 299-306
    Andersson, Ruben
    ( ) A global front: Thoughts on enforcement at the rich world’s borders . Online appendix to Andersson, Ruben, Illegality, Inc: Clandestine migration and the business of bordering Europe. Oakland: University of California Press
Overview
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