Dr Karolina Follis

I am a political anthropologist interested in borders, citizenship and non-citizenship, human rights and new security technologies. I study the European Union, in particular its governance of justice and home affairs, including immigration and asylum. I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Poland and Ukraine to understand the human consequences of the transformation of the border between those two countries into an external border of the EU. The outcome of this project is my book Building Fortress Europe. The Polish-Ukrainian Frontier published by University of Pennsylvania Press in 2012. My current research follows up on these interests by integgrogating the ongoing digitalization of borders in the European Union and beyond, a process which unfolds under the banner of 'smart borders.' I am presently developing a project which asks how 'smart borders' transform the everyday practices of border policing, and what are the ramifications of this process for human rights and the politics of citizenship and non-citizenship in Europe.