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Kirsten McConnachie

DPhil


Professor of Socio-Legal Studies, University of East Anglia

Kirsten McConnachie is a socio-legal researcher whose work focuses on governance and justice in refugee situations. She has a particular regional interest in southeast Asia and with refugees from Burma/Myanmar, having worked first with Karen refugees living in camps in Thailand and more recently with ethnic Chin refugees in Malaysia and India. She has conducted extensive field research in each of these countries. Her book, Governing Refugees (Routledge 2014), analyses camp governance and the administration of justice among Karen refugees in Thailand. This book was awarded the Socio-Legal Studies Association early career book prize for 2015.

Kirsten's research interests span several disciplines, including criminology, victimology, transitional justice, refugee studies and legal anthropology. She has published on issues including governance by armed groups; the history and management of refugee camps; legal pluralism and non-state justice systems; forced migration in southeast Asia; the role of victims in transitional justice; and constitutional reform. A common thread in this work is a focus on pluralistic governance and on the role of non-state actors in governance.

Kirsten joined UEA as a Senior Lecturer in Law in April 2018, having previously held posts at the University of Warwick (Assistant Professor, 2015- 2018), University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre (Junior Research Fellow, 2012-2015), and the University of Edinburgh (Research Fellow 2011-2012). I studied at Queen's University Belfast (PhD in Law), University of Nottingham (LLM in the Law of Armed Conflict) and the University of Glasgow (LLB in Scots Law).