Oreva Olakpe researches how communities without status (e.g. irregular migrants and cross-border minorities) in the Global South form institutional structures and make space for themselves in their society of settlement. Oreva has studied sub-Saharan African migrant businessmen with mostly expired status and African asylum seekers in China, and a cross-border minority at the Cameroon-Nigeria border. She received a PhD in Law from the School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London.
Oreva has also recently worked on EU-funded projects on migrant integration, migration partnerships, and approaches to forced displacement in West Africa. She has carried out research on African migrations and informal communal structures, funded by the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa.
Recent Publications
(2024). "Forced displacement and borderlands in international law: Perspectives from below" in (Venthan Ananthavinayagan, T., Viswanath Shenoy, A. Eds.). Springer, Singapore.
With Sambe, M. and Aliyu R. (2023). , Africa Development Journal, 48(1).
With Triandafyllidou, A. (2023). , African Mobility Review, 9(2), 1-11.
(2023). . Hart Publishing; Bloomsbury Publishing, London, United Kingdom.
With Triandafyllidou, A. (2021). , The EUI Global Citizenship Observatory.
(2021). , The Republic Journal.
With Kula, L. (2020). Displacement. Commodification and Profit-making in Nigeria. In A. Pine & S. Mcguirk (Eds.), In Profit, Protest and the Asylum Industry. PM Press, United Kingdom.
(2018). in Perspectives Magazine "Not on the Board to Europe: Movements of Africans within and beyond the continent', Heinrich B旦ll Stiftung.
(2018). . The Republic Journal.
(2017). . The Republic Journal.
Working Papers
(2024). AU-EU Cooperation on Returns: Understanding Transregional Dialogues and Contesting Regional Mobility Agendas. GAPs.
Policy Brief
With Sambe, M. (2023) (PDF file) Rethinking EU-Africa Migration Cooperation. CERC Migration Policy Brief 17, Jan. 2024.