Taulant Guma
taulant guma

Dr Taulant Guma

Lecturer

 0131 455 3532

  T.Guma@napier.ac.uk

  

Biography

I am a Lecturer in Human Geography, REF Lead for UoA20 (Social Work and Social Policy) and former Research Lead for the Social Sciences Subject Group.

I am currently PI on the RSE-funded project “On the Margins” - www.onthemargins.org.uk, a 2-year project (2023-2025) that brings together academics, practitioners and activists involved in collaborative research, participatory methods and knowledge co-production, with a specific focus on marginalised groups and communities. From 2020-2022, I was PI on the ESRC-funded project: “Investigating the use of temporary accommodation to house asylum seekers and refugees during the Covid-19 outbreak.” https://tempacco.wordpress.com/. This was a 14 months collaborative study exploring the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak on asylum seekers and refugees living in Glasgow.

My research interests lie in the field of migration studies, a major subfield within Human Geography, and are broadly concerned with understanding different processes of othering and racialisation that affect migrants’ everyday lives.

My publications have covered a wide range of topics including risks and insecurities; race and ethnicity; civil society and participation; place making and belonging; asylum housing and inequality; online networks and transnationalism; Brexit and EU migration. In recent years I have published several articles in top ranking, high quality journals in the field of migration such as Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies; Ethnic and Racial Studies; Sociology; Geoforum; Population, Space and Place.

My portfolio of research outputs also includes innovative and creative work such as the research documentary “I’m Still Here” (2022), a participatory film that was co-produced with asylum seekers as part of the ESRC-funded project, and a new series of podcast on the art of doing collaborative research.

My work is interdisciplinary and collaborative; since 2020 I have been working closely with MORE (Migrants Organising for Rights and Empowerment), creating and leading four collaborative and impactful projects, thus establishing a strong and lasting partnership with grassroots communities.

Prior to joining Edinburgh Napier University, I held the position of WISERD Post-doctoral Research Associate at Aberystwyth University on two ESRC-funded projects. In 2015, I was a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Globalization and Multicultural Studies at Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea. I completed an ESRC-funded PhD at the University of Glasgow in 2015.



SUPERVISION:
I am happy to consider research proposals and supervise students interested in pursuing postgraduate research in any of my areas of expertise.


Completed PhD students:

Kyle Schwartz (2018-2024 ) Disaster and everyday life: Dynamics of vulnerability and resilience among Tibetan refugees in the 2015 Nepal earthquake (with Dr Kiril Sharapov (DoS) and Prof Richard Whitecross

School

Research Areas

Events

Esteem

Advisory panels and expert committees or witness

  • Appointed to the SGSSS Training Network as ENU Representative
  • Facilitated oral evidence to Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland inspection of asylum housing conditions
  • Written evidence submitted to The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration‘s call for "An inspection of the use of hotels and barracks as contingency asylum accommodation"
  • Organised a meeting with local MPs for evidence gathering on the housing conditions of asylum-seeking women living a repurposed facility called "Mother and Baby" unit
  • Submitted evidence to the British Academy’s call for evidence "Covid and Society: Shaping the Covid Decade"
  • Invited expert at the "Community Sponsorship in Wales - A roundtable with Home Office"
  • Invited to offer academic advice for establishing the "EU Migrants in the UK" network at Kingston University as an expert in EU migration
  • Invited to be on the executive board of the Centre for Welsh Politics and Society

 

Conference Organising Activity

  • Organised and chaired the webinar "Experts know best? Lived experience and the eradication of child poverty in Scotland"
  • Co-organised the launch of a new Podcast series - "The art of doing collaborative research"
  • Organised and chaired the online workshop "New ethics for new times"
  • Co-organised and introduced a new research network called "On the Margins"
  • Co-organised "Getting Stuck, Moving on 2019" , MMRN Annual Conference, Edinburgh Napier University, 9-10 May 2019
  • Co-organised a one-day multidisciplinary workshop called - Researching Wales 2018 - inviting postgraduate students from various social science disciplines to share their research ideas, experiences and practices within a multi-disciplinary audience, encouraging them to reflect on their research beyond disciplinary boundaries.
  • Co-organiser of the launch of Aberystwyth Research Migration Network
  • Co-organiser of session, ‘Nexus thinking and migration: locality, neoliberalism, and mobility’ at the RGS-IBG Royal Geographical Society 2016
  • Set up and convened the "Civil Society, Participation and Place" reading group at Aberystwyth University

