Naiara Rodríguez Pena is a Postdoctoral Researcher within the PATHWAYS project (Development implications of involuntary immobility in Africa) at the Department for Migration and Globalisation. 

Naiara is interested in understanding how migration arises and how it affects the development of the self as well as local development. Her research has focused on the formation and realization of migration and stay aspirations, the theorization of cap/abilities, the adaptation mechanisms that follow unfulfilled aspirations, and the two-way relationship between development and migration. As part of the Pathways project team (Development implications of involuntary immobility in Africa), she currently investigates how unrealized migration aspirations affect life goals, future-oriented behaviour, subjective well-being and overall development in West Africa. This project, based at the University for Continuing Education Krems and the University of Ghent, follows a mixed-methods approach and examines the effects of involuntary immobility on development from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective. 

Prior to joining the Department for Migration and Globalisation in Krems, she carried out qualitative and mixed-methods fieldwork in the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Brazil, and, in PATHWAYS, she is in charge of the qualitative fieldwork in Senegal. Naiara holds a joint PhD in Migration and Modernity from the University of Kent and the University of Montpellier. She has been involved in various research projects on migration aspirations (Marie Curie ITN project MOVES, 2019-2023), the migration-development nexus (ERC Consolidator Grant MADE – Migration as Development), and changes in citizens’ opinions about the EU and European integration (ERC EUROPINIONS). She is also Adjunct Professor at the University of Business Innovation and Sustainability Washington. 

X: @n_rodriguezpena