We are pleased to announce the following Associate appointments at the Refugee Studies Centre: Professor Guy S Goodwin-Gill is appointed an Honorary Associate, Professor Elaine Chase is appointed an Oxford Associate, and Dr Jeff Crisp adds the role of Research Associate to his existing role of Advisor.
We are also pleased to welcome Dr Leïla Vignal who will be joining us as Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual European Fellow for two years from September 2015.
Professor Guy S Goodwin-Gill, Emeritus Fellow at All Souls College, is an international lawyer currently working on the legal aspects of refugee flows, migration, and forced displacement in general. Together with Professor Jane McAdam (University of New South Wales, and RSC Research Associate), he is preparing a fourth, expanded edition of The Refugee in International Law. He is also engaged with related issues, including statelessness, deprivation of citizenship, ‘counter-terrorism’, and the challenges to human rights raised by the current emphasis globally on ‘securitisation’. He practises as a Barrister from Blackstone Chambers, London. Professor Goodwin-Gill has written extensively, including a recent piece on the Mediterranean crisis for the Oxford Human Rights Hub. He also contributed to this term's RSC Public Seminar Series - his seminar on UNHCR's protection guidelines is now available as a podcast.
Professor Elaine Chase is a Senior Research Fellow within the Department of Social Policy & Intervention, University of Oxford. Her research broadly focuses on the sociological dimensions of wellbeing and rights of individuals and communities, particularly those most likely to experience disadvantage and marginalisation. She is particularly interested in the interface between policy, practice and context and has carried out many qualitative and mixed-method studies, in the UK and internationally. This has included research with children and young people seeking asylum alone/subject to immigration control in the UK. Current projects include 'Becoming Adult', with Professor Dawn Chatty, which focuses on unaccompanied migrant minors who leave care in the UK as they 'turn 18'.
Dr Jeff Crisp has held senior positions with UNHCR (Head of Policy Development and Evaluation), Refugees International (Senior Director for Policy and Advocacy) and the Global Commission on International Migration (Director of Policy and Research). He has also worked for the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues, the British Refugee Council and Coventry University. Jeff has first-hand experience of humanitarian operations throughout the world and has published and lectured widely on refugee and migration issues. He is also a prolific tweeter (@JFCrisp), and this week wrote a piece on the current refugee crisis for the International New York Times.
Dr Leïla Vignal is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Rennes-2, France. She works on the Middle East, in particular on the transformations of urban societies in the context of globalisation. She has done extensive field work in Egypt, Lebanon and Syria, and was recently the Principal Investigator of a research programme bringing together 15 scholars looking at transnational spaces, networks and practices in the Middle East. Within this programme she also developed expertise on the Gulf states.