Dr. Marija Grujić
Fest
Faculty of Social and Cultural Sciences
Marija Grujić is a sociologist and DFG Walter Benjamin Fellow at the Chair of Comparative Cultural and Social Anthropology, Europa-Universität Viadrina. Her research lies at the intersection of forced migration, gender and intersectionality, institutional governance and qualitative sociology.
Her current work examines how vulnerability and special protection needs are identified, interpreted and acted upon in asylum systems, with particular attention to frontline practice, bureaucratic classification, professional knowledge and digital infrastructures. More broadly, her research asks how lived experience, institutional categories and different forms of professional and situated knowledge interact in processes of protection, exclusion and belonging.
Her earlier research focused on internal displacement, gendered nationalism and politics of belonging in the post-Yugoslav context. Her monograph, Belonging in Unhomely Homelands: Internal Displacement and Gendered Nationalism among Kosovo Serbs, was published by Berghahn Books in 2025.
From November 2026, she will hold a Gerda Henkel Foundation Forced Migration Fellowship for the project Datafied Bodies, Bureaucratic Borders: Intersectionality and Digital Protection Regimes in Forced Migration.
- Forced migration, displacement and asylum governance
- Gender, intersectionality and structural vulnerability
- Asylum infrastructures and special protection needs
- Digitalisation, datafication and migration governance
- Institutional classification, frontline knowledge and professional judgement
- Gendered nationalism, belonging and post-Yugoslav displacement
- Qualitative and interpretive sociology, biographical research and discourse analysis
- Research ethics, participation and situated knowledge
Latest publication
Grujić, Marija (2026). “Reclaiming Vulnerability as Structural Relation: A Postcolonial Feminist Critique of Asylum Governance.” Behemoth: A Journal on Social Dis/Order, 19(1).
(https://doi.org/10.6094/behemoth.2026.19.1.1137)
Book
Grujić, Marija (2025). Belonging in Unhomely Homelands: Internal Displacement and Gendered Nationalism among Kosovo Serbs. Berghahn Books.
(https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/GrujicBelonging)
Further publications
For a complete and regularly updated list of publications, see my Academia.edu profile:
(https://europa-uni.academia.edu/MarijaGruji%C4%87)
Scientific career
From 11/2026
Gerda Henkel Foundation Forced Migration Fellow / Principal Researcher
Project: Datafied Bodies, Bureaucratic Borders: Intersectionality and Digital Protection Regimes in Forced Migration
04/2026–10/2026
Scientific Associate, Chair of Comparative Cultural and Social Anthropology, Europa-Universität Viadrina
Development of syllabuses, research-informed course content and teaching materials for the new MA Forced Migration as part of the European Reform University Alliance (ERUA).
10/2025–12/2025
Visiting Researcher, SOAS University of London
Research and academic collaboration for Gendering Asylum Infrastructures.
04/2024–10/2026
DFG Walter Benjamin Fellow / Principal Researcher, Europa-Universität Viadrina
Project: Gendering Asylum Infrastructures: Mobilisation of Sensitivity to Gender, Sexual Orientation and Violence in Post-2014 Europe
Comparative qualitative research in Germany and the UK on vulnerability, special protection needs, bureaucratic classification and digital tools in asylum systems.
2022–2023
Visiting Scholar / Junior Fellow, University of Graz
Field of Excellence Dimensions of Europeanisation.
2021–2023
Migration Researcher, International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), Vienna
Qualitative and mixed-method migration research, particularly in the Western Balkans; stakeholder engagement; policy-oriented research and development of a migration-focused Research Ethics Manual.
2013–2019
Scientific Associate in Sociology, Goethe University Frankfurt
Research and BA/MA teaching in migration, gender, intersectionality, nationalism and qualitative methods.
2011–2013
Research Assistant, Institute of Sociology / Chair of Women’s and Gender Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt
2009–2012
Principal Researcher and Programme Coordinator, International Forum Bosnia, Sarajevo
Research and project coordination on gender inequality, gender-based violence, religion and peacebuilding.
2008–2010
Research Assistant, Centre for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies, University of Sarajevo
Education
2021
PhD in Sociology, Goethe University Frankfurt, magna cum laude
Dissertation: Belonging in Unhomely Homelands: Intersections between Internal Displacement and Gendered Nationalism among Kosovo Serbs
2010
MSc in Religious Studies, University of Sarajevo, with distinction
2006
Diploma in Philosophy, University of Belgrade
2004
University Certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Belgrade
Contact
Main Building (HG)Große Scharrnstraße 59
15230 Frankfurt (Oder)
- HG 251