Dr Laura Antona

Dr Laura Antona

Assistant Professor (Education) in Human Geography

Department of Geography and Environment

Room No
CKK 3.05
Office Hours
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Languages
English
Key Expertise
Migration, violence, domestic labour, home

About me

Laura is an Assistant Professor (Education) in Human Geography in the Department of Geography and Environment at LSE. She is a feminist geographer who work focuses on labour, migration, and violence in Southeast Asia and Europe. Her work both draws upon- and contributes to- feminist political economy, labour geographies, and critical migration studies, while centring methodological innovation.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork, Laura’s current book project – Refuge or Detention? Migrant Domestic Workers Everyday Lives in Shelter – focuses on the experiences of migrant domestic workers living in shelters in Singapore. The book details the emotional geographies of these sites, demonstrating how shelters function simultaneously as places of refuge and detention. Laura also has an ongoing collaborative project (with Sneha Krishnan at the University of Oxford) on carceral domesticities and is writing about women’s experiences of forced migrant removal in Southeast Asia. This work builds on research she conducted while completing an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the School of Geography and the Environment at University of Oxford. She has also just begun archival and ethnographic research on the legacy of forced migration within and from Cyprus.

Laura holds a PhD in Human Geography and Urban Studies from LSE, where she was supervised by Professor Hyun Bang Shin and the late Professor Sylvia Chant. She has published work in venues such as Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, and Social and Cultural Geography

Teaching and Supervising

Laura’s teaching takes an inclusive, care-driven, and research-informed approach, driven by my interest in effective pedagogy and a commitment to life-long learning and educating for positive societal impact. She is currently Deputy-Director of the BA Geography programme.

Laura welcomes applications from potential PhD students interested a range of topics related to her own work/expertise, and from a variety of methodological or analytical starting points. Prospective students are welcome to get in touch with Laura directly. 

Courses currently taught include:

GY140: Introduction to Geographical Research
GY144: Human Geography and the City
GY246: Field Methods in Geography (Field Trip Manager)
GY350: Dissertation
GY459: Urban Theory and Policy in the South
GY452: Urban Research Methods

 

Expertise Details

Labour-migration; Migrant detainment; Forced migrant removal and return; Domestic work; Home; Carcerality

Publications

Journal Articles

Antona, L. (forthcoming). “Cute face and quiet … but her look don’t match her personality”: Commodifying flesh, shaping labour expectations, and domestic workers’ treatment in Singapore Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.

Antona, L. (2022). Shelters and clinics: sites where care and violence are mutually constitutive for migrant workers in Singapore. Social & Cultural Geography. Published online ahead of print: DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2022.2107229

Antona, L. (2019). Making hidden spaces visible: Using drawing as a method to illuminate new geographies. AREA, 51(4), 697-705. DOI: 10.1111/area.12526 

Guest Editorial of Journal Special Issues

Krishnan, S. & Antona, L. (forthcoming). “Carceral Domesticities”. Environment and Planning D: Space and Society. 

Book Chapters

Antona, L. (2022). “The New Normal or Same Old? Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore and the Impact of Covid-19”. In: H B Shin, M McKenzie & D Y Oh (eds.) COVID-19 in Southeast Asia: Insights for a Post-Pandemic World. London: LSE Press.

Selected Public Writing

Antona, L. (2022). What is ‘acceptable’ accommodation? Position paper and report written for the Humanitarian Organisation of Economics.

Antona, L.(2021). Singapore: Stop Sending Migrant Workers Back to Crisis in Myanmar. New Naratif.

Antona, L. (2020). The New Normal or Same Old? The Impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Live-in Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore. Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre Blog, London School of Economics.

Antona, L. (2020). ‘Entering the field and discovering that I was ‘doing’ ethnography’. The Field Research Methods Lab Blog, London School of Economics and Political Science.