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I’m a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Spatial Development and Urban Policy (SPUR) research group at ETH Zürich. I recently concluded the project Sanctuary Policies for Irregular Migrants in European Cities (SPIMEC), for which I was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship, funded by UK Research and Innovation (2023–2025).

I’m a political and social scientist researching urban policy, immigration, and social movements. I examine how immigrants, racialised groups, the urban poor, and working-class residents are pushed to the margins of city life, and the strategies they develop to claim space, rights, and recognition. My work approaches cities from both sides of power. On the state side, I analyse how public policies make and unmake the defining inequalities of today’s cities, such as housing segregation, precarious work, and hostile policing. On the grassroots side, I explore the capacity of insurgent movements to win reforms that tackle these inequalities, moving from the periphery of power to the core of state machinery. Bringing these perspectives together, I analyse the governance relationships that policymakers and activists forge within and beyond cities, shifting between co-optation, repression, and bold policy innovation.

My work bridges political science, sociology, and geography, engaging with urban, migration, and policy studies, as well as critical theories of the state. I specialise in qualitative methods and have carried out fieldwork on immigrant rights policies and activism in Barcelona, London, Milan, and Rotterdam; asylum governance and the far right in Italy; and slum politics in Buenos Aires. Ultimately, my research shines a light on cities as critical and ambivalent sites of human life, torn between rampant injustices and transformative change.

My research has appeared in Policy and Society; the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies; South European Society and Politics; the Urban Affairs Review; Government and Opposition; Territory, Politics, Governance; the International Political Science Review; Citizenship Studies; PS: Political Science and Politics; Politiche Sociali / Social Policies; and in various edited volumes.

I’m currently completing my first monograph, Insurgent Reformists: How Immigrant Rights Movements Won Policy Change in Barcelona and Milan. Drawing on a decade of research, the book develops a new theory of how urban social movements push cities toward progressive policy reform.

I also serve as Corresponding Editor for the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR).

Beyond academia, I’ve contributed to policy reports, opinion pieces, and policy engagement initiatives, such as Barrio Saldías and SIforREF. The British Academy, the European Union, the Government of Italy, the Research Council of Norway, and UK Research and Innovation have all supported my research.

I hold a Ph.D. in Political Science and Sociology from Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence (2020). Before joining ETH, I was a postdoctoral fellow at Queen Mary University of London, the University of Oslo, and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. I have also held visiting positions at Harvard University, The City University of New York, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Sciences Po Paris, and the Autonomous University of Barcelona. I’m a member of the Centre on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS) at Scuola Normale Superiore, The QMUL City Centre, and the Soli*City network at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Feel free to reach out at rbazurli@ethz.ch or follow me on X/Twitter (@RaffaeleBazurli).