Anthem Press has recently published Mexico-US, Serbia-EU Border Lives and Works. Learn more.
Current Research Projects
Research Interests—
Displacement; borderlands; border regimes and migration management; social inequalities; civil society organizing; solidarity; nationalism and extremism; intersectional justice; interdisciplinary, multimethod research.
IN-PROGRESS DISSERTATION
“Migration Crisis” and Civil Society Response in the Borderlands
Lažetić’s dissertation examines the impact of securitization, broadly conceived, on the responses of a wide range of civil society actors to migration-related challenges in borderland contexts. Since the “long summer of migration” in 2015, when large numbers of migrants reached European Union borders seeking asylum, migration has increasingly been framed as a crisis, particularly in the European Union and the United States. The arrival of migrants at U.S. and EU borders has been treated as a security threat, enabling the legalization and institutionalization of actors such as Frontex and the normalization of practices previously considered inhumane, including family separation at the border, expanded and often indefinite detention and deportation, violent pushbacks, and the outsourcing of migration management to third countries or private security companies.
While the evolution of these practices has been extensively studied—especially in relation to restrictive government policies and the militarization of border control—significantly less attention has been paid to the role of civil society actors involved in this form of “crisis management.” This dissertation addresses that gap by closely analyzing the impact of crisis labeling on civil society responses to migration. Drawing on interdisciplinary literatures on humanitarianism, social movements, and civil society, the study examines whether and how the framing of migration as a crisis reshaped civil society engagement in U.S. and EU borderlands.
CENTER ON FORCED DISPLACEMENT AT BU
Detention and Deportation Regimes in Comparative Perspective: The United States and the European Union
This project is an academic research initiative examining detention and deportation regimes in the United States and the European Union. It focuses on the legal, institutional, and political frameworks that structure immigration detention and deportation, as well as their implications for governance, human rights, and mobility control.
The research includes a systematic review of the existing literature currently underway at CFD, mapping key theoretical approaches, empirical findings, and methodological trends in the study of detention and deportation. In parallel, the project encompasses the preparation of several academic articles that analyze and compare detention and deportation practices across the U.S. and EU, with particular attention to regime design, implementation, and transnational convergence and divergence.
By situating detention and deportation within broader migration control regimes, this project aims to contribute to scholarly debates on borders, sovereignty, and state power, while providing a rigorous comparative framework for understanding contemporary enforcement practices.
COLLABORATIVE PROJECT
Forced Displacement in the Time of Migration Securitization and
Climate Change
With Carrie J. Preston, Associate Director,
Center on Forced Displacement, Boston University
This completed research project investigates the intersections of climate change, migration, and security, critically examining how dominant narratives linking environmental change to large-scale migration have influenced global governance and border regimes. In recent years, academic research, policy reports, and media discourse have increasingly emphasized climate-related migration as a major security concern, often framing it as a potential driver of instability and mass cross-border movement. Such framings have contributed to the securitization of migration and the implementation of restrictive mobility policies.
The study conducts a systematic review of academic literature on climate-related migration and displacement published over the past decade. It provides a critical assessment of current research trends, methodological approaches, and conceptual frameworks, highlighting the growing importance of climate-induced immobility and the complex relationship between environmental pressures, governance responses, and population movement.
Findings challenge the dominant assumption that climate-related events drive large-scale international migration. Instead, the research demonstrates that existing migration and security policies exacerbate vulnerabilities and reinforce immobility among the most affected populations. The project underscores the need for population-centered, context-sensitive approaches to both research and policymaking that account for the lived realities, coping strategies, and agency of impacted communities.
Two papers based on this project are currently forthcoming:
Lažetić, Marina, Hussein A. Rana, and Carrie J. Preston. “Climate and (Im)mobility Research: A Systematic Review of Current Trends and Future Directions.”
Lažetić, Marina, Hussein A. Rana, and Carrie J. Preston. “Between Evidence and Alarm: Climate Mobility Narratives and the Gap Between Research and Policy."
COLLABORATIVE PROJECT
Learning Through Engagement
With Complex Systems:
Iterations Across Programs Created by BU’s Center on Forced Displacement
With Carrie J. Preston, Associate Director,
Center on Forced Displacement, Boston University
Through this project, Boston University’s Center on Forced Displacement (CFD) assesses the impact of two new experiential learning programs through surveys and semi-structured interviews with students and university and NGO partners. Its Border Studies Program introduces students to US migration with partners at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley, and NGOs such as Team Brownsville and Catholic Charities. Students attend a semester-long weekly class at BU and participate in a 9-day intensive program in Texas during Spring Break. Similarly, CFD's two-week Summer School on Forced Displacement in Belgrade, Serbia, is organized with the University of Belgrade as well as local NGOs such as Grupa 484, KlikAktiv, Atina, and Belgrade Center for Human Rights. Through these educational programs and related research, CFD de-emphasizes frameworks like “fieldwork” and “engagement with refugees” and centers conversations around ethical complexity and voluntourism/disaster tourism. Preliminary analysis of the data the center gathered indicates that students are learning while local universities and NGOs benefit from students' engagement through its programs. CFD believes its findings can help others seeking to provide students with learning opportunities beyond the classroom and engagement with complex, evolving, social, political, and human rights issues. CFD presented this preliminary research at the ISA 2024 conference and will participate in the panels and conversations focusing on pedagogy and teaching in complex environments in ISA 2025, where it will introduce its new paper focusing on this topic.
New Publication
An interdisciplinary, accessible study of Mexico–US and Serbia-EU border practices and policies that brings insights of critical border and forced displacement studies to examine histories, policies, violence, models of care, activism, and creativity within these border regimes.
Mexico–US, Serbia–EU Border Lives and Works has been published by Anthem Press. The book is coedited by Lažetić, Dr Carrie Preston, and Dr Muhammad Zaman and emerged from their collaborative work at the Center on Forced Displacement at Boston University.
One of the goals of Lazetic's posted reflections is to share information about books and research on borders, nationalism, environmental displacement, and community resilience and organizing as well as spark discussions in and outside of academia.
“I am building my career on the loss of a man named Stojan Sokolović, and on the loss of many millions of others, who may or may not resemble him. And one night he told me…” - the book ends with the same sentence it begins with. It’s way past midnight and I drop it down on the floor of my living room as I stare at the ceiling from the comfort of my sofa. What are we doing and whom is this for? A question Dauphinee poses to the writers, researchers, academics - all those claiming to be trying to “understand” and “unpack” and “explain” human tragedy.
Imagining the Balkans is truly an iconic book, and one that should be read by anyone interested in the Balkans. However, I must say right away that this book is an academic piece of work, making it hard to understand by those who are unfamiliar with the theories discussed and the terminology used, and by those who simply do not like reading densely packed theoretical writing. It is intended to be a scholarly piece and, as such, is truly a great one!
THE MINISTRY OF PAIN...
is a meditation on getting lost in the streets of what once used to be your own hometown; on self-invention; on cutting and pasting a collage of memories that we eventually call a narrative of the past; on trying to find a home in language...but what if that language no longer exists?