Emilio Caja is a PhD Candidate in the Migraçoes Program in the field of Sociology at ICS-UL. Previously, he worked with the non governmental organization Borderline Sicilia monitoring the situation of migrant people arriving and living in the island. In particular, he focused on the hygienic-sanitary borders implemented during the pandemic and the condition of agricultural workers in the Italian countryside. He is active in support of migrant labour mobilisation and border struggles in Europe and the Mediterranean.
PhD Candidate: Sociology, Migrations
Institute of Social Sciences (ICS), University of Lisbon (UL)
Main field sites: Italy and Portugal
His PhD project investigates the processes of migrant workers' political subjectivation in the context of the EUropean criminalizing border regime. His ethnographic research focuses on everyday life practices of Western African seasonal migrant workers moving between Italy and Portugal. Moving across different borders and industrial sectors, and trying to go beyond traditional eurocentric and colonial schemes of what should be understood as political, the aim of the project is to understand what issues migrants politicise, as well as how and when individual practices become collective actions.
Keywords: migrant labour, politics of migration, seasonal workers, racial capitalism, rural and urban sociology