Ayla Bonfiglio
Ayla Bonfiglio is a Research Officer at IMI.
Contact: +44 (0) 1865 271901, ayla.bonfiglio@qeh.ox.ac.uk
Research focus
Ayla’s current activities and research interests are focused on African migration, the relationship between migration and development, and the research methodologies employed to study international migration. She is also interested in issues of forced migrant protection, livelihood strategies, and emergency education programming.
Current IMI projects
Ayla works mainly on the Global Migration Futures project and on the Mobility in the African Great Lakes Project.
Background
Ayla obtained her Masters in Forced Migration in 2010 from the University of Oxford. The multi-disciplinary design of her degree allowed her to study forced migration from a variety of approaches, including international human rights and humanitarian law, ethics, international relations and anthropology. Her dissertation examined non-formal education programs created by refugees and assistance organizations for refugees living in UNHCR-sponsored settlements and Kampala, Uganda.
Ayla also holds a BA Hons in Political Science from Columbia University, United States. Her dissertation, which won the Charles A. Beard prize for the best paper in political science in two years, was a comparative study of the levels of self-reliance of urban self-settled and rural settlement refugees in Uganda. This study was based upon fieldwork conducted in 2008 in Kampala and the Oruchinga and Kyangwali Refugee Settlements in Western Uganda. Ayla has also worked and carried out research in Guatemala, Senegal and Rwanda.
Apart from her studies in forced migration and politics, Ayla has studied international development and Spanish. She has worked as a Google Policy Fellow in Washington, D.C. studying the proliferation of African mobile telecommunications and as a Research Assistant at Oxford examining the intersection between migration and development. Most recently, she worked with the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford on issues of child protection in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and faith-based humanitarianism.
Publications
- Bonfiglio, A. (2012) 'New approaches for researching the determinants of migration processes: ESF strategic workshop on migration research'. Workshop report. International Migration Institute, University of Oxford / European Science Foundation.
- Bonfiglio, A. (2012) 'Arab Spring and Beyond: Human Mobility, Forced Migration and Institutional Responses'. Workshop report. International Migration Institute / Refugee Studies Centre / Oxford Diasporas Programme, University of Oxford.
- Bonfiglio, A. (2011) ‘North Africa in Transition: Mobility, Forced Migration and Humanitarian Crises’. Workshop report. International Migration Institute / Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford.
- Bonfiglio, A. (2011) ‘Refugees’ diasporic memories and the politics of democratisation’, Workshop report. International Migration Institute / Refugee Studies Centre, Unviersity of Oxford.
- Bonfiglio, A. (2010) 'Learning outside the classroom: non-formal refugee education in Uganda', UNHCR Research Paper No. 193, Geneva: UNHCR.
