Under the Soviet Shadow: Kyrgyzstan and the Legacies of Forced Displacement and Collectivisation (2024) – My latest book will be published by Cambridge Scholars in early 2024. It examines the pivotal role played by forced population displacement and resettlement in spearheading the collectivisation of agriculture, a country-wide transformation that enabled the Soviet colonisation of Kyrgyzstan. The legacies of collectivisation, focusing on violence, the politics of the enemy, and authoritarianism are traced from the colonial era through to the country’s contemporary instability.
Coerced Domestic Labour in Western Ethiopia – Funded by a City, University of London GCRF Institutional Grant the research in Gurage Zone, Ethiopia examines coerced domestic labour among adolescent girls. Interviews will take place between October 2019 and March 2020, with a final report prepared in June 2020.
Ending Female Circumcision in an Ethiopian Village – Funded by a GCRF Institutional Grant this is a joint research project between the Indie-Atsede Clinic in Gubre, Gurage Zone, Ethiopia, the School of Health Sciences at City University, London. The research reflects on a midwife-led village campaign that brought to an end the circumcision of young girls in Sisei Village close to Attat Hospital in a rural part of Gurage, south western Ethiopia. A research report will be published in the late Spring of 2019.
Media Coverage of Asylum – This project assesses how the UK currently reports on refugees and asylum seekers, and how newspapers, television, and news websites differ in their coverage of asylum. The objectives are: to systematically analyse national newspapers, TV news stations, and relevant online news websites on their recent coverage of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK; conduct a content analysis of sample using a predetermined codebook and trained coders; conduct interviews with newspaper editors/TV producers/website editors to understand the current attitudes towards and protocol on covering refugees in UK; and uncover and address the intersecting subjects/concerns presented within news coverage of refugees in the UK.
CREST/ESRC “From the Diasporisation to the Transnationalisation of Exile Politics – The Case of Sri Lanka, 1983-2016” – Completing in September 2017, this research is examining transnational politics among the Tamil diaspora during the civil war in Sri Lanka and following the defeat of the LTTE in 2009. It is interested in the factors that shape such politics. Dr McDowell discusses the research in this short video presentation.
Publications:
‘Sri Lanka Diaspora politics and the end of violence’, Crest Security Review, Centre for the Research and Evidence on Security Threats, University of Lancaster
Three thematic reviews on refugee and diaspora politics: ‘Understanding Transnational Diaspora Politics: A Conceptual Discussion’, ‘The Engagement of Refugees in Transnational Politics: Lessons from the Migration, Diaspora and Refugee Studies Literature’, and ‘Asylum, Security and Extremism’ are available here.
Understanding Integration: Towards a Risk and Integration Model for Refugee Resettlement – Building on completed research for UNHCR and IOM this project seeks to improve on our current understanding of refugee integration by developing a model that identifies and tracks the risks to successful integration throughout the resettlement process, and to seek opportunities for reversing risks into integration opportunities.
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