Paolo Novak
Biographic Data
| ID | 3696831 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paolo Novak |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paolo |
| FAMILY NAME | Novak |
| SIGNATURE | NOVAK P |
| AFFILIATIONS | SOAS University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2259-8707 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 60 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Introduction: Entangled and Uneven Landscapes of Digitised Migration
Re-producing the Humanitarian Border
Scholarship dissecting the EU humanitarian border has consistently emphasised its productive nature. The enmeshment of securitarian and humanitarian logics produces new forms of control that transform pre-existing techniques and practices; new geographies of connection and demarcation; new (non)knowledges and realities that discipline migrants. This article builds upon these contributions yet expands their remit to account for the productive rela…
Embedding Externalisation: How Bordering Practices Transform Places
Over the past twenty years, research into border externalisation has developed a rich spatial vocabulary to understand these bordering practices as well as critical analyses that challenge the often North-centric views towards externalisation. In this Special Issue, we emphasise that a place-based gaze can lend new mileage to border externalisation research. We emphasise that the place has been under-theorised and under examined in its relation t…
Deservingness and Uneven Geographies of Asylum Accommodation
The arrival of over six million asylum seekers in Europe since 2011 has engendered profound and ongoing governance transformations, which this article examines through the understudied perspective of asylum seekers’ accommodation. The article uncovers the unevenness of accommodation standards across reception centres in an Italian province, demonstrating how this heterogeneity selectively dis/enables the meaningful participation of asylum seekers…
The neoliberal location of asylum
Back to Borders
What is a border? Who is a migrant? The paper uses these questions to distinguish between constructivist, Marxist and postcolonial answers provided by critical border scholarship, with three aims. First, identifying common concerns and interrogating divergent trajectories, the paper offers a practical invitation to dialogue between these various positions. Second, it evidences how critical border scholarship follows a social-to-spatial analytical…
The Double Pincer of Migration: Revisiting the Migration and Development Nexus through a Spatial Lens
The paper examines contemporary conceptualisations of the migration and development nexus, using a spatial lens. It challenges mainstream conceptualisations based on static and bounded understandings of space and place; it incorporates Marxist and postcolonial understandings of migration and development; and it politicises the way in which this nexus can be conceptualised. The “double pincer of migration” is a metaphor that captures the “freedom”…
Placing Borders in Development
Development is inextricably related to the state-centred cartography of world spaces defined by borders, both in its historical trajectory and contemporary entanglements. Yet the multiplicity of channels and directions characterising their articulation are scarcely explored. This article contributes to this emerging field of enquiry. It delineates the essential traits of the borders and development nexus by establishing a systematic dialogue betw…
The success of Afghan NGOs
During the 1990s, and as part of a broader drive towards the “Afghanisation” of humanitarian assistance in Pakistan, Afghan NGOs became key implementing agencies supporting refugee-related and reconstruction activities in Afghanistan. This paper provides a detailed account of their emergence and consolidation, with a twofold objective. First, it complements and contributes to recent studies on Afghan NGOs and Afghan civil society, by providing hi…
The institutional incompleteness of empire
Afghanistan's territory and populations have long been crucial nodes for the assertion of regional and global projects of domination. In order to gain analytical insight into the identity and dispositions of such projects, the paper studies one significant episode of intervention over Afghan populations: the three-decade long protection and assistance practices in support of Afghan refugees in Pakistan. The paper has three objectives. First, it h…
The Flexible Territoriality of Borders
To what extent do boundaries shape state-centred scales of discourse and action? In an attempt to answer this question, the article delves into one of the key ambiguities characterising boundaries: their being both static markers of sovereign jurisdictions and socially produced and reproduced institutions. Drawing on Foucauldian notions of ‘productive power’, and taking as a referent the Durand Line, the paper elaborates upon Robert Sack's contri…
The Flexible Territoriality of Borders
To what extent do boundaries shape state-centred scales of discourse and action? In an attempt to answer this question, the article delves into one of the key ambiguities characterising boundaries: their being both static markers of sovereign jurisdictions and socially produced and reproduced institutions. Drawing on Foucauldian notions of ‘productive power’, and taking as a referent the Durand Line, the paper elaborates upon Robert Sack's contri…
Back to Borders
What is a border? Who is a migrant? The paper uses these questions to distinguish between constructivist, Marxist and postcolonial answers provided by critical border scholarship, with three aims. First, identifying common concerns and interrogating divergent trajectories, the paper offers a practical invitation to dialogue between these various positions. Second, it evidences how critical border scholarship follows a social-to-spatial analytical…
Re-producing the Humanitarian Border
Scholarship dissecting the EU humanitarian border has consistently emphasised its productive nature. The enmeshment of securitarian and humanitarian logics produces new forms of control that transform pre-existing techniques and practices; new geographies of connection and demarcation; new (non)knowledges and realities that discipline migrants. This article builds upon these contributions yet expands their remit to account for the productive rela…
The neoliberal location of asylum
Deservingness and Uneven Geographies of Asylum Accommodation
The arrival of over six million asylum seekers in Europe since 2011 has engendered profound and ongoing governance transformations, which this article examines through the understudied perspective of asylum seekers’ accommodation. The article uncovers the unevenness of accommodation standards across reception centres in an Italian province, demonstrating how this heterogeneity selectively dis/enables the meaningful participation of asylum seekers…
