
Dr Georgie Wemyss
Senior Lecturer
CMRB and Social Sciences
Department of Social Sciences , School of Education and Communities
Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader for the Foundation Year in Social Sciences, and Co-Director for the Centre for Research on Migration , Refugees and Belonging (CMRB).
Qualifications
- University College London, BA in Anthropology and Geography 1982
- Institute of Education, University of London, PGCE (Distinction) 1988
- University of Sussex, MA in Social Anthropology 1992
- University of Sussex, D.Phil in Social Anthropology 2004
Areas Of Interest
- Borders and everyday processes of bordering
- Politics of remembering
- British empire histories
- Citizenship and belonging
- Racism
- Politics of religious fundamentalisms
- Ethnographic methodology
- Adult education
OVERVIEW
Georgie Wemyss is Senior Lecturer, Programme Leader for the Foundation Year in Social Sciences, and Co-Director at the Centre for Research on Migration, Refugees and Belonging.
From 2013 to 2016 she worked on the EU Borderscapes project, investigating the evolving concepts of state borders in Europe. Her interest in the everyday processes of bordering grew out of her D.Phil ethnographic research about Britishness and belonging, together with insights gained from 20 years teaching social anthropology to adults returning to education in East London.
Previously, she worked as a youth worker in Tower Hamlets and lived in India and Bangladesh, where she studied at the Bangla Academy.
Her book, The Invisible Empire: White Discourse, Tolerance and Belonging explores how differing narratives of Britishness obscure colonial histories in ways that work against the belonging of second and third generation British citizens in the present.
She was an ESRC Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Research on Nationalism, Ethnicity and Migration at the University of Surrey from 2005 to 2007, and Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths', University of London from 2007 to 2011.
CURRENT RESEARCH
Recent related research:
- (2011) 'Littoral Struggles, Liminal Lives: Indian Merchant Seafarers' Resistances' in Ahmed, R. and Mukherjee, S. (eds)
- South Asian Resistances in Britain, 1858 - 1947, London: Continuum -http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/south-asian-resistances-in-britain-1858-1947-9781441117564/
- The Invisible Empire: white discourse, tolerance and belonging . Aldermaston: Ashgate. - http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9780754673477 (http://uel.ac.uk/cmrb/documents/InvisibleEmpireDec2009.pdf)
Areas of Interest and Expertise
- Borders and everyday processes of bordering
- Politics of remembering
- British empire histories
- Citizenship and belonging
- Racism
- Politics of religious fundamentalisms
- Ethnographic methodology
- Adult education
PUBLICATIONS
All publications
- Bordering, Cambridge, Yuval-Davis, N. Wemyss, G., Cassidy, K.. 2019. Polity Press.
- Globalizing Labour? Indian Seafarers and World Shipping, G. Balachandran. 2015. Cultural and Social History. p. 142 - 143.
- Intersectional Border(ing)s, Cassidy, K., Yuval-Davis, N. and Wemyss, G., 2018. Political Geography. p. (66) 139-141.
- Littoral Struggles, Liminal Lives: Indian Merchant Seamen's Resistances, Rehana Ahmed and Sumita Mukherjee. 2012. South Asian Resistances in Britain.
- Placing the Border in Everyday Life, Wemyss, G. 2017. Journal of Borderlands Studies. 32 (2) p. 269-270.
- 'Activist Listening' in Sukhwant Dhaliwal and Nira Yuval Davis (eds), Women Against Fundamentalism: Stories of Dissent and Solidarity. Lawrence & Wishart. Wemyss, G., 2014. Lawrence & Wishart.
- Debordering and Everyday (Re) bordering in and of Dover: Post-Borderland Borderscapes. Cassidy, K. Yuval-Davis, N. & Wemyss, G.. 2017. Political Geography Special Issue: Intersectional Approaches to Everyday Borderings.
- 'Beauty and the Beast': Everyday Bordering and Sham Marriage Discourse., Wemyss, G. Yuval-Davis, N & Cassidy K .. 2017. Political Geography. Special Issue: Intersectional Approaches to Everyday Borderings.
- 'Everyday Bordering and Raids Every Day: The Invisible Empire and Metropolitan Borderscapes' in Borderscaping: Imaginations and Practices of Border Making, Chiara Brambilla, Jussi Laine, James W. Scott & Gianluca Bocchi. 2015. Farnham: Ashgate. p. 187.
- 'Introduction to the special issue: racialized bordering discourses on European Roma', Yuval-Davis, N. Wemyss, G. Cassidy, K. 2017. Ethnic and Racial Studies. Volume 40, 2017 - Issue 7. Pages 1-11
- 'Everyday Bordering, Belonging and the Re-Orientation of British Immigration Legislation', Yuval-Davis, N. Wemyss, G. & Cassidy, K. 2017. Sociology.
- "People think that Romanians and Roma are the same": everyday bordering and the lifting of transitional controls , Wemyss, G. & Cassidy, K.. 2017. Ethnic and Racial Studies. . Pages 1-19.
- Racialized Bordering Discourses on European Roma , Yuval-Davis, N. Wemyss, G. & Cassidy, K.(Eds). 2017. Routledge.
- The new Immigration Bill and the criminalization of work and everyday bordering, Wemyss, G. 2015. Glasgow Refugee and Asylum network (GRAMnet).
- 'Changing the racialized 'common sense' of everyday bordering', Yuval-Davis, N. , Wemyss, G., Cassidy, K.. 2016. Open Democracy.
- 'Welcome to Britain in 2017, where everybody is expected to be a border guard' , Wemyss, G., Cassidy, K and Yuval-Davis, N.. 2017. The Conversation.
- Political Geography Special Issue Intersectional Approaches to Everyday Borderings, Cassidy, K. Yuval-Davis, N. & Wemyss, G., 2018.
- Everyday Borders, directed by Orson Nava, produced by Georgie Wemyss. 2015.
- The Compliant environment: turning ordinary people into border guards should concern everyone in the UK, Wemyss, G.. 2018. The Conversation.