Bio
Dr Aleksandra Ancite-Jepifánova is an interdisciplinary scholar working in the field of European and comparative migration, asylum and nationality law and policies. She holds a PhD in law from Queen Mary University of London (2021) and is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Centre of Law and Society at Cardiff University. Previously she was a (postdoctoral) Fellow of re:constitution, a programme of the Berlin-based Forum Transregionale Studien, and a Visiting Researcher at the Amsterdam Centre for Migration and Refugee Law at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She has taught courses and given guest lectures at numerous institutions, including London School of Economics (LSE), Queen Mary, and the University of Amsterdam. She is also a GLOBALCIT Country Expert for Latvia.
Aleksandra’s work combines doctrinal and empirical research methods by particularly focusing on the nexus between migration, conflict, security and human rights. Her PhD thesis (under a book contract with Brill) critically examines the concept of marriages of convenience in EU and UK law in so far as it concerns the residence rights of EU citizens and their non-EU national spouses. For her PhD, she has received the ELFA 2021 award for the best doctoral thesis on European law (proxime accessit).
Her current project focuses on the situation at the EU’s border with Belarus and Russia, particularly where it concerns access to the asylum procedure, prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment, and compliance with the Rule of Law. It also evaluates the EU-level response to the crisis and critically engages with the concept of ‘migrant instrumentalisation’. As part of her study, she has conducted extensive fieldwork in Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, which involved interviews with legal practitioners, volunteers and over 40 non-EU nationals affected – predominantly from the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
Aleksandra is also interested in developments in migration and nationality laws in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the implications of EU migration and asylum regimes for Iraqi nationals, particularly of Kurdish/Yezidi background.
Aleksandra came to academia via a non-traditional route, having first worked for nearly 15 years in journalism. She completed her PhD in the UK part-time whilst being largely based in Bonn where she worked for Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (Russian Service). She also has undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Latvia and Riga Graduate School of Law.
Selected publications
- ‘Your Relationship is Genuine, But Your Marriage is not. Defining Marriages of Convenience in EU and UK Law’ in Ellen Desmet, Milena Belloni, Dirk Vanheule, Jinske Verhellen & Ayse Güdük (eds.), Family Reunification in Europe. Exposing Inequalities (Routledge, forthcoming 2024). Available on SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4458843
- ‘Forced Marriage’ in Valsamis Mitsilegas, Pedro Caeiro and Sabine Gless (eds), Elgar Encyclopaedia of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice (Edward Elgar, forthcoming 2024).
- ‘Migrant Instrumentalisation: Facts and Fictions. Realities on the Ground at the EU-Belarus Border’ (Verfassungsblog, September 2023)
- ‘Seven Months in the Freezing Forest: Why events at the Latvian-Belarus border were long hidden from the public’ (Verfassungsblog, November 2022)
- ‘The Visa Ban, Nikolai and his Russian Sister: Why Shengen Visa Restrictions for Russian Citizens Risk Tearing Families Apart’ (Verfassungsblog, September 2022).
- ‘Legalising Refoulement: Pushbacks and Forcible ‘Voluntary’ Returns from the Latvian-Belarus Border’ (Refugee Law Initiative Blog, August 2022).
- ‘Trapped in a Lawless Zone: Forgotten Refugees at the Latvia-Belarus Border’ (Verfassungsblog, May 2022).
- ‘CJEU, Judgment of 25 July 2008, Metock: Subsequent Developments in Denmark, Ireland, and the UK’ (2021) 6/7 Asiel- & Migrantenrecht 338-344.