Research Interests
Communications and Media • Comparative Politics • International Relations • Migration • Migrant Political Inclusion • Positive Psychology • Race, Ethnicity and Politics • Security Studies
Biography
Dr Daniel William Szabo’s research examines how migrants have sought to develop and use network social capital as a survival strategy on high-risk migration routes and to facilitate integration into their host society. This is all while operating in an environment of increasingly securitised migration policies and barriers to migrant integration by states.
Daniel’s research, in part, challenges and responds to forms of anti-migrant rhetoric and other disingenuous framings of migrants. He provides a counter-narrative showing how migrants exercise agency in navigating various migration and integration experiences.
In this phase of his long-term research into high-risk migration, Daniel interviewed 101 individuals at three stages of their journey. All had the experience of travelling routes from countries in West Africa and through the Sahara Desert to reach Europe.
The outcomes make four distinct contributions. These are to:
1) Advance our understanding of the fragmented nature of contemporary migration journeys from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe.
2) Examine how European Union policy changes have increased the risks to migrants both on their journeys and their precarity within Europe once they arrive.
3) Reframe and add to our comprehension of agency by investigating migrants as resilient survivors.
4) Strengthen our perception of how migrants develop and use network-derived social capital during and after their journeys.
In addition to his dedication to academia and practice teaching, Daniel advocates for civil service. Daniel recently completed eleven years at International Organization for Migration (IOM), the leading intergovernmental organisation in migration. Most of Daniel’s time at IOM was focused on supporting the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) communications and media efforts in humanitarian responses. Helping raise visibility to DTM activities, which monitor and track human mobility, including displaced populations’ evolving needs and journeys in one hundred countries. Fully integrated into the UN system, IOM helps advance a comprehensive and coordinated response assisting migrants in numerous contexts.
Daniel developed his initial research on high-risk migration at Griffith University (Brisbane, Australia) and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (Berlin, Germany). His journey as a political scientist began at Capilano University (North Vancouver, Canada).
To Cite
Szabo, D.W. (2023). Extraordinary Decisions® Network-Derived Social Capital as a Survival Strategy on Routes Through the Sahara Desert [Doctoral thesis, Griffith University]. doi.org/10.25904/1912/4988
Good work on this. It's a substantial thesis and makes some real contributions.
Professor Luis Cabrera, Principal Supervisor
Deputy Head of School, Government and International Relations
School of Government and International Relations
Griffith University
This is a well-crafted and researched dissertation that makes four distinct contributions. It is ambitious and well-executed that clearly meets and exceeds the requirements of original research for a doctoral dissertation.
I look forward to seeing it as a book!
This is an excellent thesis. It addresses a timely and important issue, i.e. the conditions of migrants on high-risk migration routes. This thesis is very well written and draws on rigorous, comprehensive and methodologically sound research.
Centre for Migration Studies (CMS) 2025 Annual Research Conference: Migration, Mobilities, and Changing Political Landscapes, Place of Many Trees, Liu Institute for Global Issues, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 1 - 2 May.
European Consortium for Political Science Research (ECPR) General Conference 2025, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece, 26 - 29 August.
121st American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Meeting & Exhibition, Vancouver Convention Centre, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 10 - 14 September.
© 2025 Daniel William Szabo