The winner of the 2026 EAC Thesis Award

The EAC is pleased to announce Marleno Nika as the winner of the 2026 EAC Thesis Award, for a dissertation examining border violence in Albanian migration to Greece during the 1990s.

Nika completed the thesis, "Atmospheres of Violence and Acts of Memory: Border Violence in 1990s Albanian Migration to Greece through Oral History and Autoethnography," as part of the MITRA Erasmus Mundus Joint Master's programme in Transnational Migrations. The thesis was awarded a mark of 19/20, supervised by Dr. Kate Hodgson of UCC.

Drawing on oral histories gathered from members of the author's own family and community, the thesis traces the experiences of Albanians crossing into Greece during the first decade of a migratory movement that would span more than thirty years. Combining oral history with autoethnographic reflection, and reading the material through decolonial, feminist, and queer frameworks, Nika develops an account of the border as an "atmosphere of violence," arguing that border crossings do not simply happen to migrants, but actively shape who they become and how they understand themselves afterward.

The jury praised the thesis as an ambitious piece of scholarship, distinguished by its rich oral-history material, careful autoethnographic reflexivity, and an impressively cross-disciplinary engagement with literature on borders, memory, and migration.

As the EAC Thesis Award winner, Nika receives €500, and an executive summary of the thesis will be published online by the EAC partner organisations, including ACCESS, DutchNews, TheHagueOnLine, Families in Global Transition, Metropolis International Migration Network and ICARUS.

The 2026 EAC Thesis Award was judged by a five-member jury: prof. Robbert-Jan Adriaansen (chair), Lale A. Uribeechevarria (Director EAC), Craig Howes, Jennifer McGarrigle, and Matthew Hayes.