Jen Dickinson

Jen Dickinson is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Winchester. She completed her PhD in 2008 at the University of Leeds, after which she held a number of teaching and research positions at the University of St. Andrews and the University of Leicester before joining the University of Winchester in Sept. 2016.

I am a political and development geographer. My research examines the development of diaspora engagement policies globally. Situated at the intersection between home and host states, diasporas are uniquely positioned development actors.  My research focuses on the histories of the policy turn towards diasporas and how states in the global south develop highly specialized and institutionalized bureaucratic regimes to govern, construct and engage citizens after exit. Drawing from feminist and postcolonial approaches, I explore the growth of diaspora policies and diplomatic practices (which are increasingly digital), and how they are received, gain foothold and achieve momentum amongst diaspora communities situated across a wide range of geo-historical contexts and with multiple overlapping identities. Empirically, I work on Indian diasporic civil society, and on second-generation Rwandan diaspora youth & their engagements with heritage, peace and reconciliation initiatives 

Supervision of research students

I welcome enquiries about research degree supervision. My areas of supervision are: migration and development, diaspora strategies, postcolonial heritage, decolonisation

Rwandan diaspora

South Asian diasporas

Citizenship

Diaspora and development 

Second-generation diasporas

Postcolonial and feminist geography

Qualitative research methods: in-depth interviews, policy analysis, social media analysis and ethnography 

@jenlove23

• Dickinson, J (2020) Visualising the foreign and the domestic in diaspora diplomacy: images and the online politics of recognition in #givingtoindia Cambridge Review of International Affairs
• Dickinson, J (2019) “Post-colonial states, nation-building and the (un)making of diasporas.” Pp. 260-268 in Routledge Handbook of Diaspora Studies, edited by R. Cohen and C. Fisher. Abingdon: Routledge.
• Dickinson, J. (2017) The political geographies of diaspora strategies: rethinking the ‘sending state’. Geography Compass 11 (2).
• Dickinson, J. (2016). Chronicling Kenyan Asian diasporic histories: ‘newcomers’, ‘established’ migrants, and the post-colonial practices of time-work. Population, Space and Place 22 (8): 736-49
• Andrucki, M., and Dickinson, J. (2015). Rethinking centers and margins in geography: Bodies, lifecourse and the performance of transnational space. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 105: 203-18
• Bhakta, A., Dickinson, J., Moore, K., Mylam, A and Upton, C. (2015). Negotiating the responsibilities of collaborative undergraduate fieldcourses. Area 47: 282–88.
• Dickinson, J. (2015). Articulating an Indian Diaspora in South Africa: The Consulate General of India, diaspora associations and the practices of collaboration. Geoforum 61: 79–89.
• Dickinson, J. (2015). Chronicling Kenyan Asian diasporic histories: ‘newcomers’, ‘established’ migrants, and the post-colonial practices of time-work Population, Space and Place [early view, doi: 10.1002/psp.1951]
• Dickinson, J. (2014). Making space for India in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Narrating diasporic subjectivities through classical song and dance. Emotion, Space and Society 13: 32-39
• Cameron, A., Dickinson, J., and Smith, N. (Eds) Body/State. London, Ashgate
• Dickinson, J., and Sothern, M (2013) The Gift of Life? In, Cameron, A., Dickinson, J., and Smith, N. (Eds) Body/State. Ashgate, pp. 51-66
• Dickinson, J. (2012). Decolonising the diaspora: neo-colonial performances of Indian history in East Africa. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 37 (4): 609–623
• Sothern, M and Dickinson, J. (2011). Repaying the Gift of Life: self-help, organ transfer and the debt of care. Social and Cultural Geography 12 (8), 889-903
• Dickinson, J., et al. (2008). Introduction: Geographies of Everyday Citizenship ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 7 (2), 100-12
• Dickinson, J., and Bailey, A.J (2007) (Re)membering diaspora: Uneven geographies of Indian dual citizenship. Political Geography 26 (7), 757-74

Externally funded research awards

PI: Dickinson J & Finneran, N. Heritage tourism: Youth entrepreneurship: Long term thinking for diaspora engagement. European Union Global Diaspora Facility/International Centre for Migration Policy Development. £14,566

PI: Dickinson, J. New Indian Migration to Kenya: Negotiating Diasporic Heritage.
RGS-IBG Small Research Grant 2009-2011. £2500

PI: Mawdseley, E. CoI: Dickinson, J. India in Africa: Changing geographies of power. British Academy with Cambridge University 2008 – 2009. £1800

PI: Dickinson, J. Travel award. RGS-IBG Dudley Stamp Memorial Fund 2005. £500

Memberships

Royal Geographical Society of the Institute of British Geographers

American Association of Geographers