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Postdoctoral Researchers

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Sandhya A.S., Ph.D.

Portrait of Sandhya A.S.
© Sandhya A.S.

Post-Doctoral Project:
Social Construction of (Migrant) Labour Contracts

Sandhya A.S. (Bielefeld University)
Email: sandhya.as@uni-bielefeld.de
Phone: +49 521 106-87973

Since 2024 Postdoc, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld
2023 - 2024 Postdoc, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg
2018 - 2023 Ph.D., Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies and University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg
2017 - 2018 Academic co-worker, Institute for Human Development, New Delhi
2017 - 2018 Editorial Associate, Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer, New Delhi
2015 - 2016 Editorial Assistant, Society and Culture in South Asia, Sage, New Delhi
2015 - 2017 M.Phil., Sociology/Social Anthropology, South Asian University, New Delhi
2013 - 2015 M.A., Sociology/Social Anthropology, South Asian University, New Delhi
2010 - 2013 B.A., (Hons.) Sociology, Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi, New Delhi

Immigrant labour is a unique category of labour, with their legal status, indebtedness, and dependence on state, employer and intermediaries making them particularly vulnerable and powerless (Sassen 1981, 2001). From exploitative working conditions, poor wages, limited access to healthcare and social security, to substandard living conditions, debt, and social exclusion, the vulnerabilities faced by migrant workers are manifold. Given such a context, their employment contracts provide a legal framework of protection while also harbouring the potential for further exploitation. These contracts form the foundation of their cross-border employment relationships, and are influenced by a number of actors, interests, and structures of expectations and control.

The research project aims to explore this specific site of migrant labour markets and study the social construction of contracts among migrant workers in two theoretically sampled migration corridors (Nepal-Malaysia and Nepal-Japan). The broad objectives of this research are a) to explore the actors involved in the formation and negotiation of employment contracts for migrant workers in the selected migration corridors, b) to analyze the diverse interests and motivations that underlie the construction of employment contracts, considering factors such as economic incentives, legal frameworks, social networks, and power dynamics, and c) to compare and contrast the processes of contract formation in informal and formal sectors of labour migration, shedding light on how variations in contract types impact migrant wellbeing and labour market participation. The expected outcomes of the project include a better understanding of labour markets spanning across national borders, a deeper comprehension of the role of brokers in mediating transnational employment relationship and the socio-legal interactions within the contemporary migration landscape.


Lisa Mansfeld, Ph.D.

Portrait of Lisa Mansfeld
© Lisa Mansfeld

Post-Doctoral Project:
Labour market outcomes of German (r)emigrants

Lisa Mansfeld 
(University of Duisburg-Essen)
Post-Doctoral Researchers
Email: lisa.mansfeld@uni-due.de
Phone: +49 203 3792744

Since 2024 Associate researcher in the Research Training Group “Cross-border labour markets” (RTG 2951), Speaker Prof. Dr. Ursula Mense-Petermann (Bielefeld University), Co-speaker Prof. Karen Shire, Ph.D
Since 2019

Researcher at the Chair of Empirical Social Structure Analysis, Prof. Dr. Marcel Erlinghagen, University of Duisburg-Essen

Member of the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS) team

2018 - 2019 M.Sc. Economics (and Honours Degree of Bachelor) at the University of Tübingen and the University of Adelaide
2015 B. Sc. International Economics at the University of Tübingen (including two semesters at the Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico)

Assessing labour market outcomes of German (r)emigrants, this postdoctoral research project focuses on internationally mobile people from a highly privileged source country. The overall research question asks to which extent migration gains differ between migrants, i.e. are not distributed equally. In particular, labour market outcomes can be expected to differ by (a) migration characteristics such as migration direction (emigration vs. remigration), migration motives and processes, and (b) migrants’ characteristics (e.g. gender, family status, occupation). To assess these patterns, data of the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study is being used, covering German citizens who either left or returned to Germany in 2017/2018. Depending on the particular research questions, this data will be combined with data on the internationally non-mobile population in Germany and/or major destination countries.

