Dr Lucy Mayblin (she/her)
PhD
Department of Sociological Studies
Senior Lecturer in Sociology
Co-Director Migration Research Group


+44 114 222 6445
Full contact details
Department of Sociological Studies
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
ºù«Ӱҵ
S10 2AH
- Profile
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Lucy Mayblin is a political sociologist whose research focuses on borders, human rights, policy-making, and the legacies of colonialism. She is particularly interested in how policymakers imagine the world, and how this leads to particular kinds of bordering projects being taken, often with significant social justice implications. A central theme in her work has been how the legacies of 500 years of European colonialism continue to shape the contemporary moment, particularly in Britain. She is the author of three books: Asylum After Empire: Postcolonial Legacies in the Politics of Asylum Seeking (Rowman and Littlefield International, 2017) which won the British Sociological Association’s Philip Abrams Memorial Prize in 2018, Impoverishment and Asylum: Social Policy as Slow Violence ( Routledge, 2019), and Migration Studies and Colonialism (with Joe Turner, Polity, 2020). She has also co-edited two books: Postcoloniality and Forced Migration (Bristol University Press, 2022) and the SAGE Handbook of Global Sociology (Sage, 2024).
In 2020 she won a Philip Leverhulme Prize for Sociology. She is currently working with colleagues on British government responses to small boat Channel crossings, and on methods for postcolonial historical sociology.
Lucy is Associate Editor for the Global Social Challenges Journal, and on the editorial board of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. She was previously an editor of the Global Social Theory website and an advisory board member, editor and contributor to the Connected Sociologies Curriculum Project.
- Publications
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Books
Journal articles
Chapters
Book reviews
- Research group
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Co-Director, Migration Research Group (/migration-research-group)
Lucy is interested in supervising PhD projects on: - The politics of asylum, borders and bordering - Histories of colonialism and contemporary post and neo-colonial dynamics as they relate to borders and migration - Human and refugee rights
- Grants
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2023-25 White Rose Network, The UK-Rwanda partnership as the ‘end of asylum’: Externalising borders, offshoring and resistance (Co-I), £13,0002022-25 ESRC Project Grant, Channel Crossings: Irregular migration, policies and politics in the English Channel (Co-I) £585,000 (ES/W006170/1)
2022-26 ºù«Ӱҵ Doctoral Training Centre on New Horizons in Borders and Bordering -6 PhD scholarships- (Co-I and Deputy Director) £350,000
2021-24 Philip Leverhulme Prize, Sociology and Social Policy (PI) £100,000
2017 ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, Civil Society filling the Gaps: Supporting Asylum Seekers at the Local Level (PI) £10,340 (ES/M500434/1)
2015-19 ESRC Future Research Leaders project grant, Asylum, Welfare and Work in the Age of Austerity (PI) £240,000 (ES/L011468/1)
- Teaching interests
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Lucy currently teaches Current Sociology, a whole year core module on the MA Sociology, and Contemporary Challenges: Refugees and Asylum, also at the MA level. As part of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Borders and Bordering she co-ordinates various activities for PGRs including a reading group, a masterclass series, and a PGR seminar series.
- Teaching activities
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- MA Sociology: Programme Leader
- MA Sociology: Current Sociology
- MA Sociology: Contemporary Challenges: Refugees and Asylum
- Partnerships, Engagement and Impact
Across Lucy's work she is committed to partnership and collaboration with groups outside of the university. This includes campaigning groups, and NGOs (from local to international) and has involved running workshops, consultancy, and research partnerships. Collaborations have occurred through formal research projects, but more importantly the Migration Research Group is committed to creating spaces for conversations within the university where community learning and thinking between and across the university/non-university divide can take place. Alongside her academic work, Lucy is also a trustee for the ºù«Ӱҵ based charity ASSIST.
Links