Marry-Anne Karlsen has a background in human geography and social anthropology. She was awarded an ERC Starting Grant in 2022 for her project Contested Knowledges in and through Asylum Litigation (ASYKNOW).

Her research interests also cover the interplay between migration law, the welfare state, and border politics. Her book Migration Control and Access to Welfare: The Precarious Inclusion of Irregular Migrants in Norway was published as an open access monograph on Routledge (2021).

Karlsen headed a work package for the RCN-funded project, TemPro: Temporary protection as a durable solution? The 'return turn' in asylum policies in Europe, which investigated the increased use of temporary terms of asylum for people with a recognized need for protection in Norway, Denmark, Germany, and the UK. The project was a collaboration between legal scholars and ethnographers. Karlsen co-edit with Jessica Schultz the living web resource Interdisciplinarity in Migration Research: Combining law and anthropology.

Karlsen was also part of the EU-funded project PROTECT: The Right to International Protection. A Pendulum between Globalization and Nativization? As part of this project, she has conducted fieldwork in Cádiz, Spain on the field level governance of migration and refugee protection.

From 2016-2020, Karlsen worked as a postdoctoral fellow on the RCN-funded project Waiting for an uncertain future: the temporalities of irregular migration (WAIT). Here she uses temporality as an analytical lens to examine power relations and experiences related to irregularized migration. Together with Christine Jacobsen and Shahram Khosravi, she co-edited the volume Waiting and the Temporalities of irregular migration, which provides theoretical and empirical nuance to the concept of waiting in migration research. The volume, published on Routledge (2021), is open access, and can be freely downloaded.

Karlsen is a board member of IMER Bergen (International Migration and Ethnic Relations Research Unit Bergen), which she previously led (2018-2021).She is also a former board member of Nordic Migration Research and the Norwegian Network for Migration Research.

2023

Retten til familieliv er en menneskerettighet. Norge nekter flyktninger denne rettigheten (The right to a family life is a human right. Norway is denying refugees this right) Opinion piece in Norwegian daily Vårt Land, 20.04.2023 (behind paywall, the piece was also published in the paper version 21.04.23)

2022

Seks norske forskere får EUs stipend for unge lovende. Article in Forskerforum about the ERC Starting Grant award. 22.11.2022 (in Norwegian)

European Research Council awards €636m in grants to emerging science talent across Europe. Press release from the European Research Council about the ERC Starting Grant Award 2022

Hun er en av seks forskere i Norge som kan juble over millioner i ERC-stipend. Article in Khrono about the ERC Starting Grant award. 22.11.2022 (in Norwegian)

Press release from UiB about the ERC Starting Grant Award 2022: Europeisk tildeling til UiB-forsking på migrasjon og diamantbelegg. 22.11.2022 (in Norwegian)

What role does expert knowledge play in asylum litigation? UiB article about ERC Starting Grant award. 22.11.2022

Hva skjer hvis flyktningene ikke kan reise hjem raskt? (What happens if the refugees cannot return quickly?) Opinion piece in Norwegian daily Bergens Tidende (in Norwegian). 12.03.2022

Collective protection as a short-term solution: European responses to the protection needs of refugees from the war in Ukraine. Blog post on EU Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy blog. 8.03.2022

2021

Book launch for Karlsen's monograph Migration Control and Access to Welfare - The Precarious Inclusion of Irregular Migrants in Norway

• Watch the recording here.

Chronopolitics and Knowledge Production in Migration Studies. Presentation with Jacobsen, Christine, M., Presentation at the Center for Race & Gender, University of California, Berkeley. Co-sponsored by the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative, the Department of Scandinavian, and supported by the Peder Sather Foundation

• Watch the recording here.

Co-editor of the resource site Interdisciplinarity in Migration Research: Combining law and anthropology

Blog post with Kari Anne Drangsland: Addressing the co-production of law and time in regularisation processes: legal and ethnographic lines of enquiry

Blog post with Kari Anne Drangsland: Multiple, uneven and relational time in ethnographic research

Presentation at the Centre of Excellence Jean Monnet at Universidad de Cádiz, Spain: The protection of refugees and migrants in an era of hardening borders.

20th Nordic Migration Research Conference - Karlsen and her TemPro colleagues organized the panel Precarious Inclusion: Migrants and Refugees in Contemporary Welfare States.

2020

Launching the Bergen School of Global Studies - Karlsen presented a snapshot of IMER Bergen (International Migration and Ethnic Relations Research Unit Bergen) in the programme post: Existing building blocks:innovative courses, programs, centres & initiatives.

• Watch the recording here.

