Araitz Peña Mallona

Araitz Peña Mallona is a PhD researcher at the University of Deusto's Faculty of Social and Human Sciences and the Instituto de Derechos Humanos Pedro Arrupe. She holds a degree in International Relations and Law from the University of Deusto and a Master's in Spanish Legal Practice from the Bar Association of Bizkaia and the same university.

• Current focus on Human Rights research
• Specializes in international protection and social group membership
• Professional experience in migration law and asylum seeker legal advising

Her research examines how Spanish asylum law creates internal borders through administrative practices that regulate migrant lives. Using decolonial feminism, she analyzes exclusion zones, waiting periods, and inclusion mechanisms that reproduce systemic discrimination based on race, gender, and sexual orientation. Her work addresses legal gaps in subsidiary protection for Colombian asylum seekers and changes in social group definitions post-European Regulation 2024/1347.

Araitz has presented at conferences like Ikergazte 2025 and contributed to journals such as Criticism and Resistance. Her publications focus on theoretical approaches to bordering processes, gender invisibility in refugee status determination, and legal persecution of migrant rights defenders in European border contexts.