Ladan Rahbari and Olga Burlyuk eds., "From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity" (Open Book Publishers, 2026)

About this episode

This episode features a discussion with Dr Olga Burlyuk and Dr Ladan Rahbari about their edited volume on the narratives of migrant academics facing precarity in academia.

In this episode of the New Books Network, I spoke with Dr Olga Burlyuk and Dr Ladan Rahbari about their new edited volume, From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity (Open Book Publishers, 2026). The book is open access. As universities promote internationalisation while maintaining labour systems that leave many migrant scholars vulnerable, this volume builds on the editors’ 2023 collection (also featured on New Books Network) by incorporating global perspectives. Through personal and autoethnographic narratives, contributors examine visa insecurity, institutional exclusion, racialisation, loneliness, and overwork, while also highlighting joy, solidarity, and “resilience”. By treating lived experience as critical knowledge, From the Margins offers a strong critique of contemporary academia and invites readers to consider whom universities serve, whose labour sustains them, and what a more equitable academic future could look like. Amisah Bakuri (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Religion and Theology within the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research examines the intersections of religion, sexuality…

People in this episode

Host: New Books Network

Guests: Dr Olga Burlyuk, Dr Ladan Rahbari

Topics covered

• migrant academics
• precarity
• visa insecurity
• institutional exclusion
• racialisation
• solidarity
• equitable academia

Keywords

• migrant scholars
• academic narratives
• autoethnography
• loneliness
• overwork
• joy
• resilience

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Open Book Publishers, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Books & works: From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity

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