Team

Ċetta Mainwaring is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh.

Brittany Bovenzi is the Senior Project Officer for this UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship project.

Andonea Dickson is a research fellow in International Relations at the University of Edinburgh, working on the project “Immigration Detention: Investigating the Expansion and Global Diffusion of a Failed Project”. Andonea’s research focus is on migration, bordering, and carcerality. 

Thom Tyerman is a Research Fellow in International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. His research draws on postcolonial, everyday/vernacular, and activist theories and positionalities to examine borders and migrant solidarity politics. He has focused on the UK/Channel context for many years and is currently a research fellow on UKRI project 'Immigration Detention: Investigating the Expansion and Global Diffusion of a Failed Project’.

Saskia Smellie is a Senior Research Portfolio Manager at the ESRC focusing on research impact on public policy. She is a former Research Fellow in Politics and IR at the University of Edinburgh and specialises in comparative immigration policy, migration crises and diplomacy. Saskia has experience consulting the UK and Scottish governments as well as the European Commission on migration policy.

Kirstin Sonne is a PhD student in Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh, supervised by Dr Ċetta Mainwaring and Prof Ben Rosamond. Her PhD project focuses on civil society responses to the “migration crisis” in Malta and the UK. Prior to her PhD, she worked as a researcher and project officer at the University of Malta and the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, investigating, among other topics, the inclusion of migrants and refugees in higher education and the prevalence of racist and xenophobic hate speech in Maltese social media.