Project members

Gaja Maestri (Principal Investigator) is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Aston University, Birmingham (UK). Her research focuses on racial segregation and pro-migrant collective action, with a specific attention to social inequalities in urban contexts through qualitative methods. In the last ten years, she conducted extensive research in France, Italy and the UK on housing segregation of Roma people, the Refugees Welcome movement, and precarious migrant mothers.

Rémy-Paulin Twahirwa (he/they) is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Aston University, community organiser and writer based in London. With over a decade of involvement in migrant justice movements in so-called Canada and the UK, their work explores the ghostly affects and matters of migrant life under contemporary border regimes and the parasitic expansion of the carceral state. Their writing has appeared in both academic and non-academic venues, including LSE Review of Books, Society + Space and Liberté. They are currently completing their first manuscript, On Ghostly Lives, and serve as Managing Editor of The Philosopher and co-convenor of the BSA Race and Ethnicity Study Group. rémy also organise screenings with the Haringey Community Cinema. More about their work can be found at: https://ghostlylivesaproject.wordpress.com/. You can follow them on Bleusky: @ rpaulint.bsky.social.

David King : My name is David King. I am a doctoral researcher working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, law and social justice, with a particular focus on algorithmic bias, fairness and accountability in FinTech decision-making. My wider work examines how systems that appear neutral can reproduce inequality, especially where people already face disadvantage.

I joined the Peripheralisation of Asylum Accommodation Project because the subject connects closely with my academic, legal and lived interests. During my Access to Education work at the University of East London, I conducted a small piece of research on the impact of the hostile environment on asylum seekers, particularly how immigration status, housing insecurity and restricted access to services can shape people’s educational opportunities and sense of belonging. That experience made me more interested in how policy decisions affect people’s everyday lives.

I am also the author of The Bias Detectives: How We Caught the Computer Being Unfair, a children’s book for young readers aged 8–13. The book is adapted from my doctoral research and introduces children to responsible AI, fairness and the importance of questioning systems that make decisions about people. I hope to contribute both critical reflection and practical insight.

To contact David, please email: g.maestri[at]aston.ac.uk.

Walid Marmal : I am Walid Marmal, a Voices ambassador based in London. I am writing
to express my strong interest in serving as a peer researcher on this project at Aston University. As a VA, and an educator, journalist, editor, producer, broadcaster, translator, and human rights activist,
I believe I am well placed to contribute meaningfully to this research. My professional and voluntary work has consistently focused on amplifying marginalised voices, promoting dialogue, and challenging misconceptions about people seeking asylum and other vulnerable
communities.

As a journalist a and a broadcaster, my recent work in Beirut as producer and presenter of the television programs “Seven Skies” and
“In Depth” is particularly relevant to the role of peer researcher. These programs explored religion, philosophy, and current political
developments, and demanded careful preparation of interview structures, discussion guides, and question frameworks. I regularly had to consider what questions would invite honest, thoughtful responses, how to create a safe and respectful space for guests, and how to interpret complex, sometimes conflicting narratives in a fair
and balanced way. I believe these experiences have equipped me with important skills that can positively contribute to the design of interviews and the interpretation of research findings.

My background in civil rights and human rights activism also shapes the perspective I would bring to this project. I have previously served as a leader in the Boy Scouts of America and as an activist with the Michigan Chapter of Amnesty International. I founded the I.M.A.N Club at Henry Ford College and co-founded the IRSHAD organization, both of which promoted dialogue, inclusion, and critical engagement with social and political issues. In addition, I founded and worked as chief editor of ReachOut/MAYA, a high school newsletter in Michigan, supporting young people to express their experiences and
concerns. More recently, I founded a chess club at Carnegie Library and later another chess club at Corpus Christi Catholic School, both in London.

As someone with long lived experience—almost ten years—as an asylum
seeker, I have gained a wide and deep understanding of every step of the refugee system. I would like to utilize this experience to enrich your research in a positive and constructive way. I also have a strong interest in music, which I studied at
university, as well as in Arabic and English poetry. One of my poems
was published by the Red Cross in their book The Longest Year: Life under Local Restrictions, and in Welcome to Britain: An Anthology of
Poems and Short Fiction. My lifelong collection of Arabic poetry is currently being prepared for publication and will soon be in print.

To contact Walid, please email: g.maestri[at]aston.ac.uk.

Karolina Benghellab is Lecturer in the School of Social & Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow. Her research is interdisciplinary in its nature, combining sociology, international relations, criminology, and human geography perspectives, and contributes mainly to critical migration, border, and security studies. She conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in makeshift camps and borders in Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kurdish region in Turkey). Her research focuses on everyday violence for people on the move and how these diverse groups of people develop strategies of resistance. Her work combines security and violence theories with feminist and postcolonial literature to understand the racists and sexist logic of border security that draws upon colonial histories.

Jonathan Darling is Professor in Human Geography at Durham University. His research focuses on the spatial politics of asylum, sanctuary and solidarity movements, and the urban dynamics of forced migration. He is the author of Systems of Suffering: Dispersal and the Denial of Asylum (Pluto Press, 2022), which examines the politics of accommodation and support for asylum seekers in Britan. He is currently working on a book exploring the interplays between bordering, spectacle, and populism in contemporary Britain.   

Sarah Hughes is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences at Northumbria University. Sarah is a Political Geographer, working on asylum politics, resistance, citizenship and the politics of epistemology within the academy. Her work to date has coalesced around three main themes: geographies of resistance, geographies of forced migration, and geographies of knowledge production.

Claudio Minca is Full Professor in the Department of History and Cultures at the University of Bologna, Italy. He is a cultural geographer with a strong interest in social and political theory. His main research projects have focused on the relationship between spatial theory, biopolitics and modernity. I have also written extensively on philosopher Giorgio Agamben and camp political geographies. He is currently P.I. of an ERC Advanced Grant for the project: TheGAME: Counter-mapping informal refugee mobilities along the Balkan Route.

Vicki Squire is Professor of International Politics at the Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, UK. She has over twenty years of experience of research with mobile and displaced communities and is author of seven books and over fifty articles/book chapters. Vicki has undertaken research and led research projects across multiple sites and regions, including the UK, the Balkans, the Mediterranean, the Mexico-US border region and sub-Saharan Africa. She is currently Principal investigator of the Data Literacies in Displacement project (2024-2027) and has just published a new book, Making and Unmaking Global Citizenship (2025, Edinburgh University Press).