Dr Melanie Griffiths BA (Oxon), MA, DPhil

PhD (DPhil)

Migration, asylum, immigration detention, deportation, families, Article 8 rights, gender, men and masculinity, time, bureaucracies, legal courts, hostile environment

Dr Griffiths has been a Birmingham Fellow since February 2018. Based at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, she is leading research on deportation, the 'hostile environment' and new developments in immigration enforcement under Brexit. Between 2014-17, she was PI of an ESRC Future Research Leaders grant at the University of Bristol, working on the family lives and Article 8 rights of 'mixed-immigration status' families and men at risk of deportation.

In 2013, Dr Griffiths was an Associate Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, working with Dr Nick Gill on an ESRC-funded project looking at asylum appeals. Her DPhil research was conducted at the University of Oxford, on the British asylum system, with a particular focus on refused asylum seekers and immigration detainees. It considered the role and negotiation of identification requirements in the asylum system. Dr Griffiths also writes on time, uncertainty, masculinity and bureaucratic relations in the migration fields.

Migration broadly (including irregular, undocumented, family, asylum, EEA nationals), immigration enforcement and incarceration, ‘foreign criminals’ discourse, the hostile environment, time, men and masculinity, family life and Article 8 rights, belonging and citizenship, bureaucracies, law and the judiciary, identity and identifications. 

Other activities:

• Chair of trustees: Open Door (NGO, Oxford), 2011-
• Member of the Detention Forum (NGO, London), 2011-
• Member of the management committee (a trustee): Asylum Welcome (NGO, Oxford), 2011-18

• Chair of trustees: Open Door (NGO in Oxford), 2011-
• Member of the management committee (a trustee): Asylum Welcome (NGO in Oxford), 2011-
• Member of the Detention Forum (London-based NGO), 2011-