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I am a postdoctoral researcher and teaching associate at the School of Politics and International Relations of Queen Mary University of London. I have been recently awarded the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship, funded by UK Research and Innovation, for the project Sanctuary Policies for Irregular Migrants in European Cities (SPIMEC). I am also a member of the Soli*City network at the Toronto Metropolitan University, of the Centre on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS) at Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, and of The City Centre at Queen Mary University of London.

My research agenda is inherently interdisciplinary and focuses on urban governance and politics, immigrant integration and asylum, and social movements. I am especially interested in understanding how local officials and grassroots activists interact to shape the multi-level governance of immigration, possibly breeding policy conflicts and subverting unwanted national policies. I explore these issues by looking at the welfare of irregular and forced migrants as well as of marginalised urban residents, with a focus on Europe and Latin America. On this basis, I aim to pose broader questions on the role of cities as key, innovative players in contemporary global governance, whose policy experiments may crucially contribute to a just, democratic, and sustainable future.

My research appears in political science, sociology, and geography journals, including the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies; South European Society and Politics; the International Political Science Review; the Urban Affairs Review; Territory, Politics, Governance; Citizenship Studies; PS: Political Science and Politics; Politiche Sociali / Social Policies; and in various edited volumes. I have written policy reports and opinion pieces for assorted outlets and I have been involved in various public engagement initiatives, such as the impact project Barrio Saldías and the research-policy partnership 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 earned a Ph.D. in Political Science and Sociology (2020) from Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, with a thesis on migration governance and social movements in Milan and Barcelona. I have been a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Geography of Queen Mary University of London (2022), at the Centre for Research on Extremism (C-REX) of the University of Oslo (2021), and at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (2020-22). I have also held visiting research positions at the Institute for Government and Public Policy of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (2018) and the Urban School of Sciences Po-Paris (2018-19).

You can contact me at r.bazurli@qmul.ac.uk and follow me on Twitter @RaffaeleBazurli.