Placing Borders in Development
Development is inextricably related to the state-centred cartography of world spaces defined by borders, both in its historical trajectory and contemporary entanglements. Yet the multiplicity of channels and directions characterising their articulation are scarcely explored. This article contributes to this emerging field of enquiry. It delineates the essential traits of the borders and development nexus by establishing a systematic dialogue betw…
The success of Afghan NGOs
During the 1990s, and as part of a broader drive towards the “Afghanisation” of humanitarian assistance in Pakistan, Afghan NGOs became key implementing agencies supporting refugee-related and reconstruction activities in Afghanistan. This paper provides a detailed account of their emergence and consolidation, with a twofold objective. First, it complements and contributes to recent studies on Afghan NGOs and Afghan civil society, by providing hi…
Embedding Externalisation: How Bordering Practices Transform Places
Over the past twenty years, research into border externalisation has developed a rich spatial vocabulary to understand these bordering practices as well as critical analyses that challenge the often North-centric views towards externalisation. In this Special Issue, we emphasise that a place-based gaze can lend new mileage to border externalisation research. We emphasise that the place has been under-theorised and under examined in its relation t…
The Double Pincer of Migration: Revisiting the Migration and Development Nexus through a Spatial Lens
The paper examines contemporary conceptualisations of the migration and development nexus, using a spatial lens. It challenges mainstream conceptualisations based on static and bounded understandings of space and place; it incorporates Marxist and postcolonial understandings of migration and development; and it politicises the way in which this nexus can be conceptualised. The “double pincer of migration” is a metaphor that captures the “freedom”…
The institutional incompleteness of empire
Afghanistan's territory and populations have long been crucial nodes for the assertion of regional and global projects of domination. In order to gain analytical insight into the identity and dispositions of such projects, the paper studies one significant episode of intervention over Afghan populations: the three-decade long protection and assistance practices in support of Afghan refugees in Pakistan. The paper has three objectives. First, it h…
The Flexible Territoriality of Borders
To what extent do boundaries shape state-centred scales of discourse and action? In an attempt to answer this question, the article delves into one of the key ambiguities characterising boundaries: their being both static markers of sovereign jurisdictions and socially produced and reproduced institutions. Drawing on Foucauldian notions of ‘productive power’, and taking as a referent the Durand Line, the paper elaborates upon Robert Sack's contri…
The success of Afghan NGOs
During the 1990s, and as part of a broader drive towards the “Afghanisation” of humanitarian assistance in Pakistan, Afghan NGOs became key implementing agencies supporting refugee-related and reconstruction activities in Afghanistan. This paper provides a detailed account of their emergence and consolidation, with a twofold objective. First, it complements and contributes to recent studies on Afghan NGOs and Afghan civil society, by providing hi…
The Double Pincer of Migration: Revisiting the Migration and Development Nexus through a Spatial Lens
The paper examines contemporary conceptualisations of the migration and development nexus, using a spatial lens. It challenges mainstream conceptualisations based on static and bounded understandings of space and place; it incorporates Marxist and postcolonial understandings of migration and development; and it politicises the way in which this nexus can be conceptualised. The “double pincer of migration” is a metaphor that captures the “freedom”…
Placing Borders in Development
Development is inextricably related to the state-centred cartography of world spaces defined by borders, both in its historical trajectory and contemporary entanglements. Yet the multiplicity of channels and directions characterising their articulation are scarcely explored. This article contributes to this emerging field of enquiry. It delineates the essential traits of the borders and development nexus by establishing a systematic dialogue betw…
Back to Borders
What is a border? Who is a migrant? The paper uses these questions to distinguish between constructivist, Marxist and postcolonial answers provided by critical border scholarship, with three aims. First, identifying common concerns and interrogating divergent trajectories, the paper offers a practical invitation to dialogue between these various positions. Second, it evidences how critical border scholarship follows a social-to-spatial analytical…
The neoliberal location of asylum
Deservingness and Uneven Geographies of Asylum Accommodation
The arrival of over six million asylum seekers in Europe since 2011 has engendered profound and ongoing governance transformations, which this article examines through the understudied perspective of asylum seekers’ accommodation. The article uncovers the unevenness of accommodation standards across reception centres in an Italian province, demonstrating how this heterogeneity selectively dis/enables the meaningful participation of asylum seekers…
Re-producing the Humanitarian Border
Scholarship dissecting the EU humanitarian border has consistently emphasised its productive nature. The enmeshment of securitarian and humanitarian logics produces new forms of control that transform pre-existing techniques and practices; new geographies of connection and demarcation; new (non)knowledges and realities that discipline migrants. This article builds upon these contributions yet expands their remit to account for the productive rela…
Embedding Externalisation: How Bordering Practices Transform Places
Over the past twenty years, research into border externalisation has developed a rich spatial vocabulary to understand these bordering practices as well as critical analyses that challenge the often North-centric views towards externalisation. In this Special Issue, we emphasise that a place-based gaze can lend new mileage to border externalisation research. We emphasise that the place has been under-theorised and under examined in its relation t…
Introduction: Entangled and Uneven Landscapes of Digitised Migration
Political science (10 works) · Law (8 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Geography (5 works) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Politics (4 works) · Refugee (4 works)