Research Interests

Current Research

My most recent monograph takes citizenship attribution and acquisition as the paramount example of how uncertainty constitutes a mode of governance:

(2021) Uncertain citizenship. Life in the waiting room, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

One feature of contemporary forms of naturalisation that I am particularly interested in relates to linguistic imperialism and 'raciolinguistics'. One chapter in the above book addresses this aspect. See also:

(2018) ‘On (not) speaking English: colonial legacies in language requirements for British Citizenship, Sociology, Vol. 52(6) 1254 –1269.

Other articles are on the politics of desire and anxiety that are constitutive of 'naturalisation':

(2017) 'The psychic life of policy: desire, anxiety and "citizinesation" in Britain', Critical Social Policy 36(4): 1-19.

(2017) 'The social life of citizenisation and naturalisation: outlining an analytical framework', COLLeGIUM: Studies Across Disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

(2013) ‘What’s the big deal? Naturalisation and the politics of desire’, Citizenship Studies 17 (6-7): 697–711

See also my blog piece Why applying for citizenship is an anxiety filled process – and not just for applicants

This recent work extends from my publications about forms of 'governing through affect' in the politics of 'community cohesion' in Britain under New Labour, which examines how interethnic proximities are conceived, monitored and managed. See Multicultural Horizons(Routledge, 2008), and 'Proximities by design? Affective citizenship and the management of unease' is published in Citizenship Studies 14(1) 2010.

Previous Research

Émigré cultures and transnational belongings

My PhD dissertation, now published as Migrant Belongings. Memory, Space, Identity (Berg, 2000), concerns the formation of an Italian émigré culture and identity within institutional discourses and practices of collective belonging(s). The book links theories of performativity and of diaspora, offering insights into the study of cultural identity, migration and diasporas. More specifically, I reassess questions of sex/gender, ethnicity and 'race' in relation to broader questions of culture, nation, and multilocal spaces of belonging. Using a combination of participant observation, semi-structured interviews and the analytical survey of printed documents, I examine the ways in which new meanings of identity are encased in different forms of representation of the Italian presence in Britain: written histories and monographs; cultural productions; politics of identity; and the daily life of two London-based church-cum-social clubs (where I pay special attention to the relationship between the construction of the identity of places and the formation of group identity). Advancing a corporeal approach to identity formation, I argue that displays of the Italian presence in London operate through the repetition of regulatory norms that produces the effect of materialisation of cultural belonging through the dual process of ethnicising and gendering of individual and collective 'bodies'. In addition, the prominence of 'memory work' in Italian practices of identity leads me to interrogate geographically based definitions of diaspora.

Queer migrations and queer diasporas

In some of my past publications, I extended my expertise in migration and diaspora studies by bringing questions of sexuality more to the fore. My interest here include:

'queer diasporas': this includes a critical intervention of queer theory in theoretical discourses of diaspora, as well as an interest in the deployment the notion of a 'queer diaspora' in some quarters of queer theory, to describe the transnationalisation of the queer movement and of queer culture.

'queer migration': I have written about narratives of queer migrations and their conceptions of home and emancipation.

Current Teaching

The courses I usually convene or contribute to include the following:

• Sociological Thought for Our Times (Undergraduate - bloc on decolonising sociology)
• Racisms and Racial Formations (Undergraduate)
• Nations and Migration (Undergraduate)
• Researching Migration (Postgraduate)

Current doctoral supervision:

Davut Costu – Everyday religion in the Turkish speaking community in the North West of England

Jihyun Choi -- The Neoliberal Multicultural Development in Migrant Urban Areas: A Case Study of Wongok-dong Migrant Town in Ansan, South Korea

Özum Dagdslen – Experiences of migrant health care professionals working in the North West of England

Lidia Kuzemska –Practices of ‘bordering’ and ‘othering’ of internally displaced persons from the Donbas in Ukraine

Tasneem Sharkawi – political subjectivities in the activism of Syrian forced migrants in Europe

Past doctoral supervision/postdoctoral mentoring

Sarah Becklake - The Making of 'Destino Guatemala'. The Politics and Embodiment of 'Global Tourism Competition' in La Antigua, GuatemalaMia FalovNeighbourhood Regeneration and Social Exclusion in Denmark and England

Michaela Fay Internationalisms: Feminism, Mobility, Belonging: Exploring the International Women's University 'Technology and Culture'

Jennie Germann Molz Destination World: Performing the Self and the Global in Round-the-World Travel Narratives

Elisabeth Grindel - Temporary Sojours in the Periphery. Spouses of International Students in Lancaster, United Kingdom

Nina Held - research topic: race, sexuality and space in lesbian bars

Joyce Hsiu-Yeh Journey to the West: Traveling, Learning and Consuming Englishness

Adi Kuntsman Violent belongings: Russian-speaking GLBT immigrants in Israel

Will Lawrence Screening the commune: popular tele/visions of domestic discontent

Chun-Yu Lin - 'From Strangers to Spouses'? International Marriage Immigrants in Taiwan

Leon Moosavi Defying Gravity: 'Race', Islamophobia and Belonging in the Experiences of Muslim Convverts in Britain

Elisavet Pakis Playing in the Dark: Performing (Im)possible Lesbian Subjects

Muzeyyen Pandir - Orientalism in the European Union: A Critical Analysis of EU narratives on the EU, Europe and Turkey

Ana Bê Pereira - Constellations and Corporalities: Ableism and Disablism in the Lives of People Living with a Chronic Illness – Towards a Paradigm of Sustained Wellbeing

Sabrina Squires - Queer-Class Conjunctures:Class In/visibility in LGBTQ Politics and Lives

Lewis Turner Passing and crossing; an ethnography of gender transition

Hasan Yilmaz – Internal Migrants and Everyday Islam in the Turkish Context

PhD Supervision Interests

I would be interested in supervising research students within the areas related to my research interests, for example: Citizenship and migration, including but not restricted to: citizenship naturalisation processes, citizenship training or the like (e.g. citizenship curriculum in England; citizenship classes and ceremonies for immigrants),citizenship and affect. Migration and related aspects, including but not restricted to: migrant/diasporic/transnational lives; migration and national politics (policies, border controls, etc.), queer migrations, etc.. Multiculturalisms; 'race', racisms;