Sophie Cranston

Dr Sophie Cranston

Ph.D.(Edinburgh)

  • Lecturer in Human Geography

Academic career:

  • 2014-: Lecturer in Human Geography, Loughborough University.
  • 2013-2014: Teaching Fellow, School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh

Professional responsibilities

Sophie's research looks broadly at the relationship between global mobility and identity. This has taken two key forms.

First, she has examined how migration categories are produced and practised, from the perspective of understanding cultural geographies of migration and the cultural economies of migration industries. Her ESRC-funded research on ‘Following the Expatriate’ drew upon mobilities as a field to look at the different ways in which ‘expatriate’ comes to be understood. It looked at how the Global Mobility Industry, an industry that supports the management of expatriate relocation, helps to produce expatriate identities. This also considered how British migrants in Singapore use the term expat. In Loughborough-funded research she has also looked at Third Culture Kids (TCKs), people who spent part of their childhood growing up in a different country from that which their parents are from.

Second, she has looked at the influence of global mobility on young people’s identities. This includes research that looks at high school aged children, through Loughborough University funded research on youth global citizenship in international schools. More recently, it has expanded to thinking about international student mobility, through ASET funded research on how young people use international work placements in their career planning and RGS-IBG funded research that examines how the children of British migrants negotiate UK Universities.

Her teaching explores globalization and migration, with a focus on cities.

Current postgraduate research students

Charlotte Bolton: The English as a Foreign Language Industry: A Story of Contemporary Mobility Processes (University Scholarship)

Selected publications

  • Cranston, S., Lloyd, J. (2018) Bursting the Bubble: Spatialising safety for privileged migrant women in Singapore, Antipode. Online First.
  • Cranston, S. (2018) Calculating the Migration Industries: Knowing the Successful Expatriate in the Global Mobility Industry, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 44(4) 626-643.
  • 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. (2017a) Expat as Good Migrant: Thinking through Skilled Migration Categories, Population, Space and Place. Online First.
  • Cranston, S. (2017b) Self-Help Books and the Surfacing of Identity: Producing the Third Culture Kid as Comfort, Emotion, Space, Society 24 27-33.
  • Cranston, S. (2016a) 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) 655-671.
  • Cranston, S. (2016b) ‘Imagining Global Work: Producing Understandings of Difference in ‘Easy Asia,’ Geoforum 70 60-68.
  • Cranston, S. (2014) Reflections on Doing the Expat Show: Performing the Global Mobility Industry, Environment and Planning A 46(5) 1124-1138.