Research interests
Migration; borders; West Africa; Europe; security; mobility; conflict; displacement
Ruben Andersson
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.
Doctoral students supervised
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Books and monographs( ) Wreckonomics: Why it’s time to end the war on everything . , Oxford University Press( ) No Go World: How fear is redrawing our maps and infecting our politics . , Oakland: University of California Press( ) Illegality, Inc: Clandestine migration and the business of bordering Europe . , Oakland: University of California Press
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Journal articles and special issues( ) Border walls, irregular migration and the co-optation of the border security playbook . International Migration 60 (4) 226-30( ) The bioeconomy and the birth of a "new anthropology" . Cultural Anthropology 37 (1) 37-44( ) The return of remoteness: insecurity, isolation and connectivity in the new world disorder . Social Anthropology 27 (2) 140-55( ) Special issue: The return of remoteness: Insecurity, isolation and connectivity in the new world disorder . Social Anthropology 27 (2)( ) The Timbuktu syndrome . Social Anthropology 27 (2) 304-19( ) Institutionalized Intervention: The ‘Bunker Politics’ of International Aid in Afghanistan . Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding( ) Double games: Success, failure and the relocation of risk in fighting terror, drugs and migration . Political Geography 67 100-10( ) Profits and predation in the bioeconomy of border controls . Public Culture 30 (3) 413-39( ) The price of impact: reflections on academic outreach amid the 'refuge crisis' Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale( ) Hardwiring the frontier? The politics of security technology in Europe’s "fight against illegal migration" . Security Dialogue 47 (1) 22-39( ) The global front against migration . Anthropology of This Century 15( ) Here be dragons: Mapping an ethnography of global danger . Current Anthropology 57 (6) 707-31( ) Europe’s failed 'fight' against irregular migration: Ethnographic notes on a counterproductive industry . Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42 (7) 1055-75( ) Intervention at risk: The vicious cycle of distance and danger in Mali and Afghanistan . Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 9 (4) 519-45( ) Hunter and prey: Patrolling clandestine migration in the Euro-African borderlands . Anthropological Quarterly 87 (1) 118-49( ) Time and the migrant other: European border controls and the temporal economics of illegality . American Anthropologist 116 (4) 795-809( ) A game of risk: Boat migration and the business of bordering Europe . Anthropology Today 28 (6) 7-11( ) Frontex y la creación de la frontera euroafricana: golpeando la valla ilusoria . Revista de derecho Migratorio y Extranjería 28 177-91( ) Wild man at Europe’s gates: The crafting of clandestines in Spain’s Cayuco crisis . Etnofoor 22 (2) 31-49( ) The new frontiers of America . Race and Class 46 (3) 28-38
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Chapters( ) The anthropological borderlands of global migration . In J MacClancy Exotic no more: Anthropology for the contemporary world , University of Chicago Press( ) 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( ) 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( ) Migration . In T Allen, A Macdonald and H Radice Humanitarianism: A dictionary of concepts , Abingdon: Routledge( ) 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( ) 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( ) 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
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Reports( ) Irreguljär migration och Europas gränskontroller: en etnografisk analys . Report for Delmi, Sweden’s Migration Studies Delegation (links to policy brief in English)
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Other publications( ) Success, failure and the relocation of risk in Europe’s "fight against irregular migration" . Siirtolaisuus-Migration( ) Beneficios y depredación en la bioeconomía humana . Papeles de relaciones ecosociales y cambio global 145( ) Back to the soil. Comment on S. Moland, Sedentary optics: Static anti-trafficking and mobile victims. . Current Anthropology 59 (2) 115-37( ) Hic sunt dracones: Cartografía etnográfica del peligro global . Papeles de relaciones ecosociales y cambio global 142 13-28( ) Brexit referendum: First reactions from anthropology. Contribution to joint special section . Social Anthropology 24 (4) 478-502( ) 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( ) Warum Europas Konzept der Grenzsicherung gescheitert ist . , Friedrich Ebert Stiftung( ) La olla a presión: cómo la seguridad fronteriza sigue aumentando el caos . Disparidades: Revista de Antropología 70 (2) 299-306( ) 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