Aino Korvensyrjä

Korvensyrjä’s research and activism focuses on mobility justice. Her ongoing doctoral research looks at how German deportation policies and legal violence affect West African asylum seekers. She is co-founder of the interdisciplinary working group Culture of Deportation (cultureofdeportation.org) documenting the German and EU border regime, focusing on knowledge generated in migrant self-organization. She is involved in anti-racist trial monitoring and campaigns against racist police violence in Germany and in monitoring the EU border externalisation in Africa. Affiliations: Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki; Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism, Swedish School of Social Science; member of kritnet Germany.


I continue working on interconnected projects on state violence affecting African asylum seekers in Germany, including articles and online (video) documentation of recent large scale police violence in German asylum camps. I will also travel to a West African country, since years in the focus of the EU border externalisation policies, to meet with grassroots actors. The residency, shared with Airi Triisberg and Övül Durmusoglu, with the kind support of Goethe Institute Helsinki, Isabel Hölzl and Giovanna Esposito Yussif, continues our exchange on feminist practices.