Catherine Ruth Craven

I am a Research Fellow at the Institute for Research into Superdiversity at the University of Birmingham, where I work on the ESRC-funded project MIGZEN - Rebordering Britain & Britons after Brexit.

My research focuses on migration and diaspora governance, particularly, how states engage with and discipline their emigrant populations, as well as the resistance/cooptation by migrants and diaspora populations to these forms of power.

Prior to joining the University of Birmingham, I was a research assistant at SOAS University of London on the EU-funded project "Migration Governance and Asylum Crises", where I conducted comparative research on the Kurdish diaspora and refugee experience in EU member states after 2015. I have held research positions at the Otto-Suhr Institute of the Free University of Berlin, the Sigur Centre for Asian Studies at George Washington University in DC, York University’s Centre for Asian Research, as well as at the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin, and have taught undergraduate courses in International Relations and Global History at SOAS.

My PhD research (funded by the ESRC), which I completed in 2021 in the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS, was an ethnographic study of diaspora governance examined through the lens of Tamil communities in Toronto, London, and Geneva. My research has been published in Global Networks.

I also hold an MSc in Global Politics & Global Civil Society from the LSE, and a BA in Anthropology from Sussex University.