Marijke Van Buggenhout

I am a member of the Crime and Society research group (VUB), as well as the research unit Childhood, Culture, and Cognition at BRISPO (VUB), where I am currently a senior researcher on the SBO project “Primary Prejudice,” in which she helps to build an empirical children’s rights perspective. I hold a Master’s in Criminological Science (VUB) and my doctoral research tackled the intricacies of asylum procedures involving children and young adults, shedding light on their experiences with these procedures. A common thread running throughout my work is the interest in participatory inquiries, particularly examining children’s experiences and advocating for a more active and central role for young people in academic and societal dialogues. For my Ph.D., I integrated collaborative filmmaking into an ethnographic study focused on young newcomers in Brussels, resulting in the impactful collaborative documentary “Paper Borders” (Papieren Grenzen). Within the “Primary Prejudice”-project I am responsible for helping to develop and implement an empirical children’s rights perspective throughout the study.

Research keywords:

youth justice, migration and asylum, decision making processes, voicing, social exclusion