Dr. Koen Leurs

Muntstraat 2-2a
Muntstraat 2-2A
Kamer 1.09
3512 EV Utrecht

Dr. Koen Leurs

Universitair hoofddocent
Genderstudies
030 253 6447
k.h.a.leurs@uu.nl

Koen Leurs is an associate professor in Gender, Media and Migration Studies at the Graduate Gender Program, Department of Media and Culture, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He works on digital migration studies.

His most recent books are Digital Migration, published with Sage in June 2023; and Doing Digital Migration Studies, published with Amsterdam University Press in March 2024 (open access). 

Currently, together with Annamária Neag and Çigdem Bozdag, Koen is writing the book Inclusive Media Education: Critical Media Literacies for Diverse Societies, under contract with Routledge, in the series Routledge Research in Media Literacy and Education

Currently, 2023- onwards Koen is part of the Management Committee of the Cost-Action DATA-MIG CA22135 - Data Matters: Sociotechnical Challenges of European Migration and Border Control. In this network, he is part of  the leadership of the Inventory: Working group 1.   

Recently, Leurs was the PI of the Team Science project Co-designing a fair digital asylum procedure, funded by the Dgital Society (‘DiSa’) programme (a research programme by all fourteen Dutch research universities) and COMMIT/, a public-private ICT research community (2022-2023). 

Previously, he was recently the principal investigator of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research-funded study “Young Connected Migrants. Comparing Digital Practices of Young Asylum Seekers and Expatriates in the Netherlands,” ('16-'19) and the Dutch National Research Agenda funded participatory action research project “Media literacy through Making Media: A Key to Participation for Young Newcomers.” ('17-'19). His first monograph is titled Digital Passages. Migrant Youth 2.0. Diaspora, Gender & Youth Cultural Intersections (Amsterdam University Press, 2015). In 2018 he guest-edited a special issue on “Connected migrants: Encapsulation and cosmopolitanization” for Popular Communication. International Journal of Media and Culture (volume 16.1, 2018) with Sandra Ponzanesi, and a special issue on “Forced migration and digital connectivity in(to) Europe” for Social Media + Society (with Kevin Smets).  Most recently he co-edited the Sage Handbook of Media and Migration together with Kevin Smets, Saskia Witteborn, Myria Georgiou and Radhika Gajjala.

With Earvin Cabalquinto he is co-editing a special issue for the International Journal of Cultural Studies on the theme of "Cultures of (im)mobile entanglements: charting the lifewords of (im)mobile subjects in and beyond pandemic times’(im)mobile" based on the Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University, Australia (https://adi.deakin.edu.au/events/cultures-of-immobile-entanglements)

With Çigdem Bozdag (University of Groningen / University of Bremen) and Annamária Neag (Charles University), Koen in 2022 he edited the special issue "Inclusive Media Literacy Education for Diverse Societies", for the journal Media and Communication. 

With Sandra Ponzanesi he has co-edited a special issue for Communication, Culture & Critique in 2022 on the theme of "Migrant belongings", on the basis of the Migrant Belongings. Digital Practices and the Everyday conference (https://www.uu.nl/en/events/international-conference-migrant-belongings-digital-practices-and-the-everyday). Read the articles here.  

He was the previous chair of the European Communication Research and Education (ECREA) Diaspora, Migration and the Media section ('16-'21).