Dr Elizabeth Mavroudi

PhD (Durham University)

  • School EDI Co-Lead
  • Reader in Human Geography

Academic Career

  • 2018-Present: Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, Loughborough University.
  • 2007 onwards: Lecturer in Human Geography, Loughborough University.
  • 2006-2007: Teaching/Research Fellow in Geography, University of Exeter.
  • 2005-2006: ESRC funded Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Geography, University of Durham.
  • 2002-2005: PhD- Palestinian ‘identities’ in Athens: negotiating hybridity, politicisation and citizenship in diasporic spaces (Funded by ESRC).

 

 

 

Elizabeth’s main research interests are focused around migration and diaspora; in particular, her work focuses on the dynamic and grounded nature of diasporic and transnational migrants' lives, identities and politics and the spaces and networks they create and maintain in the process. Elizabeth’s research has also encouraged her to reflect on how we theorise and conceptualise diasporas in geography and beyond.

Elizabeth conducted doctoral ESRC funded research on the cultural, national and political identities and spaces of diasporic Palestinians in Athens, Greece.
 
As a result of an Australian National University Visiting Fellowship in 2012, she did work on the Greek diaspora in Australia and their socio-economic connections to Greece, the impacts this has on their identity, language and perceptions of Greek politics and the economy.

Together with colleagues in the Loughborough University Nationalism Network,  Elizabeth is interested in exploring everyday negotiations of nation-ness, and whether the nation can be made more inclusive, as it operates within and across borders as people increasingly hold multiple identities and attachments. This has led to an ongoing project on foreign nationals living in Greece and the ways in which they negotiate integration in relation to timespace and complex narratives of cross border nationhood.

This focus on how the nation operates at different scales also ties into research she has conducted on the changing nature of UK immigration policy, and how this impacts upon skilled and highly skilled migrants. It used the context of higher education to demonstrate how labour immigration policy may negatively impact upon those perceived to be highly mobile.

Elizabeth received Leverhulme funding in 2018 (via a research fellowship) for a project on the  politics and identity of Greek, Jewish and Palestinian diasporic youth in an English context. It demonstrated that despite having strong views on politics, they do not feel their views are heard by those in positions of power and that there are complex negotiations of home, homeland and belonging.

Finally, Elizabeth has an interest in the ways scholars can imagine and theorise more hopeful futures and create meaningful encounters. She has done this through the analysis of films in relation to co-existence in Palestine-Israel.

Elizabeth's primary teaching is on Global Migration (second year undergraduate module) and Mobilities, Transnationalism, Diaspora) third year undergraduate module).

Current Postgraduate Research Students

  • Yiting Chen (from 1st October 2021) Media Practices and Identities among of Vietnamese Women in the UK. Funded by School Studentship.
  • Abas Stitan (from 1 April 2020) The Palestinian diaspora in the UK. Funded by School Studentship.
  • Klara Volaric (from 1 October 2017 but with me from January 2019-March 2022) Nation-building from Below: Yugoslav Immigrants in Interwar Turkey. Funded by School Studentship.

Recent Postgraduate Research Students

  • Annie Evans (from 1 October 2018 - 30th Sept 2021) At Home in Amman? Palestinian-Christian Diasporic Belonging in Jordan. Funded by School Studentship
  • Cintia Fonseca-da-silva-Huxter (from 1st October 2017- Dec 2020) Rethinking Intergroup encounters: women, space and peace in Mitrovica (Kosovo). Funded by School Studentship
  • Peny Sotiropoulou (1st October 2015 - September 2018) Examining Pre-Service Primary School Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Immigrant Students in Greece: an Explanatory Model. Funded by school studentship.
  • George Windsor (from 1 December 2011 until December 2014): Highly Skilled Migration and the Promotion of Entrepreneurship in the UK. Joint-funded by Loughborough University Graduate School and Paragon Law Ltd (Nottingham)
  • Agnieszka  Szewczyk (1st October 2010 - March 2013): Polish Graduates in England: Stepping Stone Migration. Funded by School Studentship.
  • Hannah Deakin (1 October 2009 - April 2012): Erasmus Student Work Placement mobility:  A UK perspective. Funded by School Studentship.
  • Jan Semmelroggen (from  1 April 2008 - February 2012) The Political Discourse on Skilled Labour Migration in Germany: Underlying Policy Maker Motives and the Formation of the 2009 Action Programme on Skilled Labour Migration. Funded by department.
  • Mavroudi, E. and Silva Huxter, C. (2022) Young people in the Greek, Jewish and Palestinian diaspora: emotional attachments to multiple homelands,  Emotions:History, Culture, Society
  • Mavroudi, E. (2020) Feeling Greek, speaking Greek? National identity and language negotiation amongst the Greek diaspora in Australia, Geoforum https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.08.003
  • Mavroudi, E. (2017) Deconstructing diasporic mobilisation at a time of crisis: perspectives from the Palestinian and Greek diasporas, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44 (8), 1309-1324
  • Mavroudi, E. and Nagel, C. (2016) Global migration: patterns, processes, and policies, London: Routledge
  • Mavroudi, E. and Warren, A. (2013) Highly skilled migration and the negotiation of immigration policy: non-EEA postgraduate students and academic staff at English universities, Geoforum 44, 261–270
  • Mavroudi, E. (2013) The geographies of hope: performing space in Palestine-Israel, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 38 (4) 560–571
  • Mavroudi, E. (2008) Palestinians and pragmatic citizenship: negotiating relationships between citizenship and national identity in diaspora Geoforum 39, 307-318
  • Mavroudi, E. (2007) Diaspora as process: (de)constructing boundaries, Geography Compass, 1, 3, 467-479.