Laura Ogden (L.J.)
Migrant youth's transnational sibling relationships between West Africa and Europe
In the academic year 2024/25, I will implement two research projects exploring how migrant youth conceive of, establish, and maintain transnational sibling relationships - that is, with brothers and sisters who grow up and live in different countries.
(1) Funded by the Fonds Dr. Catharine van Tussenbroek, I will conduct preliminary fieldwork in Cape Verde about young people's transnational sibling relationships with brothers and sisters in Portugal and The Netherlands, in collaboration with the Centre for Research and Training on Gender and the Family (CIGEF) at the University of Cape Verde (UniCV).
(2) Funded by the Child Rights Research Fund, I will conduct a co-research project with Ghanaian-background children and youth in Hamburg, Germany: 'The right to (research) transnational sibling relationships'. Through a series of workshops with researchers and science communication experts, young participants will design and carry out mini-research projects with other migrant youth about their experiences of transnational sibling relationships. A website will share their findings through creative media with legal practitioners, NGOs, and the general public to bring the voice of transnational siblings to debates on child rights to family reunification and relationships.
Global Citizenship Education @ Global Studies
Along with colleagues Dr. Joris Boonen, Kevin Fuchs and Rikus van Eeden, I implemented a Learning & Innovation Grant for the project, 'A full-cycle approach to Global Citizenship Education in international study projects', in which we explored the role of pre-departure training and post-arrival consolidation of Global Citizenship Education among third-year Bachelor of Global Studies students at Maastricht University (UM).
As follow-up to this research, I am collaborating with Dr. Joris Boonen to develop a questionnaire on students' ideals and self-assessments of global citizenship norms.
Mobility Trajectories of Young Lives (MO-TRAYL)
My PhD thesis, Transnational Youth Mobility Trajectories: An ethnography of young people with a migration background between Ghana and Germany, was part of the MO-TRAYL project, funded by the European Research Council and led by Prof. Valentina Mazzucato.
I conducted 14 months of multi-sited, mobile ethnographic fieldwork with young people of Ghanaian background in Hamburg (Germany) and Ghana.
The objective of MO-TRAYL was to develop a better understanding of the relationship between migration and young people’s life chances, by studying the mobility and educational trajectories of young people growing up between Ghana, The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. See motrayl.com for more details.
You can find a full list of my publications here or on Google Scholar.
Visual ethnography
Ogden, L.J. (2017) 'Maria, reforming. A portrait of a teacher in Timor-Leste's education reform.' Photo essay for Society for Psychological Anthropology 2017 Conference.
Ogden, L.J. (2017) 'Local Voices, Global Conversations.' Photo in mobile exhibition Heritage on the Move, Leiden Global.
Ogden, L (2017) Scripting Change: Education reform in Timor-Leste. MA thesis film [video: 42']
Ogden, L. and Bakker, V. (2015) Marion en Het Klaverblad [video: 13']
Media and science communication
'Legacies of Race and Space', Urban Uncovered podcast, w/ Ms. Marie-Aminata Peron (University of Toronto) and Ms. Mandipa Ndlovu (Africa Studies Centre Leiden) (2024)
'Young Ghanaians in Europe travel ‘home’ a lot: why their mobility matters', The Conversation-Africa (2021)
![](/sites/default/files/ppp/70054994/Laura%20Ogden%201.jpg)