Dorina Damsa

Academic interests
Dorina has a broader interest in governance/governmentality, social control, and punishment, precarity, embodiment, and subjectivity, particularly related to i/mobility.
Background
Dorina holds a Master’s degree in The Theory and Practice of Human Rights from the Faculty of Law at the University of Oslo. She has worked as a research assistant in various projects at the University of Oslo, University of Yunnan, and University of St Andrews.
Project description
Dorina’s research explores migrant trajectories in an in/hospitable Nordic context. She focuses on the perspectives and experiences of irregular migrants, specifically life strategies and tactics, notions of identity, equality, justice and rights, the embodied consequences of othering, and precarity. This research seeks to challenge the static ‘guest/host’ binary and the portrayal of migrants as passive actors, lacking agency or capacity to circumvent, subvert, or affect governance. As such, it bears relevance to theories of mobility, sovereignty, and non-political resistance, while specifically contributing to ongoing debates on ‘Nordicity’.
Teaching
Dorina teaches seminars in KRIM1300.
Research grants
Dorina has received a grant from the Scandinavian Research Council for Criminology to explore foreign nationals’ subjective experience of punishment in Scandinavian prisons.
Publications
- Damsa, Dorina & Ugelvik, Thomas (2018). One of us or one of them? Researcher positionality, language, and belonging in an all-foreign prison, In Synnøve Økland Jahnsen; Rebecca Powel & Andriani Fili (ed.), Criminal justice research in an era of mass mobility. Routledge. ISBN 978-1138284128. Kapittel 14.
- Ugelvik, Thomas & Damsa, Dorina (2018). The pains of crimmigration imprisonment: Perspectives from a Norwegian all-foreign prison. British Journal of Criminology. ISSN 0007-0955. 58(5), s 1025- 1043 . doi: 10.1093/bjc/azx067 Full text in Research Archive.
- Damsa, Dorina & Ugelvik, Thomas (2017). A difference that makes a difference? Reflexivity and researcher effects in an all-foreign prison. International Journal of Qualitative Methods (IJQM). ISSN 1609-4069. 16(1), s 1- 10 . doi: 10.1177/1609406917713132 Full text in Research Archive.
- Damsa, Dorina & Ugelvik, Thomas (2017). A Difference that Makes a Difference – Researcher Effects in an All-Foreign Prison. Europris newsletter.
- Ugelvik, Thomas & Damsa, Dorina (2017). A difference that makes a difference? Reflexivity and researcher effects in an all-foreign prison.
- Ugelvik, Thomas & Damsa, Dorina (2017). Pains of imprisonment revisited: Perspectives from a Norwegian crimmigration prison.