Dr Natasha Carver
MSc, PhD
Current positions
Lecturer in International Criminology
School for Policy Studies
Contact
Media contact
If you are interested in speaking to this expert, contact the University’s Media & PR Team on
Research interests
My research looks at the legal constructions of racialised and gendered identities and how these identities are negotiated by those who are subject(ed) to their force. My current investigation explores multi-handed prosecutions of Child Sexual Exploitation and focuses on the experiences of migrant defendants and their family members. This is an ethnography originally funded by the Journal for Law and Society.
I have a long-standing research interest in asylum and immigration law and its application. I am accredited with the Law Society as a Senior Immigration Caseworker and have over ten years of experience as a practitioner. I have published on topics including: the ongoing effects of colonialism in the UK border regime and the application of the Refugee Convention; the role of legal representatives in cultural translation and the drafting of witness statements for immigration appeals; and the gendered and ethnicised imagining of ‘Britishness’ in the regulation of marriage-related migration to the UK. I am a member of the Specialist Research Institute, Migration Mobilities Bristol, where I currently hold the role of Research Challenge Coordinator for Control, Conflict and Resistance. I am also a trustee of Bristol Refugee Rights.
My forthcoming monograph, Marriage, Gender and Refugee Migration, explores marriage and marital relations among Bristol-Somali migrants. Based on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork as well as interview data, the book provides empirical evidence on intimacy, gender roles and family life following refugee migration. My work specialises in conversation and narrative analysis, and the book develops the use of ethnopoetics as a tool by which the reflexive sociologist can interrogate the production of narratives in interactional settings.
A further research interest lies with innovative methodologies including use of emerging technologies, and with spousal and familial care and communication in situations of long-term physical separation.
My PhD, supervised by Esther Dermott and Katharine Charsley, was awarded unconditionally from the University of Bristol in 2017, and received the Hilary Hartley prize for the best thesis of the year in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies. I join SPS following two years as a post-doctoral researcher in the School of Law and Politics at Cardiff University.
Positions
University of Bristol positions
Lecturer in International Criminology
School for Policy Studies
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Interdisciplinary public engagement event with the Somali communities in Bristol focused on young Somali wellbeing and outcomes
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
Drawing on the concerns of the Bristol Somali forum we have identified the following themes for young people in the Somali communities which warrant further consideration and research effort:
• Mental…Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
03/11/2017 to 28/02/2018
Publications
Recent publications
21/01/2021Prevalence of FGC/M in the UK: What can official data tell us?
Prevalence of FGC/M in the UK: What can official data tell us?
'Putting salt on the wound'
BMJ Open
"So far from justice": on the frontline of the Hostile Environment
On Being Permanently Temporary and the Right to Family Life
The Silent Backdrop:
Journal of Historical Sociology