Profile
Alexander Ephrussi

Alexander Ephrussi

PhD Researcher in Anthropology and Sociology
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Spoken languages
French, German, English, Icelandic, Farsi, Dari, Turkish

PhD Thesis

 

Title: In the Light and Shade of Movement: Power, Affect and (In)Visibility in times of Deportation in Turkey

PhD Supervisor: Alessandro Monsutti and Umut Yildirim

Expected completion date: 2025

Alexander Ephrussi’s doctoral thesis investigates state control on (im)mobilities of people. His thesis focuses on migrants from Afghanistan in Turkey who do not possess residence documents, to shed light on a wide array of exclusionary powers. For two years he carried out fieldwork in Istanbul, observing movements of both the police and of migrants in the city. He documented an array of practices among migrants that aim to navigate how they are perceived by the state and law enforcers, in order to avoid deportation. By examining how Afghans—particularly Uzbek and Turkmen Afghans—in Turkey understand and navigate their position within the national and transnational context of Istanbul, the dissertation analyses the intertwined logics through which (il)legitimate presences are defined, ascribed, performed, and disciplined. His work questions concepts of resistance and victimhood, and de-centres Europe in this story of migration. His academic focus stands at the intersection between anthropology of migration, anthropology of the state, critical theory of race and class and legal anthropology.
 

Profile
 

Alexander Ephrussi is a doctoral student at the Graduate Institute, Geneva since September 2021. From 2022 until 2023 he was a guest researcher at the Galatasaray University of Istanbul. He holds a master’s degree in social and cultural anthropology from the University College London acquired in 2018 with a thesis in anthropology of migration about Afghan migrations to Germany since 2015. He completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of Oxford in 2016, reading anthropology and archaeology.
 

Research Interests
 

  • Migration 

  • Afghan migrations

  • (In)visibility

  • Policing and carceral practices

  • Deportations and Dispossession

  • Affect
     

Academic Work experience
 

  • Teaching Assistant at the Graduate Institute, Geneva September 2024 - February 2025.
  • Research Assistant at Université de Genève for Dr. Nataliya Tchermalykh from January 2021 until October 2022.
     

Fellowships, Grants and Awards
 

  • Sekforde Trust Scholarship 2025
  • Swiss Government Exellence Scholarship (FCS) 2021-2024
  • Sekforde Trust Scholarship 2017
  • Donald Fergusson Award 2015
     

Publications and Works
 

  • Ephrussi, A. (2023) ‘Give a Hand to the Fallen, as Long as You Are Standing: Earthquake Disaster Relief among Afghans’. June 2023. Allegra Lab. 
  • Ephrussi, A. (2026) Acting out the Citizen: Humanitarianism on Unsteady Ground. In Mostowlansky, T. & Muratova, E. (eds.) (2026) Humanitarianism from Below? Universalism and the Politics of Inhumanity. London: UCL Press. (forthcoming)