Our people

Areas of expertise: political geography; camp geographies; informal migration; borders

Email: Jessica.collinsbojovic@acu.edu.au

Location: ACU Strathfield Campus

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8817-5045

I am a political geographer whose research interests culminate around the political geographies and governance of camps and borders along informal migration corridors, working in Australia and Serbia. I completed my PhD at Macquarie University in October of 2023, titled: "The political geographies of a camp archipelago: Exploring Serbia's institutional camp geographies along an informal migration corridor".

Recently, I have worked on projects focused on the closing of Australia's sub-national borders during the Covid-19 pandemic; healthcare in Australia's alternative places of detention; and the power of public spaces in NSW.

Additionally, I have over a decade of experience working in the Serbian civil society sector as the founding Co-Director of The Workshop: Belgrade, an organisation focused on providing education to refugees and asylum-seekers. This work has deepened my understanding of the human side of migration and allowed me to actively contribute to the well-being and integration of vulnerable populations into society.

I am passionate about bridging the gap between academia and real-world issues, and I am eager to continue making meaningful contributions in the fields of political geography and migration studies.

Website

Select publications

• Collins-Bojović J. (Accepted, in press) “‘The List’ Unveiled: Unravelling the Political Geographies of Detour Mobilities at the Serbian-Hungarian Border,” Mobility Humanities.
• Collins J. & Minca, C. (Forthcoming, 2025) “Camps and safe houses: Serbia’s geographies of     reception and care of unaccompanied and separate children,” In: Refugee Reception in Camps: Local and Global Perspectives / Oesch, L. and Lemaire, L. (eds.) Bristol: Bristol University Press.
• Collins J. & Minca, C. (2024) “Belgrade’s ‘Campscape’: Refugee Camp Geographies and Beyond,” Geopolitics. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2023.2279103
• Collins J., Minca, C. & Carter-White, R. (2022) “The camp as a custodian institution: the case of Krnjača Asylum Centre, Belgrade, Serbia,” Geografiska Annaler, Series B: Human Geography. https://doi.org/10.1080/04353684.2022.2154241
• Minca, C. & Collins, J. (2021) “The Game: or, ‘the making of migration’ along the Balkan Route,” Political Geography, 91, 102490. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102490
• Whittaker, J., Haynes, K., Wilkinson, C., Tofa, M., Dilworth, T., Collins, J., Tait, L. & Samson, S. (2021) “Black Summer – how the NSW community responded to the 2019-20 bushfire season”, Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, https://www.bnhcrc.com.au/publications/black-summer-nsw-community

Awards

• Highly Commended Paper Award, Institution of Australian Geographers, 2023.
• Visiting Scholar, University of Bologna, Italy, 2022.
• The Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research Commendation Award, Macquarie University, 2022.
• Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship, University of Niš, Serbia. 2015.