• Since April 2023: doctoral candidate, Chair of Sociology / Transnationalization, Migration and Work, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
• July 2021 - March 2023: doctoral candidate, HAW Hessen Promotionszentrum Soziale Arbeit
• 2016-2019 Master’s degree in Sociology and European Ethnology, Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt
• 2013-2016 Bachelor’s degree in International Sociology, Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and Università degli Studi di Trento (double degree programme).

• Since March 2022 Research Fellow at Chair of Sociology / Transnationalization, Migration and Work and in the research project “The Emergence of Urban Border Spaces in Europe”, founded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
• 2020 - 2022 Research Fellow in the DFG research project “The emergence of urban border spaces in Europe”, Department of Social Work, Hochschule Darmstadt
• 2017 - 2019 Lecturer for lecture-accompanying exercises on the topic “Introduction to Sociology”, Department of Sociology / General Sociology and Sociological Theory, Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

• Fattorelli, Elena, 2024: Administrative control mechanisms in the descent-based family reunification of refugees, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 47(12), 1-22, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2024.2345459.
• Fauser, Margit, Corinna A. Di Stefano & Elene Fattorelli, 2023, Multiple Facets of Borderwork: Urban Actors Between Migrants' Struggles and State Control, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 44(1), 61-76, DOI:10.1080/07256868.2022.2159340.

• 07/2024 "Westernized" or even "Europeanized" notions of "proper" bureaucracy: The documentary evidence regime of family reunification in Spain, 7th Neuchâtel Graduate Conference of Migration and Mobility Studies, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
• 11/2023 "There is often no contemplation here". Ignorance in the assessment of family reunification applications of migrant parents and children with roots or family members in East/ Sub-Saharan Africa, Strange(r) Families Conference, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam.
• 07/2023 "The normative control of the migrant family through family reunification", 20th IMISCOE Conference 2023 "Migration and Inequalities. In search of answers and solutions", Warsaw.
• 07/2023 (with Prof. Dr. Margit Fauser) "Migrant Employment as Privilege and Duty", 20th IMISCOE Conference 2023 "Migration and Inequalities. In search of answers and solutions", Warsaw.
• 05/2023 "Administrative control mechanisms in the desent-based family reunification of refugees", international workshop "Mapping the internal border", Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum
• 09/2022 (with Prof. Dr. Margit Fauser) "Erwerbstätigkeit von Migrant*innen zwischen Privileg und Pflicht", DGS-Kongress 2022 "Polarisierte Welten", Ad-hoc-Gruppe "Erwerbslosigkeit unter den Bedingungen gesellschaftlicher Transformation. Polarisierung der Erwerbsarbeitsnorm?", Bielefeld
• 04/2022 „Zivilgesellschaftliche Akteure in Urbanen Grenzräumen zwischen De- und Rebordering“, Offene Frühjahrstagung der Sektion Migration und ethnische Minderheiten der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie
• 11/2021 “If you can't prove that, it's a potential lie”: suspicion and other control mechanisms underlying family reunification, Online Workshop „Mapping the internal border” organisiert im Rahmen des DFG-Projekts „Die Entstehung Urbaner Grenzräume in Europa“
• 06/2021 “Between support and border work: An investigation of local counselling actors in family reunification“, MIGRAKOLLOQ - Interdisciplinary Colloquium for Early Stage Migration Researchers

Urban border spaces in family reunification to and from children and parents: an international comparative study between Frankfurt am Main and Madrid with a focus on refugees and migrants from East/Sub-Saharan Africa

My dissertation project aims to study family reunification as a field of migration control that acts both as an external border (for the family members remaining in the country of origin) and as an internal or urban border (for the migrant legally residing in the territory). The study focuses in particular on family reunification procedures for refugees or migrants from East/Sub-Saharan Africa. These are examined from the point of view of how different culturally dependent family conceptions and models are dealt with at the local level. This is done on the basis of an international comparative study of two cities, Frankfurt am Main and Madrid, with the aim of showing similarities and differences in different urban contexts with regard to each city's positioning on migration and family reunification.

By using the term “urban border space” (Fauser 2019), I emphasise the role of the city as a space where borders are produced and negotiated between a variety of actors. In order to understand how the border operates locally through family reunification, my analysis considers two levels: the state, which sets the national legal framework for family reunification, and the local actors of migration administration and counselling who interpret and implement this framework at the local level. Methodologically, I rely on reconstructive qualitative empirical social research according to the coding principles of Grounded Theory Methodology. To explore their subjective-normative perspectives and principles, approximately 10-15 narrative expert interviews will be conducted with local front-line guidance actors in each city.