Melina FISCHER, BA MSc
Research Assistant and Ph.D. Fellow

Paris Lodron University of Salzburg | Department of Sociology and Human Geography | Division of Sociology
Rudolfskai 42, A-5020 Salzburg

Tel.: +43 (0)662-8044-4112
E-Mail:

Room: 026

Melina Fischer is a research assistant at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Salzburg since March 2024. She is a doctoral researcher, working in the field of social change and mobilities. Her interdisciplinary academic background includes a BA in International Relations and Social Sciences from the University of Erfurt and an MA. Sc in Cultural Anthropology from Utrecht University, which she pursued with a DAAD scholarship. Her interests include critical whiteness studies, critical border studies, reflexive methodologies, and feminist epistemologies.

Her dissertation explores how whiteness operates institutionally within activist organizations that support migrants and contest the violence of the European border regime. Drawing on an intersectional framework and informed by decolonial and feminist thought, her research investigates how intersecting structures of power – including race, gender, and class – shape the institutional practices and internal dynamics of these organizations. Through participatory ethnographic fieldwork in Senegal, Sicily, and Austria/Germany, she collaborates with actors engaged in migrant support work to critically reflect on structural inequalities and co-develop strategies for institutional change. Melina’s approach is grounded in engaged ethnography, and her research is shaped by her activist involvement with PushBack Alarm Salzburg.

Member of Migration and Mobilities Lab (MML)

Member of  IMISCOE SC RACED