This week Elsemieke Van Osch will be graduating with an MA in International Migration with Human Rights Law from Brussels School of International Studies at Canterbury Cathedral along with around 100 of her peers.
“Elsemieke wrote an excellent dissertation – probably the best I have seen since we started the master’s in Migration in 2006,” said Dr Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels, Academic Director and Senior Lecturer in Migration and Politics who acted as supervisor for Elsemieke’s dissertation.
“She addresses an important topic, doing so with nuance and compassion. The dissertation is exceptionally well-written and draws on impressive fieldwork.”
On discussing her research, Elsemieke said: “My dissertation analysed the various patterns of exclusion and inclusion experienced by undocumented families as a consequence of their legal status. Empirically grounded in ethnographic fieldwork among a community of undocumented families in Brussels, I argued that contradictory patterns of exclusion are experienced outside and within the intimacy of their family’s home in various dimensions. While these fathers, mothers and children, their homes and networks, are inherently part of the local communities they inhabit, the ‘border’ of the nation-state is experienced on a daily basis. Following the streets and local institutions that mark the footsteps of their everyday lives, I aimed for the acknowledgement of the complexity of their daily realities and sought a re-conceptualization of the nature of citizenship – and, its flip-side: “illegality”- that takes into account this complexity.”
Ambassador John Macgregor was Dean of the University of Kent’s Brussels centre from 2007 to 2009. On his departure he established a prize which is to be awarded, by the Brussels Board of Examiners, to the student with the best taught postgraduate performance on any programme at the Brussels School of International Studies.
Elsemieke has donated her prize money to the social organisation that supports the undocumented families which she wrote about in her dissertation.
“I am very grateful that the two local NGOs – Pigment vzw and Samenlevingsopbouw Brussel (Meeting) -provided me the opportunity to participate in their project with these families. Their endless efforts to support these families in so many aspects of their lives provides them hope and stability. They will be able to use this award for their current efforts to finance the costs of school bill, books and other learning material for over 50 families.”