I am a Research Fellow (Asylum and Migration) in the Centre for Applied Childhood, Youth and Family Research. Working also as a Practitioner Manager at WomenCentre UK, I have more than 20 years of experience developing collaborative, participatory and creative projects with women and families seeking asylum, refugees and new migrants. With significant experience in the field of migration, my expertise has developed through long-term research and direct professional practice, service delivery and management with migrant and refugee organisations.

My research focuses broadly on gender, migration, asylum and refugee studies. I am particularly interested in how migration is understood and experienced by women. I have published and presented widely on these topics, including co-editing “Feminist Narrative Research: Opportunities and Challenges” (Palgrave Macmillan 2017). Contributing to many invited presentations at national and international workshops and conferences, I submitted to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights in the United Kingdom, and the UN Day of Discussion - 'The Rights of All Children in the Context of International Migration', where the case of child migrants was clarified with the CRC Committee adopting a higher standard that means immigration detention is always a child rights violation.

• Feminist narrative methodologies

• Concepts of vulnerability and resistance

• Participatory, visual and creative methods

• Narrative constructions of asylum and migration

• Policy and practice related to asylum

Membership

Migrant Families, Children and Youth Standing Committee of IMISCOE; British Sociological Association; Leeds Migration Research Network; and WomenCentre.

Click Here to see all postgraduate research opportunities with Dr Kate Smith