SSPSSR Senior Lecturer in Social Work, Dr Sweta Rajan-Rankin, has been appointed a co-theme lead for a Kent Signature Research Theme on ‘Migration and Movement’.
The interdisciplinary research theme, selected through a competitive University wide-competition, explores the migration of people, animals, objects, pathogens and knowledge systems.
Dr Rajan-Rankin’s fellow co-leads include Professor David Herd, Dr Amanda Klekowski Von Koppenfels, Dr Margherita Laera, Professor Rachel McCree, and Dr Thomas Parkinson.
Signature Research Themes (SRTs) are a key part of the University’s strategy to further develop its global research profile. They bring together a wide range of ideas and approaches through cross-disciplinary collaboration, and they enhance the excellent practices and activities, highlighting the cutting-edge and innovative research that goes on at Kent.
Migration and Movement links Kent’s location as borderland to global priorities. In its analysis of human movement, the SRT aims to tackle the separation that currently exists between disciplinary languages, methodologies and data-sets.
It will pioneer multidisciplinary concepts and methodologies to change the terms in migration research and public policy. The theme will problematise borders between (for example) ‘migrants’, ‘tourists’, ‘ex-pats’, and ‘high net worth individuals’, and expand migration to include the movement of pathogens, remittances, goods, labour – and students and academics.
Dr Rajan-Rankin has research interests in the sociology of race and ethnicity. She recently drew on her research on hair practices in Brixton for a webinar on ‘Working with visual and sensory methods to research materiality, mobility and rhythm’. She spoke about exploring touch, texture and the socio-materiality of hair in curating black identity. The webinar was part of the Qualitative Research & Innovation Webinar Series presented by NVivo and SAGE Publications.
Her most recent publication is a chapter on ‘Beyond Scientific Racism: Monstrous Ontologies and Hostile Environments’ for Monstrous Ontologies: Politics, Ethics, Materiality edited by Caterina Nirta and Andrea Pavoni (Vernon Press, 2021).