Galatea Scotti

Thesis Title: Life After Deportation: Masculinity and Temporality in Deported Migrants' Experiences of Forced Return to Ghana

The purpose of this project is to explore the lives of deported migrants in the years following forced return to Ghana. Rooted in ethnographic and collaborative methodologies, it focuses on how temporality, social relations, and masculine identities are reshaped and renegotiated post-deportation. As migration management has moved to the centre of politicised public debates, forced removal has increasingly become a central tenet of border controls across much of the Western world. Yet, research on the aftermath of deportation remains scarce, particularly regarding its long-term social and temporal effects. This project addresses this gap by examining how deported men rebuild their lives and what might emerge from a moment of rupture.

The research addresses three key questions: (1) What happens in the aftermath of a disruptive event such as deportation? (2) How do gendered and social relationships shape the ways deported men negotiate, re-establish, or contest their masculine identities following forced return? (3) How do deportees navigate altered temporalities after deportation?

By focusing on temporality, the research highlights an often-neglected dimension of post-deportation life. It also brings together scholarship on migration, gender, and temporality, fields often examined separately and rarely applied to the context of post-deportation. By centring the experiences and narratives of those affected in countries of return, whose voices often remain marginalised in public debates, the project seeks to shift analytical attention and reorient dominant narratives in migration, which tend to privilege the perspectives and priorities of the Global North.

Biography:

I am a social anthropologist and doctoral researcher in the Department of African Studies and Anthropology at the University of Birmingham. My research interests lie at the intersection of Social Anthropology, African, Migration and Gender Studies, with a particular focus on high-risk and undocumented migration, immigration detention, deportation and forced removal, post deportation lives, masculinity, temporality, ethnographic storytelling, affects, marginalisation, and structural injustice. I hold a BA in History, Anthropology and History of Religions from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and an MA in African Studies from the University of Birmingham. Alongside my academic research, I have worked within the third sector, engaging in research, advocacy, and direct support for refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants in Italy, the UK, and across Europe. Through both my professional and academic work, I am committed to advancing migrants' rights and promoting social justice, equality, and inclusion.

Area studies

2024 cohort

Department of African Studies and Anthropology University of Birmingham

Email:

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Supervisory Team:

Marco Di Nunzio

Melanie Griffiths