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Anja Karlsson Franck

Senior Lecturer

School of Global Studies
Telephone
+46 31-786 14 14
Mail
anja.franck@globalstudies.gu.se
Visiting address
Konstepidemins väg 2
41124 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 700
40530 Göteborg

About Anja Karlsson Franck

I am Associate Professor in Peace and Development Studies and hold a PhD in economic geography.

Research areas

My main research interests relate to international migration and borders. I am particularly interested in how migrants and refugees navigate increasingly restrictive and securitized border regimes - and how the strategies they adopt impact states' ability to govern migration. I have for example studied how a precarious legal status impacts how people understand and maneuver the urban borderscape, how (petty) corruption is used as a means to navigate internal border controls and how humor and laughter can function as a coping strategy as well a means to refuse subordination.

My interest in how migrants and refugees navigate increasingly securitized border regimes has also led to an interest in security politics - in relation to migration in particular but also in society at large.

Ongoing research projects

I am currently involved in three main research projects. In the first, Darshan Vigneswaran (University of Amsterdam) and I study how migrants from Myanmar/Burma seek protection during their migration trajectories to Malaysia and Thailand. Here, we have argued that we understand migrants as political actors whom, in various way, "hack" border regimes in order to secure their safety and protection from violence (Franck & Vigneswaran 2023).

In the second, and recently initiated project, Annika Lindberg (GU), Kristina Wejstål (GU) and I investigate the notion of migration as a "hybrid threat". We look to the mechanisms that the hybrid threat framing allows in the EU, and how these impacts everyday borderwork, access to fundamental rights and migrants own strategies.

In a third project together with Maria Stern (GU), Richard Georgi (GU), Chris Agius (Swedish Defence University) and Simon Turner (Lund University)) we investigate the phenomenon of "prepping" and what it tells us about how societal security and preparedness are being imagined and practiced, and by whom. Here, we have, amongst other things, argued that the literature on doomsday prepping, and its emphasis on anticipatory subjectivities and practices, offers important insights also for the study of forced migration decisions (Franck & Turner 2025)

Finally, together with a group of scholars at the School of Global Studies, I am also developing research around the interconnections between football and global political - and particularly how football supporter activism in various way relate to contentious politics and collective memories in society.

Teaching

My teaching has predominantly focused on issues relating to mobility, migration and security. I am also the convener of the course Football and Global Politics, in which we take an interest in the connections between supporter cultures and identity, the commercialization of modern football and governance.