Alice Massari

Alice Massari is a humanitarian and migration specialist whose work connects scholarship with two decades of field and advisory experience across crisis-affected settings in Africa and the Middle East. She holds a PhD in Political Science and International Relations and was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow (VIGO) at Toronto Metropolitan University and the University of Copenhagen, leading a multi-year research project.

Her research examines how images shape migration governance and humanitarian action. She is the author of the open-access monograph Visual Securitization: Humanitarian Representations and Migration Governance (published in the IMISCOE series with Springer, 2021) and publishes peer-reviewed articles, chapters, and policy briefs translating empirical findings into usable insights for academics, policymakers, and practitioners. She also serves as a reviewer and invited speaker on visual methods and migration governance.

Alongside academia, Alice has served since 2020 as Humanitarian Adviser with the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, delivering context analysis and strategic foresight for senior decision-makers, including extensive work on the Sudan crisis, donor coordination and joint advocacy. She is also an EU expert on migration and humanitarian action, supporting European Commission bodies with evaluation and policy analysis, including migration analysis work at the Joint Research Centre.

Recent Publications

Triandafyllidou, A. & Massari, A. (forthcoming, April 2026) Special Issue – Visual Governance in Migration, Ethnicities, Volume 26, Issue 2

Massari, A. (2025), Visual Governance – Theorizing the role of images in migration governance (external link) , in Special Issue – Visual Governance in Migration, Massari, A. and Triandafyllidou, A. (eds), Ethnicities

Triandafyllidou, A. & Massari, A. (2025) Introduction to Special Issue – Visual Governance in Migration (external link) , Ethnicities, Volume 26, Issue 2

(2024). Migration agencies’ visual performance within the Border spectacle. The case of EU and Canadian institutions (external link) . Comparative Migration Studies, 12(1), 1-20.

(2024). The visual governance of Canadian migration agencies (external link) . Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 1–18.

with Mohlo, J. (2024). Can the arts challenge mainstream representations of migration? An Inquiry into the Aga Khan Museum’s Afghanistan My Love Exhibition (external link) , International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society.

(2023).  (PDF file) The role of images in migration governance. A proposed new theoretical framework and methodological approach, Working Papers Series produced jointly by the Toronto Metropolitan Centre for Immigration and Settlement and the CERC in Migration and Integration, Toronto Metropolitan University, Working Paper No. 2023/06 June 2023.

with Achilli, L. (2023). Enter the Boogeyman: representations of human smugglingin mainstream narratives of migration (external link) , Achilli L. and Kyle D. (eds), Global Human Smuggling. Buying Freedom in a Retreating World, Johns Hopkins University Press.

(2023). No countries for refugees. Canada and Europe’s shrinking asylum space (external link) , PKI Global Justice Journal, 325-344.

(2024).  (PDF file) “Reframing Migration: The Use of Visual Communication by Government Institutions”, CERC Migration Policy Brief 19, Toronto Metropolitan University.

(2023).  (PDF file) The role of images in migration governance. A proposed new theoretical framework and methodological approach. Working Paper.

(2021) Visual Securitization. Humanitarian Representations and Migration Governance, (external link)  IMISCOE/Springer series. 

(2021).  (excel file) Hollywood and the Myth of Criminal Convergence. The case of Sicario: Day of the Soldado (external link)  in Sanchez, G. and Achilli, L. (eds) The Illicit Global Economy Discourse.

Digital Scholarship

Massari, A. (2024), The power of images in migration governance (external link) , YouTube

Massari, A. (2024), What visuals define Canadian government migration communication? (external link)  YouTube

Massari, A. (2024), Different representation of different displacement crises (external link) , YouTube

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 101024772.