 

Fellowships and Awards

  • Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy

 

Grant Reviewer

  • ESRC IAA Peer Reviewer
  • Peer Reviewer for ESRC grants

 

Invited Speaker

  • Special Guest at a film screening event organised by the Centre for Creative Practice, ENU, 15th February 2023
  • Invited speaker at the "Artwise: Translating research into art" workshop, University of Glasgow,19 June 2023
  • Invited as academic expert to speak on a Brexit panel at Festival of Migration in Edinburgh, 18 June 2023
  • Invited guest speaker by Film Geographies to talk about the research documentary "I'm Still Here" which was selected for the RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2022 Film Screening
  • Invited academic expert at "Engaging Eastern and Central European migrants in palliative care services and research" workshop, 29 April 2021
  • Invited speaker at "Migration to/from/within Central and Eastern Europe: Decolonial perspectives on race, gender, sexuality and class" event
  • Invited speaker at the The RAI, WISERD and Learned Society of Wales joint symposium - "Anthropologies of the Welsh: Past and Present" ( Cardiff University, 2019)
  • Invited speaker at "Beyond Stereotypes – Understanding the ‘Roma’" workshop
  • Special Guest at The Multicultural Society Policy Research Institute, Daegu University, South Korea. Talk title: "Transnational care arrangements and practices among post-accession migrants living in Glasgow, UK."
  • Special Guest at The Institute of Globalization and Multicultural Studies, Hanyang University, South Korea. Talk title: "Exploring potentialities of care: Transnational arrangements and practices amongst Czech- and Slovak-speaking migrants living in Glasgow, UK"
  • Invited guest speaker at the GRAMNet (Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network) seminar series. Talk title: 'Who is taking children away? Contextualising risk amongst and prejudices against Czech- and Slovak-speaking Roma living in Glasgow"

 

Media Activity

  • Media coverage (Scottish Housing News) - "New documentary turns spotlight on asylum seeker experiences in Glasgow"
  • Media coverage (Glasgow World) - "New documentary looks at asylum seekers’ experiences in Glasgow"
  • Interviewed by the New Humanist magazine for the article "Room at the Inn: what is life really like for the thousands of asylum seekers housed in Britain’s hotels?"
  • Media coverage (Glasgow Live)- "Documentary turns the spotlight on asylum seekers’ experiences in Glasgow"
  • Quoted in the National newspaper as part of article "New film on city's asylum seekers"
  • Produced a press release for to mark the completion of our research documentary "I'm Still Here"
  • Media coverage of ESRC-funded project in The Guardian - "Home Office hotels for asylum seekers ‘akin to detention centres’"

 

Membership of Professional Body

  • Member of IMISCOE (International Migration Research Network)
  • Member of IMISCOE (International Migration Research Network)

 

Public/Community Engagement

  • Launched a new podcast series with grassroots communities on the art of doing collaborative research
  • Launched a new collaboaritve research network "On the Margins" together with grassroots community organisations
  • Organised a public screening of research documentary "I'm Still Here" in Falkirk
  • Organised a public screening of research documentary "I'm Still Here" in Birmingham (July 2022)
  • Organised a public screening of research documentary "I'm Still Here" in Aberdeen
  • Organised a public screening of research documentary "I'm Still Here" in Glasgow
  • Organiser of stakeholder event - "Temporary asylum accommodation during Covid-19 in Glasgow"
  • Organised the commnunity engagment event "How has Welsh civil society responded to the ‘refugee crisis’?", Cardiff, 4 December 2018
  • Organised the coummunity engagment event "EU migrants' diaspora and civil society"
  • Co-organised the GRAMNet (Glasgow Refugee and Migration Network) film series, held at CCA Glasgow.

 

Reviewing

  • Reviewing for International Sociology
  • PhD by published work review
  • Reviewing for Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
  • Reviewer for CEEMR
  • Reviewer for Social Inclusion
  • - Reviewer for Geoforum
  • Reviewer for Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power

 

Visiting Positions

  • Visiting scholar, The Institute of Globalization and Multicultural Studies, Hanyang University, South Korea

 

Filter by

Date


33 results

Understanding the housing of asylum seekers and refugees during the Covid-19 outbreak

Presentation / Conference
Guma, T., Sharapov, K., Blake, Y., Makutsa, R., Maclean, G., & Macleod, K. (2021, July)
Understanding the housing of asylum seekers and refugees during the Covid-19 outbreak. Paper presented at Disrupting Theory, Unsettling Practice: Towards Transformative Forced Migration Scholarship and Policy, University of Ghana
Paper presented at Disrupting Theory, Unsettling Practice: Towards Transformative Forced Migration Scholarship and Policy, University of Ghana, 26-30 July 2021.

