My research concerns displacement caused by conflict and violence and that caused by development projects. I focus on spatial and temporal aspects of displacement and the relationship between the two. I am interested in the ways in which people who are forced off their lands experience the loss of place, the coping strategies they adopt and how they engage in the process of forming renewed belonging. 

My other research interests include policy categories and their impact on identity and identification, social relations, and memory and its impact on place-making.

I am currently working on the following projects

• For Us by Us: Children's Picture Books to Promote Solidarity and Acceptance in the Age of Refugees (Co-I; funded by SSHRC, a collaboration between CTPSR and Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University)
• Struggles for territory, struggles for place: development-forced displacement and resettlement of the Mapuche-Pewenche, Chile (funded by BA small grant)
• Territory reconfiguration: displacement in Tocancipá, Colombia (in collaboration with Mónica Hurtado, Laura Fonseca and Diana Vernot from Universidad de la Sabana, Colombia) (funded by Newton Researcher Links)

Area of Expertise:

• Displacement
• Belonging
• Categorisation
• Colombia
• Qualitative research

Displacement; Belonging; Place; Memory; Identity and identification

My main research interests concern the ways in which involuntary displacement affects people. I am particularly interested in how seeing and living through conflict and displacement marks people’s every-day existence, their relations and their perception of the world. Through this kind of research I hope to find a new angle to bring conflict-ridden lives - struggles, achievements, social relations - of ordinary people living in extraordinary times to public and policy attention.