Migration researcher Dr. Laura Lambert receives Klaus J. Bade Young Scientists Award

Until recently, people in Sierra Leone used to identify themselves with their voter ID cards. But now the EU is promoting biometric ID cards with fingerprints. “They are difficult to forge and serve, among other things, to control migration,” explains Laura Lambert. The anthropologist is conducting research in West Africa using ethnographic methods. She observes, for example, the processes in the office that issues the new ID cards. “Not everyone can afford the cards. They cost about three days' wages. Nevertheless, they are becoming increasingly important, because without the new ID cards, it is almost impossible to graduate from school or get a SIM card. You can't even collect an inheritance,” explains the migration researcher.

On the one hand, it is a right to have an identity card, but on the other hand, the EU exerts a lot of influence on Sierra Leone with it. “The country lacks schools and universities. Health care is poor. A state budget could also be used for purposes other than migration control,” explains the researcher.

Moreover, it is mainly the wealthy who make the journey to Europe. “The trip costs around 3,000 euros. Not many people can afford that,” says Laura Lambert. In West Africa, migration is often seen as a process of maturation: “Conversely, it casts a bad light on those who cannot pay for the trip.”

In Sierra Leone, for example, the debate about migration is conducted differently than in Europe: “There is a culture of freedom of movement and critical examination of the country's colonial history. Many say: We have a right to come to Europe.”

Laura Lambert studied social sciences at Humboldt University in Berlin and completed her doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for Ethnological Research, Halle (Saale). She is a postdoc in the ERC project “Doing Digital Identities” (DigID) with a focus on the field study in Sierra Leone. In her dissertation, Laura Lambert used a comprehensive ethnography to examine the EU's externalization of refugee protection in Niger. Her research interests include the transformation of European migration control and asylum policy in cooperating African third countries, political struggles of migrants, and infrastructures and international organizations.

The non-profit Hertie Foundation annually endows the Klaus J. Bade Young Scientist Award for Migration and Integration Research, which is awarded in cooperation with the Berlin Institute for Empirical Integration and Migration Research (BIM) at Humboldt University Berlin. This prize honors young scientists who have distinguished themselves through outstanding research in migration and integration research. The prize money is 7500 euros.