Border-Building: The Temporal And Material Process Of Border Management on the greek Aegean island.

This doc-mobility project supported the completion of my PhD dissertation, Border-Building, which examines how migration governance is materialised through the design, organisation, and everyday operation of border and reception infrastructures. The core purpose of the mobility period was to strengthen the dissertation’s analytical framing, improve the coherence between empirical chapters and the theory chapter, and translate the findings into publishable outputs through structured mentorship and sustained writing time.

The UK-based phase took place in London at the London School of Economics (LSE), within the Department of Urban Geography, hosted through the Visiting Research Student framework and supervised by Prof. Romola Sanyal. This period focused on targeted chapter work: refining the theory chapter, revising key empirical chapters, drafting the dissertation conclusion and introduction, and strengthening the methods chapter through peer feedback, workshops, and systematic engagement with LSE’s research seminars and library resources. In parallel, I initiated the development of journal article manuscripts and discussed publication directions with colleagues in the LSE research environment.

The US-based phase took place in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), hosted by the Department of Architecture and supervised by Prof. Sarah Lopez. This stage consolidated the dissertation into a “ready-to-submit” draft through final revisions, structured feedback exchanges, and continued work on article manuscripts, alongside seminar participation to better situate my findings in wider migration and border debates. I also used the UPenn period to develop a postdoctoral project proposal and to build longer-term research connections for future collaboration.