About
I am a feminist geographer who studies the connections between people and places, and issues that criss-cross primarily cultural, social, political, development and environmental geographies. I do this through the lenses of migration, mobility and everyday life, with particular emphasis on their links to development, gender, ageing and care. My own empirical work centres on migration from Albania, and I supervise doctoral research projects that examine migration in India, Pakistan, the Philippines, the UK, with a new project on older people and migration between China and Japan starting next year.
I am also main supervisor for a PhD project that aims to examine antiblackness in environmentalism, focusing on the Black environmental movement in the UK. This is funded by the 'Black Futures' Faculty (FELS) Scholarship of Excellence.
Within the University of Southampton, I contribute to various research centres, networks and working groups, such as the Southampton Centre for Eastern European and Eurasian Studies, Southampton's Centre for Transnational Studies (as a member of its Advisory Committee), the University's Working Group which is preparing the application for the Unviversity of Sanctuary status, and the University's Migration Network.
Beyond Southampton, examples include serving on the IMISCOE's Research Network Jury that awards the Maria Bagahna Dissertation Award for the best PhD thesis in the field of migration, integration and social cohesion in Europe (2019-2021), and peer reviewing for research funding bodies such as the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Baker Fund Awards at Ohio University (USA).
Since 2021, I have been working with colleagues as part of the Organising Group of the Birkbeck-based cross-disciplinary, cross-institutional network on Ageing, Care and the Caring Crisis, to critically interrogate concepts of age and care, and imagine new ways of thinking about them.
My interest in the ways in which marginalised people, including migrants, are caught up at the intersection of borders, migration and incarceration, has led me to join the RGS/IBG Carceral Geographies Working Group (since 2017). My current thinking on this has been deeply inspired by Prof. Gilmore's theorisation of the abolition geography and freedom as a place.
My research and teaching are informed by anti-racist and feminist epistemology and praxis, which I also seek to apply to my daily life. I am a committed educator and a supportive colleague who strives to create an environment where individuals can thrive individually and as part of communities.