PhD Position: Climate Futures in Digital Migration and Border Control

There is an open PhD position at Leuphana University Lüneburg in the research area “Climate Futures in Digital Migration and Border Control” as part of the larger “Embracing Transformation” PhD and scholarship programme, consisting of 8 research projects in the context of climate futures and digital cultures at the school of culture and society, and in total 36 PhD students across our faculties. 

Starting date is planned for April 1st, 2026. Please note the short application deadline: 31st January 2026. 

Apply here 

See below for the description of the topic. The thesis would be supervised by Stephan Scheel and Anna Lisa Ramella. 

Climate Futures in Digital Migration and Border Control 

So far, the nexus between climate breakdown and border and migration management has mostly been discussed in relation to climate-induced migration and how to regulate it. This research area invites proposals for PhD-projects that engage with the manifold interconnections between climate change and digital migration and its regulation beyond this narrow focus. It particularly welcomes proposals that engage with the following as well as related themes and questions: 

  • The ecological footprint of border controls, both in terms of physical trash and debris generated by border infrastructures as well as emissions caused by energy-intensive digital modes of border control, such as by ‘smart border’ programs or ‘seamless travel’ schemes based on digital travel credentials. 
  • The role of digital technologies in(self-)organizing as well as governing and ‘managing’ climate refugees and climate-induced migration. 
  • The production of data and numerical facts about climate migration through forecasts and estimates and how related imagined futures of climate-induced migration reconfigure border and migration regimes in the present. 
  • Critical engagements with far-right discourses and mobilizations around ‘ecobordering’ (Turner and Bailey 2025) which blame immigration for national environmental degradation in order to call for further border restrictions while fostering racist anti-migrant narratrives. 
  • Digital and traditional modes of bordering implicated by attempts of the upper-class to protect themselves (and their wealth) from the effects of the looming climate catastrophe, for example by buying property and building bunkers in areas deemed safe. 

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