Aino Korvensyrjä

Dr Aino Korvensyrjä

First Book Fellow 2025-26

Beyond the ‘Borders of Berlin’: West African Perspectives on German Immigration Enforcement

Based on long-term fieldwork and activism with migrants from West African countries, diaspora activists, and various collectives, the project maps the dynamics of struggle and state violence across institutions at the nexus of the German deportation regime, the asylum system and the Euro-African border regime.

More information

Areas of interest

Social Anthropology Sociology State Violence Law Migration Labour Resistance Social Movements Anti-Racism Racism Activism Postcolonialism Decolonisation Abolition Germany Criminal Justice Deportation Policing Criminalisation

Cohort

FBF2

Biography

Aino Korvensyrjä obtained her PhD in social anthropology and sociology at the University of Helsinki in 2024. Her research interests include state violence, law, migration, labour, resistance, social movements, (anti)racism, scholar-activism, and post-, decolonial, and abolitionist perspectives. After conducting doctoral research on migrant struggles in the German deportation regime, Korvensyrjä has researched racism in Berlin criminal courts. She is active in groups documenting and organising against deportation, border externalisation, and racist policing and criminalisation. In 2025–2026, she is a Visiting Research Associate at the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol.

Biographical details correct as of 20.05.25