Vanessa Hughes is a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Social Policy. Previously she was a LSE Fellow, following the completion of her ESRC-funded PhD in Sociology at Goldsmiths College supervised by Professors Les Back and Heidi Mirza, University of London. As part of her doctoral programme she spent two months at the Harvard Graduate School of Education hosted by Professor Roberto G. Gonzales. Before her doctoral studies, Vanessa worked as a researcher at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at the University of Oxford. In 2015 she co-founded the social enterprise actREAL which brings academic research on social issues into the community by using theatre and performance to bring it to life. Vanessa has also worked for the Council of Europe and the Migrants' Rights Network.

Vanessa's main research interests are in people's lived experience of migration, welfare and education policies, with a particular focus on how immigration status produces social inequalities and shapes stratification through restricting access to education and welfare rights. For her doctoral research Vanessa examined how precarious immigration status, race and life course shapes young migrants' everyday life in London and produces simultaneous exclusion and exclusion at different scales and times and long-term uncertainty over their future. She is also interested in working with qualitative participatory and collaborative methods. Her interest in participatory methods extends to her teaching, where she incorporates innovative and creative activities. Vanessa’s recent publications explore the intersection of time and immigration status, and child migrant’s right to education. She has also co-edited the book Citizenship and Its Others with Professor Bridget Anderson, and published articles in the journals Refuge, International Studies in Sociology of Education and the European Human Rights Law Review. Vanessa also co-authored the research reports 'Outside and In: Legal Entitlements to Health Care and Education for Migrants with Irregular Status in Europe' with Dr Sarah Spencer and 'No Way Out No Way in. Irregular migrant children and families in the UK' with Dr Nando Sigona.

Vanessa Hughes and Sunil Kumar have designed a Race Matters initiative in the Department of Social Policy with the aim of creating spaces for students and staff to talk about ‘race’ and its role and implications for understanding decolonised International Social and Public Policy.

Publications

Monograph

Hughes, V., (2013). Narrating ‘home’: What can we learn from the experiences of German expellees and refugees after the Second World War? LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing. Read here.

Journal articles

Hughes, V. (2021) Tense times for young migrants: temporality, life-course and immigration status, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Read here.

Hughes, V. (2021). Child migrants’ right to education in a London academy: tensions between policy, language provision, and international standards, Human Rights Education Review Vol.4 No.1, Special issue ICEDC. Read here.

Oliver, C., & V. Hughes (2018). Bordering education: Migrants’ entitlements to post-compulsory education in the United Kingdom, International Studies in Sociology of Education, 27:2-3. Read here.

Hughes, V. (2016). ‘Narrating “home”: Experience of German Expellees after the Second World War’, Refuge, 32:1, pp. 28-37. Special Edition ‘Refugee Voices’ edited by Professor Dawn Chatty. Read here.

Spencer, S. & V. Hughes (2015). ‘Fundamental Rights for Irregular Migrants: legal entitlements to healthcare and school education across the EU28.’ European Human Rights Law Review, Issue 6. Read here.

Book chapters

Anderson, B. & V. Hughes (2015). ‘Introduction’ In Anderson B. & V. Hughes (eds.) (2015) Citizenship and Its Others. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Read here.

Hughes, V. (2015) ‘Can family Migrants be Good Citizens?’ In Anderson, B. & V. Hughes (eds.) (2015) Citizenship and Its Other. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Read here.

Hughes, V (2014) Undocumented Migrant Children. In Anderson, B. and M. Keith (2014) Migration: A COMPAS Anthology. COMPAS, University of Oxford. Read here.

Edited Volumes

Anderson, B. & V. Hughes (eds.) (2015). Citizenship and Its Others. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Read here.

Other

Henneke, L., Hughes, V., Rees, P., Rivera, I., Takahashi, K., & S. Walker Eds. (2019). A Conversation Connecting Racism and Migration: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Graduate Journal of Social Science, Vol. 14:2, Special Issue. Read here.

Walker, S., Henneke, L., Hughes, V., Peacock, C., Rees, P., Rivera, I. & K. Takahashi (2017). A Conversation on Connecting Racism and Migration – A PhD Migration Reading Group conference, Streetsigns CUCR Blog. Read here.

Hughes, V. (2017). What future while living in uncertainty? Social Science Space, London: SAGE. Read here.

Spencer, S. & V. Hughes (2015). 'Outside and In: Legal Entitlements to Health Care and Education for Migrants with Irregular Status in Europe'. Research Report, Executive Summary and Annexe. Oxford: COMPAS. Read here.

Hughes, V., (2013). Family migration policies in the UK: What can academics contribute? COMPAS Blog. Read here.

Sigona, N. and V. Hughes (2012). No Way Out, No Way In. Irregular migrant children and families in the UK. COMPAS Research Report, University of Oxford. Read here.

Sigona, N. and V. Hughes (2010). Being Children and Undocumented in the UK: A Background Paper. COMPAS Working Paper 10-78, University of Oxford. Read here.