Maggie Neil  

DPhil Candidate

Affiliation: Refugee Studies Centre, Department of International Development
Expert in: Borders and detention, Migration narratives, representations, and public opinion
Geographic focus: Europe and the Central Mediterranean

Maggie's work examines how inclusion and exclusion of non-citizens occurs within the boundaries of the nation-state. She looks at the way local history, identity, and social change are affected by but also affect highly mediatised arrivals of newcomers (asylum-seekers and racialized others with migration backgrounds) within areas that are already treated as 'peripheral' in discourse and policy. Through long-term ethnographic fieldwork, she investigates how 'hosts' respond to new arrivals and what impact this has on the lives of these newcomers. She works in Sicily, at one of the borders of Europe, considering reception centres for asylum-seekers, informal housing encampments, and local groups that describe themselves as 'anti-racist' and/or 'pro-migration'.