Welcome. I’m a researcher and writer based at Newcastle University. Over time, my academic work has moved across and between social and political economies of care, labour, migration, and documentary performance.
I’m currently working on different facets of care economies, looking at different ‘fixes’ to the extreme shortage of workers across many countries in the global North.
Some of this research has attracted media interest in The Guardian, The Economist, Nature, and elsewhere.
In September 2024, I start a Leverhulme Research Fellowship to examine exoskeleton technology designed to augment human strength and reduce the need for care labour. This builds on recent writing I’ve done on companion robotics and the automation of social care in the UK.
Situated at the intersection of technology and labour, I am also in the beginning stages of Riding on the Edge which will examine the lived experiences of migrant, refugee and irregular migrants who are working as food delivery riders in Newcastle upon Tyne and Middlesborough.
Previously, I spent several years documenting challenges relating to the migration of Filipina domestic workers and their children to Canada. Periods of this research involved substantive collaboration with the Philippine Women Centre of BC and Migrante International.
As a form of public scholarship, I’ve an especial interest in creating research-derived documentary performance – some of this work has been presented internationally: Vancouver’s PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (2009, 2010, 2013), Berlin’s HAU1 Theatre (2009), Ballhaus Ost (2019), and in Edinburgh (2012), Whitehorse (2012; 2016), Manila (2013; 2015); and Bangkok (2022).
I’ve published in journals such as Society & Space, Antipode, cultural geographies, Transactions, Annals, and elsewhere. With Geraldine Pratt, I co-authored Migration in Performance: Crossing the Colonial Present, a monograph exploring the use of documentary theatre to circulate stories of the violence associated with labour migration and entwined colonialisms between Canada and the Philippines.
I am also a current Associate Editor with cultural geographies and with Studies for Social Justice.
Please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
