Political sociologist appointed to head migration centre

Political sociologist appointed to head migration centre

The Sussex Centre for Migration Research, one of the UK’s leading research centres on migration, will have a new Director from 1 April 2012.


Professor Paul Statham, a political sociologist currently at the University of Bristol, takes over the Centre from Professor Russell King, who, as one of the Centre’s founding directors, has been at the helm since its establishment in 1997.


Professor Statham has published more than 50 books and scholarly articles on migration, multiculturalism, citizenship and the European public sphere, including the well-regarded co-authored book Contested Citizenship: Immigration and cultural diversity in Europe (2005).


His latest book, The Making of a European Public Sphere: Media discourse and political contention (with Ruud Koopmans) was published in 2010.


Professor Statham is no stranger to Sussex, having studied at the University’s School of European Studies for his undergraduate degree in Politics from 1985-89. His doctorate is from the European University Institute, and he worked at the University of Leeds and the WZB Science Centre in Berlin before moving to Bristol in 2006.

He is currently completing a major collaborative research project that compares the ‘lived experiences’ of different groups of Muslim migrants in six European countries of settlement.


Professor Statham also has a new book, The Politicization of the European Union (with Hans-Jörg Trenz), forthcoming in 2012.


He already collaborates with Sussex Lecturer in Geography Ceri Oeppen and partners in Norway on a project about the return of migrants and asylum-seekers to a range of non-European countries.

Posted on behalf of: Sussex Centre for Migration Research
Last updated: Monday, 12 December 2011

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