Academic Career
- 2020 onwards: Senior Lecturer in Human Geographies
- 2014-2020: Lecturer in Human Geography, Loughborough University.
- 2013-2014: Teaching Fellow, School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh
- 2010-2014: PhD, Institute of Geography, University of Edinburgh
Professional Responsibilities
- 2022 onwards, Editorial Board Member Global Networks
- 2021-2023 Elected Chair, Population Geography Research Group, RGS-IBG
- 2020 onwards GYE UCU Rep
- 2019-2021 Research Group Representative, Research and Higher Education Committee, RGS-IBG
- 2018- 2012 Elected Secretary, Population Research Group, RGS-IBG
Sophie's research focuses on three interrelated themes 1) migration industries/infrastructures 2) migration categories 3) global identities and privilege in migration.
She has examined these themes through a number of research projects including:
ESRC-funded research ‘Following the Expatriate’ (2010-2014) that examined the a) the expatriate as a category b) the role the global mobility industry plays in producing expatriate migration.
ASET, Loughborough, RGS-IBG funded research projects on International Schools, Third Culture Kids, British international students and the children of British migrants (2015-2020). These research projects explored a) different articulations of global identities and belonging amongst young people b) the framing of global skills.
Loughborough funded research on infrastructures of skilled migration (2020-)
Sophie teaches broadly across topics looking at the geographies of work and migration.
- Rhianna Garrett (2022): Career trajectories of racialised minority PhDs and early career researchers in UK higher education
- Ellie Moore (2022): Non-drinking students, Intersectional spaces of sobriety and academic citizenship on UK university campuses
- Ben Slonecki (2022): Expatriating love: same-sex couples and the global mobility industry in East Asia
- Abas Stitan (2020) The Palestinian diaspora in the UK
- Completed 2020: Charlotte Bolton: The English as a Foreign Language Industry: A Story of Contemporary Mobility Processes (University Scholarship)
- Duplan, K and Cranston, S (2023) Towards geographies of privileged migration: An intersectional perspective, Progress in Human Geography, 47(2), pp.333-347
- Cranston, S and Duplan, K (2023) Infrastructures of migration and the ordering of privilege in mobility, Migration Studies, 11(2), pp.330-348 DOI: 10.1093/migration/mnad001.
- Cranston, S (2023) Sonic registers of belonging: British mobile young people in UK higher education, Social and Cultural Geography, DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2023.2177716.
- Cranston, S, Pimlott-Wilson, H, Bates, E (2019) International work placements and the hierarchies of distinction, Geoforum, 108, pp.139-147, DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.12.008.
- Cranston, S and Lloyd, J (2018) Bursting the bubble: Spatialising safety for privileged migrant women in Singapore, Antipode, 51(2), pp.478-496 DOI: 10.1111/anti.12433.
- Cranston, S., Schapendonk, J., Spaan, E. (2018) New Directions in the Migration Industries: Introduction to Special Issue, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44(4) 543-557.
- Cranston, S. (2017) Expat as Good Migrant: Thinking through Skilled Migration Categories, Population, Space and Place. e2058.
- Cranston, S (2016) Producing migrant encounter: Learning to be a British expatriate in Singapore through the Global Mobility Industry, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 34(4), pp.655-671 DOI: 10.1177/0263775816630311.