Research

I am a social anthropologist specialising in forced displacement, migration studies, intangible cultural heritage, human/environment relations, and conservation and development. My projects include:

1. Two recent Chagos projects with Dr Rebecca Rotter: an AHRC Impact and Engagement project, "CHAGOS: Cultural Heritage Across Generations" (2017-18) in collaboration with Chagossian groups, Professor Vinesh Hookoomsing, Saradha Soobrayen, and Crawley Museum; and an associated ESRC Impact Accelerator Award (2018-19). Visit chagos.online to browse our virtual exhibits, download Chagossian recipe cards, and listen to the new Chagos Tambour Group album. Our work on Chagossian cultural heritage builds upon my longstanding engagement with the Chagossian community: my ESRC postgraduate research (2001-06) on the politics of victimhood among forcibly displaced Chagos islanders in Mauritius and Seychelles; my Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (2006-08) on Chagossian onward migration to the UK; and my ESRC Research Fellowship (2009-15) exploring debates about environmental knowledge in the context of the controversial Chagos Marine Protected Area and the UK government’s policy review on resettlement of the Chagos Archipelago.
2. Two Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) projects with Dr Mariangela Palladino and Dr Sébastien Bachelet: the ESRC-AHRC GCRF Forced Displacement project "Arts for Advocacy: Creative Engagement with Forced Displacement in Morocco" (2016-18) in collaboration with GADEM in Rabat; and the follow on AHRC Impact and Engagement project "MARAM: Mobilising Access to Rights for Artists in Morocco" (2019-20) in collaboration with Racines in Casablanca. Visit our project website to view our virtual exhibitions and to download our creative arts, migration, and advocacy toolkit.
3. A work package on the development of connective infrastructure – roads, bridges, inter-island link roads, causeways, and harbours – in Maldives, working with Dr Luke Heslop as part of Professor Edward Simpson’s ERC Consolidator Grant, "Roads and the politics of thought: Ethnographic approaches to infrastructure development in South Asia" (2015-20). For more information, see the Roads project website.

Publications

Monograph

• 2011. Chagos Islanders in Mauritius and the UK: Forced Displacement and Onward Migration. MUP.

Edited Collections

• 2019 forthcoming (with M. Palladino, R. Rotter, & A. Woolley). Creative engagement with migration. Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture 10, 1.
• 2011 (with J. Murison). Return and onward migration. Population, Space and Place 17, 2.
• 2006 (with M. Candea, Z.O. Biner, & M.S. de Magalhães). The politics of victimhood. History and Anthropology 17, 4.

Journal Articles

Please email me for a PDF if you do not have library access to these journals.

• 2019 forthcoming (with M. Palladino, R. Rotter, & A. Woolley). Creative engagement with migration. Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture 10, 1.
• 2019 forthcoming (with S. Bachelet). Creative engagement with migration in Morocco: An ethnographic exploration of photographic encounters. Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture 10, 1.
• 2018 (with R. Rotter). Safeguarding sega: transmission, inscription, and appropriation of Chagossian intangible cultural heritage. International Journal of Heritage Studies. [Open Access]
• 2017. ‘We don’t want to be sent back and forth all the time’: ethnographic encounters with displacement, migration, and Britain beyond the British Isles. Sociological Review Monograph 65, 1.
• 2016 (with R. Rotter). Sustenance, nourishment, and cultivation: plants as living cultural heritage for dispersed Chagossians in Mauritius, Seychelles, and the UK. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 22, 2. [Open Access]
• 2016 (with R. Rotter). 'We no longer have faith and trust in anyone': misadventures in community consultation on the future of the Chagos Archipelago. International Development Planning Review 38, 4.
• 2014. Ecological restoration in a cultural landscape: conservationist and Chagossian approaches to controlling the 'coconut chaos' on the Chagos Archipelago. Human Ecology 42, 6. [Open Access]
• 2014. Neither confirm nor deny: WikiLeaks evidence and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations in the judicial review of the Chagos Marine Protected Area. Anthropology Today 30, 3. [Cover article] [See also Global Justice Academy blog on WikiLeaks Evidence in Court]
• 2013. 'We are the true guardians of the environment': human-environment relations and debates about the future of the Chagos Archipelago. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 19, 2. [See also Response and Reply in JRAI 19, 4.]
• 2011. 'Unusual immigrants', or, Chagos islanders and their confrontations with British citizenship. Anthropology in Action 18, 2.
• 2011 (with S. Johannessen). Reflections on the life and art of the Chagossian painter Clement Siatous. Wasafiri 26, 2. [Cover article]
• 2011 (with J. Murison). The temporal, social, spatial and legal dimensions of return and onward migration. Population, Space and Place 17, 2.
• 2010. Forced displacement, onward migration, and reformulations of 'home' by Chagossians in Crawley, West Sussex. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 36, 7.
• 2010. Creole festivals and Afro-Creole cosmopolitanisms in Mauritius. Social Anthropology 18, 4.
• 2009. Chagossians refused right to return home. Anthropology Today 25, 1.
• 2007. How a plantation became paradise: changing representations of the homeland among displaced Chagos islanders. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13, 4. [Showcased by JSTOR Daily 2016]
• 2006. Historical narrative and legal evidence: judging Chagossians' High Court testimonies. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 29, 2. [Open Access rerelease with new Postscript 2014]
• 2006 (with M. Candea). The politics of victimhood. History and Anthropology 17, 4.
• 2006. Victims and patrons: strategic alliances and the anti-politics of victimhood among displaced Chagossians and their supporters. History and Anthropology 17, 4.

Selected Book Chapters

• 2019 in press. Sustainable Mauritius? Island ecology, environmental change, and debates about energy efficiency in a Small Island State in the Indian Ocean. In I. Haltermann & J. Tischler (eds.) Environmental Change and African Societies. Brill.
• 2018. ‘For Mauritians, joy; for Chagossians, sadness’: Mauritian independence, the sacrifice of the Chagos Archipelago, and the suffering of the Chagos islanders. In R. Ramtohul & T.H. Eriksen (eds.) The Mauritian Paradox: Fifty years of development, diversity and democracy. UoM.
• 2011 (with D. Vine). Sorrow, sadness, and impoverishment: the lives of Chagossians in Mauritius. In S. Evers & M. Kooy (eds.) Eviction from the Chagos Islands: Displacement and Struggle for Identity against two World Powers. Brill.
• 2011. 'A lost people'? Chagossian onward migration and echoes of marginalisation in Crawley. In S. Evers & M. Kooy (eds.) Eviction from the Chagos Islands: Displacement and Struggle for Identity against two World Powers. Brill.
• 2009 (with D. Vine). 'Give us back Diego Garcia': unity and division among activists in the Indian Ocean. In C. Lutz (ed.) The Bases of Empire: The Global Struggle against US Military Posts. NYU.