Susanne Bygnes

Key words: Political sociology, social movements, protest movements, diversity, economic-crisis, refugee-crisis, social mobilisation, high-skilled migrants, politically motivated migrants

Susanne Bygnes is Professor of Sociology at the University of Bergen in Norway. Her main research topics include international migration and local perspectives on diversity, political sociology and social movements. Her recent work use 'crisis' as point of departure to understand social change through new migratory patterns and local community reactions to sudden increase in diversity. Since 2013 she has worked with two particular cases of human mobility in the wake of the European financial crisis and the subsequent 'refugee crisis' to understand how crisis shape both migrants' and 'recieving communities' imaginations, experiences and reactions. Methodologically she draws mainly on in-depth qualitative interviews, but also works with ethnography and quantitative panel data. 

She had visiting scholar status at Scoula Normale Superioire de Firenze (University of Pisa) October to November 2018 and has previosuly been visiting scholar at UC Berkeley (June-August 2012), Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona (April-July 2014) and Sussex University (March-June 2015).

Bygnes was principal investigator for the project 'Imagining and Experiencing the Refugee crisis (IMEX)' (2017-2022). Her most recent articles on migration and social change include Are they leaving because of the crisis? (2017) in Sociology and A collective sigh of relief: Local reactions to the establishment of new asylum centers in Norway (2020) in Acta Sociologica.

Her most recent project is Russian migrants and the anti-war movement in Europe (2022-)

Russian Migrants and the anti-war movement (RAW)

This pilot project funded by the University of Bergen was initiated in September 2022. It explores the experiences and activities of Russian migrants in Europe who have mobilized for peace after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Based on observations and in-depth interviews, the project studies the Russian anti-war movement abroad focusing initially on one central (Berlin) and two more peripherical (Barcelona and Oslo) sites. In Germany, mobilization for democracy in Russia has diversified and/or intensified in the wake of the invasion, while in Spain and Norway the full-scale invasion has strengthened the emergence of Russian migrants mobilizing for a democratic development. The project also takes into account that the Russian anti-war movement abroad is highly transnational, spanning local initiatives and individuals across many locations, including initiatives inside Russia. In a migrant population known for not being easily mobilized for political purposes, what motivates and what restricts Russians who live in Europe to mobilize against the war and for a democratic development in Russia? Does the political mobilization of Russian migrants against war that started in 2022 have bearings on the potential for building a stronger pro-democratic community of Russian migrants in Europe? These are the central research questions to be addressed by this project.