Parvati Nair writes on the nexus of migration and culture. Her interests lie in the dynamics of migration at grass-roots level, in the intersections of the global and the local through migration, as well as in the ways in which borders function as points of contact, passage and obstruction. Her work aims to construct a better understanding of how policies and practices shape one another, affecting both the ways in which migrants, refugees and strangers may relocate and how communities, localities and places evolve through the movements and weaves of people. She has published widely on sociocultural aspects of migration, with a particular interest in the visual representations of displacement, especially photography.
She is Professor of Hispanic, Cultural and Migration Studies at Queen Mary University of London, engaging in research and doctoral supervision. She is also currently Head of the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film.
Parvati Nair joined United Nations University in 2012 to found and direct the United Nations University Institute on Globalization, Culture and Mobility (UNU-GCM), based in Barcelona. In 2019, she joined the UNU Vice-Rectorate in Europe as Special Adviser on Migration. At UNU, she led policy-relevant research in the areas of migration and gender, migration and cities, statelessness, and intercultural dialogue. In 2017, she was involved in coordinating UNU’s Chairmanship of the Global Migration Group, a forum of twenty-two agencies of the United Nations system, working at the time towards the adoption in 2018 of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.
Parvati Nair is also the founder and Principal Editor of Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture.
Parvati Nair is a national of the United Kingdom and an Overseas Citizen of India. She was born in Oslo, Norway and spent her childhood and adolescence in India, Poland, Morocco, Tunisia and Spain. She has a good knowledge of several languages and is bilingual in English and Spanish.
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