  • L. Mansfeld, “Migration and the family: essays on internationally mobile Germans,” Duisburg, Essen, 2024. doi: 10.17185/duepublico/82141.
  • L. Mansfeld, “Correlations Between Family Patterns and Short-Term Economic Outcomes of Emigration,” in Transnational Family Relations of German Emigrants, Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, 2024, pp. 59–100. doi: 10.1007/978-3-658-44543-0_4.
  • L. Mansfeld, “International migration and its short-term effect on partnership stability,” Population, Space and Place, vol. 29, no. 4, p. e38, 2023, doi: 10.1002/psp.2638.
  • N. Witte et al., “German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS): Documentation of the Third Wave,” Bundesinstitut für Bevölkerungsforschung, Wiesbaden, 2022. doi: 10.4232/1.13944.
  • J. P. P. Décieux et al., “German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS): Documentation of the Second Wave,” Bundesinstitut für Bevölkerungsforschung, Wiesbaden, 2021. doi: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28585.72801.
  • A. Mergener and L. Mansfeld, “Working from Home and job satisfaction: the role of contractual agreements, working time recognition and perceived job autonomy [Version 1.0.].” Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung, Bonn, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0035-vetrepository-778013-3
  • L. Mansfeld, “Out of sight, out of mind?: Frequency of emigrants’ contact with friends in germany and its impact on subjective well-being,” in The Global Lives of German Migrants: Consequences of International Migration Across the Life Course, Cham: Springer, 2021, pp. 229–246. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-67498-4_13.
  • H. Baykara-Krumme, M. Erlinghagen, and L. Mansfeld, “Disruption of Family Lives in the Course of Migration: ‘Tied Migrants’ and Partnership Breakup Patterns Among German (R)emigrants,” in The Global Lives of German Migrants: Consequences of International Migration Across the Life Course, Cham: Springer, 2021, pp. 173–186. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-67498-4_10.
  • A. Mergener and L. Mansfeld, “Being spatially mobile without daily commuting?: How Working from Home patterns relate to company-home distances [Version 1.0].” Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung, Bonn, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0035-vetrepository-778012-6
  • L. Mansfeld, “Auswirkungen von Migration auf die Stabilität von Partnerschaften: Ein Vergleich international mobiler und nicht-mobiler Deutscher,” in Gesellschaft unter Spannung: Verhandlungen des 40. Kongresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie 2020, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://publikationen.soziologie.de/index.php/kongressband_2020/article/view/1312
  • A. Ette et al., “German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS): Neue GERPS-Daten über deutsche Aus- und Rückwandernde,” Bevölkerungsforschung Aktuell, vol. 40, no. 6, pp. 3–7, 2019, [Online]. Available: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bib-bfa0620195
  • A. Ette et al., “German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS): Neue GERPS-Daten über deutsche Aus- und Rückwandernde,” Bundesinstitut für Bevölkerungsforschung, Wiesbaden, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.bib.bund.de/Publikation/2019/pdf/Bevoelkerungsforschung-Aktuell-6-2019.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=

Polina Manolova, Ph.D.

Portrait of Polina Manolova
© Polina Manolova

Post-Doctoral Project:
Making labour precarious: the socio-spatial governance of ‘poverty migration’ in Germany

Polina Manolova (University of Duisburg-Essen)
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Email: polina.manolova@uni-duisburg.de
Phone: +49 203 3792698

Since 2024 Postdoc researcher, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg
2023 - 2024 Postdoc researcher, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg
2020 - 2023 Postdoc researcher; Universität Tübingen
2019 - 2020 Research Associate, Justus Liebig Universität
2013 - 2017 PhD, Eastern Europe, Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies (CREES) University of Birmingham

The proliferation of various territorial formations, from migrant and refugee camps to buffer zones and detention centers, has been interpreted as a reorganisation of power geographies of exclusion on a global scale (Agier 2013). When approached through the lens of migration governance, such technologies of control are said to function as apparatuses of capture – disenfranchising and containing different categories of undesirable populations. However, this project focuses on the productive potentialities of the socio-spatial governance in relation to the constitution of labour relations on a local scale. By bringing into focus the experiences of Bulgarian and Romanian migrants in segregated urban areas associated with the label ‘poverty migration’, I examine the productive subordination of the urban poor as disposable labour. I use the optic of the ‘urban zone of exception’ to tease out the precise mechanisms through which technologies of containment, securitisation, policing and spatial displacement are deployed into ‘ordinary’ political geographies to turn them into bounded spaces for the processing of racialised disposability with effects on labour extraction. This conceptual approach seeks to advance a better understanding of the local-level dynamics between labour, mobility and political apparatuses of control by putting into dialogue debates on emergent spaces for (exceptional) governmentality and the localisation of bordering apparatuses, on the one hand, and the spatial politics of labour, on the other.

  • P. Manolova, “Leiharbeitsketten, Aubeutungsketten, Solidaritätsketten: Notizen aus den urbanen Ausnahmezonen des Ruhrgebiets,” in Europa-Lokal – Prekarisierung in Duisburg, Duisburg: KUKSTDU e.V., 2024, pp. 52–57.
  • P. Manolova, T. Schlee, and L. Wiese, “Multiple Prekarisierung – Zur Lebenslage osteuropäischer Migrant*innen in urbanen Sozialräumen: Am Beispiel der beiden Duisburger Stadtteile Hochfeld und Marxloh,” DuEPublico, Duisburg, Essen, 2024. doi: 10.17185/duepublico/82507.

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