Experts Database

Karen has been researching migration, mainly using ethnographic methods, since the early 1990s. Starting with British emigration to Spain, she wrote the British on the Costa del Sol in 2000 (Routledge). She then spent several years establishing the field of lifestyle migration, and is especially known for the edited volume Lifestyle Migration: relations experiences and expectations (Ashgate 2009, ed with M. Benson). Later she has focused on employing sociological theory for broader understandings of migration processes. This work has been published in international Migration and Social Theory, (Palgrave 2012), and Lifestyle Migration and Colonial traces in Malaysia and Panama (Palgrave 2018, with M. Benson).

Karen’s main contribution to migration studies has been to advocate the telling of practice stories to elucidate the structural and agentic aspects of migration processes and how these interrelate over time. This has informed much of her work, including the recently published International Labour migration to Europe’s Rural Regions (Routledge 2021, ed with J.F. Rye).

Research Fellow, Northumbria University (UK), University of Gothenburg (Sweden)

I am a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, with a specialisation in Migration Studies. My research interests include return migration, (re)integration, transnationalism and community dynamics. I am an experienced migration researcher with a focus on Afghanistan - including fieldwork with Afghan migrants, refugees and returnees in Afghanistan, India, UK, Norway and the USA.

Özlem is a Research Fellow and Research Lead for the Centre on Household Assets and Savings Management (CHASM) within the Department of Social Policy, Sociology and Criminology at the University of Birmingham, developing and undertaking research into issues of poverty, precarity and financial insecurity amongst socially and economically marginalised and migrant groups. Her research expertise and interests centre on the politics of migration, conceptualisation and ethics of belonging, inequality, and exclusion in the context of forced migration. Her PhD focused on the nexus of (unaccompanied) youth migration, belonging and immigration/asylum policy. She is passionate about social theory, critical, innovative methodologies, and collaborative interdisciplinary approaches to research. Before joining CHASM she held a teaching position within the Sociology Department and worked as a researcher for a number of years at the University of Birmingham.

I am a researcher and senior lecturer at the Business Faculty of Torrens University Australia, responsible for overseeing a suite of work-integrated learning (WIL) industry subjects within the Bachelor of Business program. My research interests encompass various aspects, including skilled migration, female highly skilled migrants, migration to Australia, employability, and employment outcomes of migrants. Additionally, my expertise extends to mobility, migration studies, Psychological Capital (PsyCap), Mixed Methods Research (MMR), as well as soft skills, graduate outcomes, and social enterprises.

Pedro J. Oiarzabal was born and raised in Bilbao and has spent much of his life between the Basque Country, Ireland and the United States. He holds a PhD in Basque Studies-Political Science from the University of Nevada, Reno, a MPhil in Economics and Social Sciences from Queen's University of Belfast (N. Ireland), and BA in History from the University of Deusto (Bilbao). He is currently the Director of Social Innovation Research at Arima Social Lab (Bilbao). For nine years he had been a PhD Researcher on Migration Studies at the Human Rights Institute, University of Deusto, and also the Jon Bilbao Research Fellow on the Basque Diaspora, 2014-2016, at the University of Nevada, Reno. His research examines diaspora communities interaction with information and communication technologies, with particular emphasis on the Basque case.