GLOCAL Lecture on ‘Deportation and Migration Diplomacy in Contentious Times’ at Radboud University
Zeynep Şahin Mencütek, GAPs researcher at BICC, delivered a GLOCAL lecture
On December 8, 2025, Zeynep Şahin Mencütek, GAPs researcher at BICC, delivered a GLOCAL lecture titled ‘Deportation and Migration Diplomacy in Contentious Times’.at Radboud University. Hosted by Nora Stel, the event brought together more than 25 students and faculty in person, alongside online participants.
In her lecture, Mencütek unpacked the drivers and implications of recent deportation practices, focusing on 2025 cases from the United States to Pakistan and Iran. She highlighted how securitization, criminalization, geopolitical tensions, domestic political dynamics, and public attitudes converge to shape contemporary deportation decisions.
A key contribution of the talk was her analysis of the EU’s new return legislation, the expanding agenda of externalization and return diplomacy, and the critical debates emerging among civil society and researchers. Drawing on findings from the GAPs and REMIG projects, she emphasized the role of migrant organizations, as well as the navigation and coping strategies migrants employ when confronted with return pressures - an area where GAPs research is making significant conceptual and empirical advances.
A souvenir photo of fellow GAPs researchers captured during the event.
The discussion that followed engaged with central themes in current return migration debates, including inter-state bargaining over deportation arrangements, policy responses to irregularized mobility, and how researchers can assess and influence public attitudes toward increasingly restrictive migration policies.
The event also opened opportunities for future collaboration between GAPs partners and Radboud-based scholars, further strengthening networks working on the politics and governance of return.