Ayushman Bhagat was previously a Post-Doctoral Fellow – TraffLab (ERC) and Parasol Fellow, Buchmann Faculty of Law at Tel-Aviv University, Israel. He received a Ph.D from the Department of Geography at Durham University, UK. Before enrolling as a research postgraduate, Ayushman implemented and evaluated several programmes related to human trafficking, migration, forced/bonded labour, and modern slavery at the policy level (the ILO, social sector consultancies, and government departments), and assisted several communities in the evolution of self-governing institutions in and around wildlife sanctuaries at the grassroots level (NGOs). With more than eight years of social issue-based engagement across multiple geographic locations, Ayushman positions himself as an action-oriented and output-driven development professional.

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Research at TraffLab: Bhagat aims to conduct a pilot research project in Qatar and Malaysia to highlight Nepali workers’ everyday practices and responses against rightlessness, oppression, and exploitation they experience. On the basis of that, Ayushman plans to write a larger research project to examine the interplay between diverse practices of people on the move and the effect of (anti-) trafficking and modern slavery discourse along the South-Asia-Middle East Migration corridor.