WAIT closing conference - Waiting for uncertain futures: Time and migration. Karlsen presented project work and chaired the session Temporality and waiting as analytical prisms in migration studies.

• Watch recordings from the conference here.

WAIT project blog post with Kari Anne Drangsland, Christine M. Jacobsen and Jessica Schultz: How is the Covid-19 pandemic affecting migrants with precarious legal status?

WAIT project blog post with Kari Anne Drangsland and Christine M. Jacobsen: Waiting for uncertain futures in pandemic times.

Lecture

• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2015). Helsehjelp for papirløse. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2015). Eksepsjonell velferd? Irregulære migranter i det norske velferdssamfunnet. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2024). Den nye midlertidigheten i norsk og europeisk asylpolitikk. (external link)
• Hakan G. Sicakkan; Marry-Anne Karlsen; Cornelius Wright Cappelen et al. (2023). Sluttkonferanse: FNs nye flyktningplattform og norsk flyktning- og asylpolitikk. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2014). Irregulære migranter i velferdsstaten: juridiske og sosiale utfordringer.. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2014). Irregular migrants' access to healthcare in Norway. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2019). Healthcare through the temporal lens of migration control. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2018). Helseforskriften - Praktiske og etiske dilemma for helsepersonell. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2018). Retten til arbeid og ureturnerbare asylsøkere med avslag. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2017). Hva haster og hva kan vente? Krisebetegnelsens betydning for og i asyl-og flyktningpolitikken.. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2015). Helsepersonell som grensekontrollører. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2022). ‘For two years I have been in a large prison’: Temporary protection and entangled im/mobility.. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen; Jessica Schultz (2023). Contested Childhood in the Context of Migration; 2 week PhD course. (external link)

Editorial/Leader article

• Susanne Bygnes; Marry-Anne Karlsen (2017). Krise og kontinuitet i mottak av flyktninger i Norden. (external link)

Academic monograph

• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2021). Migration Control and Access to Welfare The Precarious Inclusion of Irregular Migrants in Norway. (external link)

Book anthology

• Christine M. Jacobsen; Shahram Khosravi; Marry-Anne Karlsen (2020). Waiting and the Temporalities of Irregular Migration. (external link)

Media feature article

• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2023). Drangsland, KA., og Karlsen M-A. (2023). Retten til familieliv er en menneskerettighet. Norge nekter flyktninger denne rettigheten. Kronikk. Vårt Land. 21. april . (external link)
• Jessica Schultz; Marry-Anne Karlsen; Kari Anne Klovholt Drangsland (2022). Hva skjer hvis flyktningene ikke kan returnere innen kort tid?. (external link)

Conference lecture

• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2018). How long time is enough?’ Exploring irregular migration, time and belonging. (external link)
• Christine M. Jacobsen; Synnøve Kristine Nepstad Bendixsen; Marry-Anne Karlsen (2014). Provision of Welfare to Irregular Migrants: Exploring the borders of the Norwegian Welfare State. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2014). Institutional practices and irregular migrants’ access to welfare in Norway. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2014). Enacting the border in the medical encounter. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen; Kari Anne Klovholt Drangsland (2022). ‘For two years I have been in a large prison’: Temporary protection and immobility. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2018). Precarious inclusion as a strategy of government: Irregular migration and the Norwegian welfare state. (external link)
• Margit Ystanes; Christine M. Jacobsen; Randi Gressgård et al. (2019). Roundtable: Creativity, Resistance, and Change in Times of Crises: Who is the Subject Speaking?. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2014). Health care and immigration control - practical and ethical implications for service providers. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2022). Encountering the legal discipline from a legal anthropological perspective. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2024). Protection policies and the politics of the future. (external link)
• Christine M. Jacobsen; Marry-Anne Karlsen (2024). Un/doing temporalities in migration research. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2014). Compassionate repression? Welfare to irregular migrants in Norway. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen; Christine M. Jacobsen (2021). Chronopolitics and Knowledge Production in Migration Studies. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2018). Imagining Im/migrant Futures: Potentiality in Im/migration Studie. Roundtable discussion with Jennifer A. Cook, Georgina Kathleen Ramsay, Diana Ibanez Tirado, Jaeeun Kim, Susan C. Bibler Coutin, and Samuel Martinez. (external link)

Academic book chapter

• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2016). Migration control and children's access to healthcare. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen; Kari Anne Klovholt Drangsland; Knut Hidle (2014). The conditions for hospitality in the Norwegian asylum reception system. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2015). Når helsevesenet blir en del av migrasjonskontrollen – etiske og praktiske dilemmaer for helsepersonell. (external link)
• Christine M. Jacobsen; Marry-Anne Karlsen (2020). Introduction: Unpacking the temporalities of irregular migration. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2020). Waiting out the condition of illegality in Norway. (external link)
• Christine M. Jacobsen; Marry-Anne Karlsen (2023). The Meanings of Chronopolitics and Temporal Awareness in Feminist Ethnographic Research. (external link)
• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2017). The Limits of Egalitarianism: Irregular Migration and the Norwegian Welfare State. (external link)

