In this New Voices in Global Security Studies seminar, Samah Rafiq investigates private visa application companies as a distinctive state-private hybrid in bordering and migration control.

Speaker:

Dr Samah Rafiq - State-private company hybrid regimes in migration control

Discussant: Dr Leonie Ansems de Vrie

Samah examines the increase of the private visa application company as a novel form of state-private hybrid mechanism of bordering and migration control. She assesses the operations and evolution of the first such company, VFS Global, in the last 22 years, the challenges to studying the implications of this privatisation in migration control and asks questions regarding their impact on understanding of sovereignty, citizenship and bordering.

Samah is a Lecturer in International Relations at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. She got her PhD in International Politics from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, India in April 2023. She was a Fox International Fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale University, USA for the academic year 2019-20. Her research focuses on bordering and migration control (BMC) practices.

New Voices in Global Security is an event series, organised by the School of Security Studies EDI committee, which seeks to promote new research within the field of Security Studies, as well as new and innovative approaches to teaching the discipline.

The series showcases the work of PhD students and Early Career Academics working both within and beyond the School of Security Studies.