Rafik Arfaoui is a Postdoctoral researcher at GRITIM-UPF, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona – Spain). He works on the research project “BROAD-ER: Bridging the Migration and Urban Studies nexus” (2022-2025). His main research interests deal with the urban reconfigurations in both large-sized cities, small & medium-sized cities, and rural areas by the reception of asylum seekers and refugees’ narratives, practices, and policies.

Rafik holds a PhD in Geography & Urban Planning in December 2021 from the University of Clermont Auvergne (UCA), France. His PhD’s dissertation titled “Multiple territories, plural reception. Social geography of the reception of asylum seekers in non-metropolitan areas“, has received in April 2022 the “Great Prize of the city of Clermont-Ferrand”. From 2021 to 2025, Rafik is a research fellow at the French Collaborative Institute on Migration (Institut Convergences Migrations). In addition to his Research track, he has 5 years’ experience of teaching Geography and Urban Planning as a Research and teaching assistant at the University of Picardie Jules-Verne, the Polytechnic University Hauts-de-France and as a Lecturer at UCA.

Rafik holds a Master’s degree in Geography and Urban Planning in 2016 from UCA (France) and an Architectural Engineering degree in 2012 from Badji-Mokhtar University (Annaba, Algeria).