Dr Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels

Lecturer in Migration Studies

Contact details:

Tel: +32 2 641 1721
Fax: +32 2 641 1720
Email: A.K.von-Koppenfels@kent.ac.uk

Amanda earned her Ph.D. in 1999 from Georgetown University (USA), focusing on migration and citizenship policy in Germany, and defended her dissertation “Citizenship and Participation in Post-Cold War Germany: Aussiedler Migration as a Challenge to German Citizenship” with distinction. She earned her Master of Arts in German and European Studies from Georgetown in 1996, writing her master’s thesis on the ethnic Hungarian minority in Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania. She earned her A.B. in History and Literature from Harvard University in 1993, focusing on issues of national identity in the work of Günter Grass.

Prior to coming to the University of Kent of Brussels in 2006 as a full-time staff member, she taught part-time at UKB for two years, while also conducting research and data analysis for the International Organization for Migration, UNESCO and Eurobarometer. In 2004, she taught in the Research Group for Migration at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Münster (Germany). From 1999 to 2002, she worked at the International Organization for Migration, primarily for the IOM Research Department in Geneva, where her research focus was on the trafficking of human beings for sexual exploitation.

General research interests

Dr. von Koppenfels’ interests include ethnically privileged migration, citizenship, in particular the post-war evolution of German citizenship policy, the integration of migrants in host societies (including political participation), human trafficking and regional consultative processes. She is particularly interested in the interaction between formal and substantive citizenship and successful integration as well as migrant participation in home and host countries. She has conducted both qualitative and quantitative research.

Teaching

Amanda teaches at the University of Kent’s Brussels campus, where she teaches the core modules of the MA in Migration Studies.

Recent Publications
  • von Koppenfels, Amanda Klekowski. 2004. “Second-Class Citizens? Restricted Freedom of Movement for Spätaussiedler is Constitutional” 5 GERMAN L.J. 7 (July 1, 2004) www.germanlawjournal.com 761-789.
  • von Koppenfels, Amanda Klekowski. 2004. “Profiling of Irregular Migrants and Analysis of Reintegration Needs.” Tirana: IOM.
  • Latapi, Agustin Escobar and von Koppenfels, Amanda Klekowski. 2003. “The Puebla Process – a Case Study of Regional Consultative Process Development” In: World Migration 2003: Managing Migration, Challenges and Responses for People on the Move, ed. International Organization for Migration. Geneva: IOM.
  • von Koppenfels, Amanda Klekowski. 2003. “The Political Opportunity Structure of Co-Ethnic Migrant Mobilization; Post Cold-War Co-Ethnic Migrants to Israel and Germany.” In: Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants: Germany, Israel and Russia in Comparative Perspective, ed. Rainer Münz and Rainer Ohliger. Oxford: Frank Cass.
  • von Koppenfels, Amanda Klekowski. 2003. “Willkommene Gäste oder tolerierte Fremde? Entwicklung der Aussiedlerpolitik und –verwaltung.” In: Migration steuern und verwalten: Deutschland vom späten 19. Jahrhundert bis zum Gegenwart. ed. Jochen Oltmer. IMIS-schriften 12. Osnabrück: IMIS.