Dr Valentina Mazzucato (V.)

Valentina Mazzucato has headed 5 international research projects financed by the Dutch Scientific Organization (NWO), NORFACE, and the European Research Council. Through these grants, Mazzucato and her teams have developed an original approach for studying the linkages that are forged by migrants between their origin areas and the places they move to or pass through. The resulting simultaneous matched sample methodology entails studying origin and destination locations at the same time, which allows a more fine-grained understanding of how migrants maintain the ties to their home countries and with what effects for those who stay behind.


Her current project is the ERC Consolidator Grant funded project called Mobility Trajectories of Young Lives: Transnational Youth in Global South and North (MO-TRAYL) which will run from 2017-2022. In this project, Mazzucato and her team are investigating the effects of young people with migrant backgrounds traveling ‘home’ to their or their parents’ countries of origin in terms of how these trips shape their educational trajectories, aspirations for the future, and choices they make for what to do when they leave secondary school.
 

All of Valentina Mazzucato’s research focuses on transnational migration between Africa and Europe, looking at the economic and socio-cultural impacts of migration on migrants, migrant youth and their families and communities back home. Her work is characterized by team work, multi-sited research designs, and mixed methods which combine large survey work with in-depth ethnographies.
 

For more about Valentina Mazzucato’s research on migrant youth see this video clip and also her inaugural lecture held on June 11, 2010 entitled "Bridging boundaries: Transnationalism and migrants' lives in a globalizing world", on the You Tube channel of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
 

For information about her previous projects, see http://www.tcra.nl/ , http://www.ghanatransnet.org/ , http://www.mafeproject.com/ .