Maggie Paul

Maggie Paul is a researcher and educator within the Department of Politics and International Relations (POLIR) at the University of Adelaide. Her primary research interests are the politics of migration and citizenship amidst growing neoliberal nationalism. She studies the relation between migration narratives and changing political economic regimes, with a particular focus on histories of global racial capitalism. She also works on anti-racialism and multiculturalism or multi-layered citizenship in the hyper-mobile super-diverse contemporary context. She has a strong interdisciplinary background with previous academic degrees in Development Studies and Social Work. Her academic pursuits have been complemented by diverse professional experiences, including roles in research, policy, community development and education across Australia, India, and the UK.

Maggie's PhD thesis at POLIR titled 'Citizens or "Infiltrators"? Decolonising the Securitisation of Migration and Citizenship in India' traces the discursive construction of Bangladeshi (economic) migrants in militaristic terms as 'infiltrators' in India and the destabilising impact of this discourse on the contemporary citizenship regime in the country, particularly for racialised minority-citizens. In her thesis she combines a variety of methods, like desk review, archival research and primary qualitative fieldwork conducted in the city of Mumbai, with a decolonial analytical/theoretical prism that centers histories of racial capitalism in the subcontinent. Through analyses of primary data, she makes a case against the securitisation of Bangladeshi labour migrants and the denationalisation of citizens, particularly poor minorities, labelled as 'infiltrators', being carried out using colonial capitalist laws and principles. In broader terms, the thesis adds to the growing work on analysing the impact of migration narratives on citizenship policies across the world and to the activism on migrant justice centring migrant voices.

Besides research, Maggie has demonstrated her commitment to capacity-building and mentoring through various teaching assignments. She has taught undergraduate courses such as Politics and International Relations Research Project (Capstone Course) and Introduction to Global Politics at the University of Adelaide. Previously, she taught postgraduate courses on Governance and Public Policy and Advanced Research Methodology at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), a premier public university in India. She also coordinated academic support initiatives for first-generation scholars and linguistically diverse communities at TISS.

Overall, being an ardent believer in embedded scholarship, Maggie believes in utilising research for the pursuit of societal wellbeing.

Other research interests include:

> Political economy of citizenship
> Comparative politics of migration and citizenship regimes (India and Israel)
> Rethinking citizenship and democratic governance (including participatory/inclusive policy planning)
> Reframing 'security' through critical political economic perspectives
> Relationship between democracy, ecology, and capitalism
> Pluriversal approaches to sustainable development
> Decolonial theory (and practice)
> Buddhist socio-political theory