Safe environment? Understanding the housing of asylum seekers and refugees during the Covid-19 outbreak

Presentation / Conference
Guma, T., Maclean, G., Sharapov, K., & MacLeod, K. (2021, April)
Safe environment? Understanding the housing of asylum seekers and refugees during the Covid-19 outbreak. Paper presented at BSA Annual Conference 2021: Remaking the Future, Online

The Welsh civil society response to the 2015 'refugee crisis'

Presentation / Conference
Guma, T. (2020, September)
The Welsh civil society response to the 2015 'refugee crisis'. Paper presented at Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present and Futures, Online

“It’s That Kind of Place Here”: Solidarity, Place-Making and Civil Society Response To the 2015 Refugee Crisis in Different Localities in Wales, UK

Journal Article
Guma, T., Woods, M., Yarker, S., & Anderson, J. (2019)
“It’s That Kind of Place Here”: Solidarity, Place-Making and Civil Society Response To the 2015 Refugee Crisis in Different Localities in Wales, UK. Social Inclusion, 7(2), 96-105. https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v7i2.2002
This paper examines the different ways in which local civil society has responded to refugees and asylum seekers in different parts of Wales in the wake of the recent “refugee...

Turning citizens into immigrants: state practices of welfare ‘cancellations’ and document retention among EU nationals living in Glasgow

Journal Article
Guma, T. (2018)
Turning citizens into immigrants: state practices of welfare ‘cancellations’ and document retention among EU nationals living in Glasgow. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 46(13), 2647-2663. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2018.1535313
This article examines the everyday experiences of welfare provision among EU migrants living in Glasgow, demonstrating how the process of restricting the rights of EU citizens...

“Where are we going to go now?” European Union migrants' experiences of hostility, anxiety, and (non-)belonging during Brexit: EU migration, belonging and Brexit

Journal Article
Guma, T., & Dafydd Jones, R. (2019)
“Where are we going to go now?” European Union migrants' experiences of hostility, anxiety, and (non-)belonging during Brexit: EU migration, belonging and Brexit. Population, Space and Place, 25(1), https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2198
This paper examines the impact of the 2016 European Union (EU) referendum and its aftermath from the perspective of European migrants living in Wales. Drawing on interviews co...

Exploring potentialities of (Health)care in Glasgow and beyond: Negotiations of social security among Czech-and Slovak-speaking migrants.

Journal Article
Guma, T. (2018)
Exploring potentialities of (Health)care in Glasgow and beyond: Negotiations of social security among Czech-and Slovak-speaking migrants. Central and Eastern European Migration Review, 7(1), 73-90. https://doi.org/10.17467/ceemr.2018.02
This paper draws on an anthropological perspective on social security to explore the complex ways in which Czech-and Slovak-speaking migrants living in Glasgow negotiated thei...

The making of a ‘risk population’: categorisations of Roma and ethnic boundary-making among Czech- and Slovak-speaking migrants in Glasgow

Journal Article
Guma, T. (2018)
The making of a ‘risk population’: categorisations of Roma and ethnic boundary-making among Czech- and Slovak-speaking migrants in Glasgow. Identities, 26(6), 668-687. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289x.2018.1441690
This paper critically examines the processes of categorisation of Roma migrants in Glasgow, contributing to debates on the (unsuccessful) attempts of the EU and individual Eur...

The Ethnicisation Of Need: Policy Paper

Report
Guma, T. (2015)
The Ethnicisation Of Need: Policy Paper. University of Glasgow and Glasgow City Council

Everyday negotiations of in/securities and risks: an ethnographic study amongst Czech- and Slovak-speaking migrants in Glasgow

Thesis
Guma, T. Everyday negotiations of in/securities and risks: an ethnographic study amongst Czech- and Slovak-speaking migrants in Glasgow. (Thesis)
University of Glasgow. Retrieved from http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1608529
The post-accession migration to the UK from the eight Central and Eastern European countries that joined the European Union in 2004 has attracted a significant amount of atten...

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