Research report

• Helene Marie Kjærgård Eide; Anne Homme; Marry-Anne Karlsen et al. (2016). Integrering i praksis: Helse- og omsorgssektoren som opplærings- og kvalifiseringsarena for flyktninger og innvandrere. (external link)
• Christine M. Jacobsen; Marry-Anne Karlsen; Vearey Jo (2022). Draft analysis of how networks of international, national and local actors collaborate to reduce vulnerabilities on Six Sites in Europe, Canada, and South Africa. (external link)
• Christine M. Jacobsen; Marry-Anne Karlsen; Jo Vearey (2022). How key actors and stakeholders apply the notion of vulnerability in Europe, Canada, and South Africa. (external link)
• Kari Anne K. Drangsland; Malin Dahle; Marry-Anne Karlsen (2016). Norskopplæring for personer i asylmottak. (external link)

Academic article

• Marry-Anne Karlsen (2023). Governing migration through vulnerability at Spain’s southern maritime border: a malleable concept in a securitised and marketised regime. (external link)
• Helene Marie Kjærgård Eide; Anne Homme; Marry-Anne Karlsen et al. (2017). Omsorgssektoren som integreringsarena: En hurtig og enkel vei til varig arbeid for flyktninger og innvandrere? [The social care sector as arena for integration : a fast and easy way to stable employment for refugees and immigrants?]. (external link)
• Christine M. Jacobsen; Marry-Anne Karlsen (2025). Vulnerability as a Globally Mobile Policy Concept in Migration Governance: A Comparative Study. (external link)

Doctoral thesis (PhD)

• Marry-Anne Karlsen; Christine M. Jacobsen (2015). Precarious inclusion. Irregular migration, practices of care, and state b/ordering in Norway. (external link)

Media interview

• Frode Eick; Marry-Anne Karlsen; Per Nortvedt (2015). Sykepleiere må tenke selv. (external link)

See a complete overview of publications in Cristin.

Newest publication:

Jacobsen, C. M., & Karlsen, M. A., (2025) Vulnerability as a Globally Mobile Policy Concept in Migration Governance: A Comparative Study. International Migration Review, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/0197918325132360

Karlsen, M.-A. (2023) Governing migration through vulnerability at Spain’s southern maritime border: a malleable concept in a securitised and marketised regime, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 50(4), 873–890 https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2264516 

Jacobsen, C. M., & Karlsen, M. A., (2023) The Meanings of Chronopolitics and Temporal Awareness in Feminist Ethnographic Research. In N. Lykke, R. Koobak, P. Bakos, S. Arora, and K. Mohamed (eds.) Pluriversal Conversations on Transnational Feminisms: And Words Collide from a Place, Routledge: London and New York. 

Karlsen, Marry-Anne (2021). Migration Control and Access to Welfare: The Precarious Inclusion of Irregular Migrants in Norway. London and New York, Routledge.

Jacobsen, C. M., Karlsen, M. A., & Khosravi, S. (eds., 2020). Waiting and the Temporalities of Irregular Migration. London and New York: Routledge

For a full overview, see ResearchGate profile and below.

ASYKNOW: Contested Knowledges in and through Asylum Litigation. ERC Starting Grant (2023-2028)

TEMPRO: Temporary protection as a durable solution? The 'return turn' in asylum policies in Europe. Financed by the Research Council of Norway, RCN (2020 – 2024)        

PROTECT: The Right to International Protection. A Pendulum between Globalization and Nativization? Financed by Horizon 2020 (2020 – 2023)

Native/Immigrant/Refugee: Immobility and Movement Across Contested Grounds. Collaboration with the Center for Race & Gender, University of California, Berkeley. Financed by the Peder Sather Center (2020 – 2022)

Native/Immigrant/Refugee: Crossings and Divides. Collaboration with the Center for Race & Gender, University of California, Berkeley. Financed by the Peder Sather Center (2018 – 2020)

Waiting for an uncertain future: the temporalities of irregular migration (WAIT). Financed by RCN (2017 - 2020).

New Tools for Transnational Analysis in Postgraduate Intersectional Gender Research. Financed by the Swedish Foundation for International Collaboration in Research and Higher Education. (2016 – 2019)       

Provision of Welfare to Irregular Migrants. Financed by RCN (2011 – 2015)