Greta Albertari is a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam Centre for Migration and Refugee Law. Her research examines the codification of European asylum law through practices developed in external EU Member States, particularly Italy and Greece. She focuses on the hotspot approach, screening and border procedures, and practices of de facto detention. Her work adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining legal ethnography and document analysis in triangulation with legal doctrinal methods. As part of her research, she has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in both Italy and Greece.
Prior to commencing her PhD, Greta completed an LL.M. in International Migration and Refugee Law at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and an LL.M. in Public International and European Law at the University of Amsterdam in 2019. She subsequently worked for two years in Greece, first as a legal advisor for asylum seekers and later as a legal coordinator for an NGO operating on the island of Chios.
In 2021, she moved to Italy, where she worked for Save the Children as a child protection officer at the Italian borders. In this role, she acted as a legal advisor for unaccompanied and separated minors, working at both internal (Trieste) and external (Catania and Lampedusa) borders. She later worked with ASGI (the Italian Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration) on a project focusing on Italian and European practices of externalisation, contributing to research and strategic litigation.
During her PhD, she has continued to collaborate with Italian and Greek organisations as part of her legal ethnography, contributing to activities such as strategic litigation and reporting.