Dr Gillian McFadyen

PhD (Aberystwyth University) MSc Postcolonial Politics (Aberystwyth University) MSc International Politics (University of Glasgow) BA(Hons) Social Science (Glasgow Caledonian University)

, HEA Fellow

Dr Gillian McFadyen is a Lecturer in International Politics. Gillian's research focuses on the international refugee regime, with a particular focus on the British refugee system. 

Gillian has a PhD from Aberystwyth, as well as degrees from Aber (MSc), Glasgow (MSc) and Glasgow Caledonian (BA Hons). She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a 2021 alum of the Welsh Crucible. 

Module Coordinator

• IP12520 - Globalization and Global Development
• IP26820 - Questions of International Politics
• IP36820 - Questions of International Politics

Coordinator

• IP12520 - Globalization and Global Development
• IP26820 - Questions of International Politics
• IP36820 - Questions of International Politics

Lecturer

• IPM2120 - Research in Politics and International Studies
• IP12520 - Globalization and Global Development

Tutor

• IP12520 - Globalization and Global Development

Gillian teaches in the area of International Politics and Global Development, covering modules on Global Politics, Global Development and Refugee Politics/Simulation. She enjoys engaging in creative pedagogies, and in 2020 she won the Aber SU Student and Staff Award for Creative Teaching. 

Gillian's research engages with the area of refugee studies. She is particularly interested in refugee law, the British Asylum system, EU asylum process, as well as applying theories such as hospitality, labelling and coloniality to the refugee regime. She also has an interest in memory, trauma, silence and their application to refugee politics. Gillian's first book, Refugees in Britain: Practices of Hospitality and Labelling was published with Edinburgh University Press (2020).  Currently, Gillian is working on three projects 1) exploring colonial legacies within the UNHCR, 2) developing her work on hospitality around the logic of neoliberalism and 3) a Learned Society of Wales funded project on Digital Storytelling and Forced Migration: A Welsh pathway to peace?, exploring strategies for community cohesion, welcome and sanctuary through digital stories. 

A secondary field of research, sees her focuses on political embroidery, using stitching and craftivism as a method of resistance, memory, activism and story-telling. This research has seen her work on multiple projects at the national and international level, with exhibitions at the Tate Modern, Liverpool (2018), British Refugee Council Archives, London (2019) and Bordando Por la Memoria Project. She is co-convenor of the departments political embroidery group, Stitched Voices. In this thread, Gillian is working on an interdisciplinary project with researchers from Swansea and Northumbria University - Maternal Guilt Quilt- an innovative project that explores maternal emotional experiences, through a digitally augmented quilt that narrates mothers experiences of feeding. We are now utilizing the quilt as a tool kit to take to health professionals in order to support perinatal mental services health in Wales. 

Expertise: Gillian is interested in supervising PhD projects in the following areas: refugee, asylum, hospitality, labelling, memory, trauma, language, detention, coloniality, colonial legacies, human rights, political embroidery/arts, propaganda.

PhDs to completion:
Dr Chloe Sydney - “Why would be go back?” Refugee Decision-Making with Regards to Return 
Dr Joanne Elliott - Coercive Control, Displaced Syrians and the Failure to Act
Dr Joseph Thurgate -  An investigation into the politics and problems of disputing and attributing ages to young people seeking asylum in the UK.