Iva Dodevska

Iva is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the VUB BSoG Centre for Migration, Diversity and Justice (CMDJ). She is a critical and interdisciplinary migration researcher, whose research interests include migration and integration governance, the role of knowledge and expertise in migration politics, and reflexive and emancipatory methodologies. A member of the Brussels Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Migration and Minorities (BIRMM), Iva is the lead researcher of the FWO-funded project CIVIBRUS (with promotors Ilke Adam and Iman Lechkar). CIVIBRUS studies how migrant integration regimes shape (the politics of) belonging in superdiverse, multinational and multilingual contexts like Brussels, both at the level of policy and on the ground. 

Iva joined the VUB in 2023 to develop a research agenda within the framework of the VUB Strategic Research Programme Evaluating Democratic Governance in Europe (EDGE), after obtaining a joint PhD in Migration Studies (with distinction) at Université Paul-Valéry-Montpellier 3 and Charles University. Her doctoral research was completed thanks to a Horizon 2020 Marie S. Curie fellowship. Iva’s doctoral dissertation, titled Europe and Its Others: Migrant Integration in Research and Policy, won the Maria Ioannis Baganha award for best dissertation in Migration Studies (IMISCOE, 2024) and was subsequently published as a monograph with Springer. The book examines the contested discourse on migrant integration in the EU policy framework, in scientific research, and in the production of evidence for policymaking at EU level.

Iva spent brief research stays at Brown University in the US (2022) and Université de Neuchâtel in Switzerland (2023). She teaches on diversity policies in the EU and has previously taught on borders and migration policy. She is active in the IMISCOE network as a coordinator of the Standing Committee ‘Reflexivities in Migration Studies’. She has published in journals such as Ethnicities, Ethnic and Migration Studies, Frontiers in Political Science and Migration Studies. 

Recent publications: 

• Blankvoort, N., Dodevska, I., & Manser-Egli, S. (2026). The coloniality of integration: Rethinking the science-policy nexus. Ethnicities, 14687968261447880. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687968261447880
• Dodevska, I. (2025). Europe and its Others: Migrant Integration in Research and Policy. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-97981-1
• Dodevska, I., & Nimer, M. (2025). Towards reflexivity in the study of mobility and diversity: Theories, positionality, and the political economy of knowledge production. Introduction to the Special Issue. Migration Studies, 13(4), mnaf037. https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnaf037
• Dodevska, I. (2024). The production of “evidence” for migrant integration policy in the European Union. Migration Studies, 12(4). https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnae032
• Dodevska, I. (2023). Boundary integrationism and its subject: Shifts and continuities in the EU framework on migrant integration. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 50(4), 748–771. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2247170