Dr Gaja Maestri

I am a sociologist with an expertise on migration and ethnicity, collective action, and gender and intersectionality. My research focuses on the housing segregation of forced migrants, the forms of collective action supporting their social and housing inclusion, and the intersecting dimensions of migrant discrimination, especially race and gender. From a theoretical point of view, I engage with approaches from disciplines beyond sociology too, including human geography and politics. I specialise in comparative and qualitative methodologies and I have conducted extensive research in France, Italy and the UK.

I am currently the Principal Investigator of ESRC-funded project "The Peripheralisation of Asylum Accomodation".

Prior to joining Aston University, I worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Leicester as part of the ESRC-funded project The Frames of Altruistic Action. I was also member of the French project MARG-IN (“Marginalization/Inclusion: Regulatory Policies Effects in the Long Run. The Case of Romanian Roma Migrants”) that explored the exclusion and inclusion dynamics of Romania Roma migrants France, Italy and Spain and that was conducted by Université de Tours, Université de Poitiers and Centre d’Études Européennes, Sciences Po Paris.

My PhD research was funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council and focused on the persistence of the housing segregation of the Roma people and Algerian migrants in in Rome and Paris. It has been published as a book with Palgrave Macmillan: Temporary Camps, Enduring Segregation. The Contentious Politics of Roma and Migrant Housing .