Oriol Puig is a researcher at CIDOB (Centre for International Affairs of Barcelona) where he is currently working on the H2020 CASCADES project on climate change, migration and conflict in the central Sahel. He holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Barcelona (UB) and his thesis on trans-Saharan mobility between Niger and Libya was awarded the 2017 Extraordinary Prize of the UB.

He is an associate professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and is a member of the African Societies Studies Group (GESA) at the University of Lleida (UdL); the African Studies Group (GEA) at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) and the Group of Studies on Migrations, Spaces and Societies (GERMES, in French) at the Abdou Moumouni University of Niamey (Niger).

He holds a Master's degree in Mediation, International Relations and Cooperation from the UAB, Ca' Foscari de Venècia (Italy) and Paul Valéry-Montpellier III (France); a Master's degree in Social Development from the Universitat Paul Valéry-Montpellier III and a postgraduate degree in Conflict and Peace Communication from the UAB. He is also a journalist and has worked as a consultant for international organisations and NGOs, especially in relation to the externalisation of European borders in the Sahel region.

Main research interests:

• Intra-African and trans-Saharan migration
• Circular and return migration
• Identities in the context of mobility
• Externalisation of borders
• Climate change and mobility
• Post-colonialism and migration

Publications:

Reports

(2021): Climate change, conflict and migration in the central Sahel, H2020 CASCADES project

Books and chapters

(To be published): The Saharan desert, the other border, Barcelona: Bellaterra.

(2021): El Sahel: cambio climático, conflicto y migraciones, in Africaye, Brújulas sobre África. Miradas para desaprender la region Subsahariana, Madrid: Catarata

(2020): The Nigerien migrants in Kadhafi’s Libya: between invisibility and visibility, in Bjarnesen, Jesper and Turner, Simon, Invisibility in African displacements, London: Zed Books

(2019), El Sahel: movilidades y fronteras, in Santamaría, Antonio, Tradición y modernidad en África, Madrid: Catarata.

Journal articles

(Under review): Baba Libye, les retournés nigériens de Libye: transferts sociaux et translocalité, Migrations et sociétés

(2019): Les migrants nigériens de retour de Libye: ethnographie entre instabilité, précarité et honnêteté, E-migrinter [online] https://journals.openedition.org/e-        migrinter/1721

(2018): La Unión Europea en Níger y los nigerinos en Europa: migraciones y fronteras, Nova África, Barcelona. 

(2017): Approche ethnographique du collectif des nigériens rentrés de Libye à Niamey: Entre la réintégration et la ré émigration. Quaderns ICA

Monograph and reports

(2019): El Sahel de las gentes: más allá del síndrome de la seguridad, CIDOB [online] https://www.cidob.org/publicaciones/serie_de_publicacion/monografias/monografias/el_sahel_de_las_gentes_mas_alla_del_sindrome_de_la_seguridad

(2019): Níger: gendarme de Europa, Intermón Oxfam [online] https://www.oxfamintermon.org/es/actualidad

Media, policy briefs and informative publications (selection)

(2020): The Sahel: Europe’s other border, CIDOB International Notes.

(2019): Europe’s invisible border. Euractiv. Online: https://www.euractiv.com/section/africa/news/europes-invisible-new-border/

(2019): Las llaves de Europa, Eldiario, 3 of November. Online. https://especiales.eldiario.es/llaves-de-europa/

(2016): Niger, another outpost of Fortress Europe, Euractiv. Online: https://www.euractiv.com/authors/oriol-puig/

(2015): La otra cara de Lampedusa. Planeta futuro, El País, 13 of September. Online: http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/11/12/planeta_futuro/1447341159_373809.html