Draft:Ahlam Chemlali

Chemlali, A., portrait

• Comment: In accordance with Wikipedia's Conflict of interest guideline, I disclose that I have a conflict of interest regarding the subject of this article. Abomination88 (talk) 19:34, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

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Ahlam Chemlali is an ethnographer and scholar whose research focuses on migration and borders, particularly European border externalisation and its political, social and human consequences. She is a postdoctoral researcher at Aalborg University and co-director of the Centre for the Study of Coercion and Accountability (CECA).

Academic career

Before entering academia, Chemlali worked for nearly a decade at DIGNITY – Danish Institute Against Torture, as a programme manager on projects concerned with torture documentation, violence prevention and human rights.

Chemlali holds a PhD from the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), and Aalborg University. Her research examined European migration and border policies and their consequences in North Africa, particularly in Tunisia and Libya.

Her award-winning dissertation, Living and Dying in Transit: Violence, Bodies and Survival in the Tunisian Borderlands, examined the consequences of European border externalisation in the Tunisian borderlands..

Chemlali has been a visiting fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Yale University, and at the Mediterranean Centre for Sociology, Political Science and History (MESOPOLHIS) in Marseille, a multidisciplinary research centre jointly supervised by Aix-Marseille University, Sciences Po Aix and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

Research and professionel activities

Chemlali's research focuses on migration governance and border politics, particularly their intersections with authoritarianism, violence, and smuggling economies. Geographically, her research has concentrated on North Africa, the Mediterranean, and Southern Europe.

Her work is based extensively on ethnographic and field-based research. Chemlali has conducted more than 80 field missions across North and West Africa, East and Southern Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, including in Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Philippines.

Alongside her academic research, Chemlali contributes to public debates on migration, border governance, and European migration policy. She has contributed as a researcher and commentator to international media, including CNN, the Financial Times, Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, the BBC, France 24, The Guardian, and Africanews. She also writes Op-Eds for Los Angeles Times, Jacobin Magazine, The Conversation, The New Humanitarian, Africa is a Country and Torture Magazine.

Chemlali is also co-director of the Centre for the Study of Coercion and Accountability (CECA). CECA is a multidisciplinary research centre at Aalborg University's Department of Society and Politics that studies the relationship between coercion and accountability. Its research is concerned with the global dynamics of coercion and with demands for accountability, protection and justice.

Selected publications

Chemlali publishes her research in high-ranking and cross-disciplinary journals on migration governance, European border externalisation, gender, transit, forced displacement, violence, and smuggling.

• Chemlali, Ahlam (2024). "Rings in the Water: Felt Externalisation and Its Rippling Effect in the Extended EU Borderlands". Geopolitics. 29 (3): 873–896. doi:10.1080/14650045.2023.2198125.

• Chemlali, Ahlam (2023). "A Mother's Choice: Undocumented motherhood, waiting and smuggling in the Tunisian–Libyan borderlands". Trends in Organized Crime. 26: 30–47. doi:10.1007/s12117-023-09481-6.

• Chemlali, Ahlam (2024). "Treading Water in Transit: Understanding Gendered Stuckness and Movement in Tunisia". Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 50 (20): 5210–5227. doi:10.1080/1369183X.2024.2312226.

• Chemlali, Ahlam (2025). Living and Dying in Transit: Violence, Bodies and Survival in the Tunisian Borderlands. PhD thesis. Aalborg University.

• Chemlali, Ahlam; Andersen, Lars Erslev (2025). The Anatomy of Displacement: Gaza, West Bank and South Lebanon. Copenhagen: Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS). DIIS Report No. 14. ISBN 978-87-7236-215-1.

• Chemlali, Ahlam (2026). "Israel Is Emptying Lebanon of Its People". Jacobin.

Awards

• In 2023, Chemlali received the EliteForsk Travel Grant from the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science.
• In 2026, Chemlali received Nordjyllandsfonden's Research Award for her PhD dissertation, Living and Dying in Transit: Violence, Bodies and Survival in the Tunisian Borderlands.

External links

• Ahlam Chemlali – Aalborg University Research Portal