Simona Vezzoli is a migration specialist (PhD, Maastricht School of Governance, Maastricht University) and her research explores migration as part of social transformation and in relation to colonialism, post-colonial relations and independence. Moreover, she studies the interplay between political and economic factors and the multifaceted role of the state in shaping migration. She conducted research on the impact of independence and changes in border regimes on migration decisions, with a focus on the Caribbean region and in particular in Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. Her current research explores the mobility transition in relation to social transformations in Italy and in Brazil. She recently published two working papers in the International Migration Institute Working Paper Series: State Expansion, Changing Aspirations and Migration: The Case of Cisternino, Southern Italy (2020) and Social Transformation, Resistance and Migration in the Italian Peninsula over the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (2020).
Once we accept that migration is an integral part of the behaviour of all societies at all times, and is not ‘abnormal’ or exceptional, then the objective is to see how its form and function are related to other change in economies and societies. (Skeldon 1997:195)
Before joining the LCD Centre GMD, Simona Vezzoli was a postdoctoral researcher and a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam. She conducted research as part of an interdisciplinary team working on an ERC-project entitled Migration as Development led by Prof dr Hein de Haas. While at the University of Amsterdam, Simona Vezzoli regularly taught a core course in the Sociology Master program entitled Dynamics of International Migration and Migrant Integration.
As a Research Officer in the LDE Centre GMD, Simona Vezzoli aims to create interdisciplinary research proposals that bring together migration researchers of the LDE Centre GMD as well as researchers in other Dutch and international academic institutions. She also hopes to contribute to new research projects that explore the interplay of development processes, state (re)formation and migration.
