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Dr Liza Schuster

Reader in Sociology

School of Policy and Global Affairs

Contact details

Address

Dr Liza Schuster D613, Rhind Building
City, University of London
Northampton Square
London EC1V 0HB
United Kingdom

About

Overview

Dr Liza Schuster has spent most of the past decade conducting fieldwork in Afghanistan, where she was based at the Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University. Funded by the Leverhulme Trust (2012 - 2013), she has studied the consequences of deportation for Afghans, their families and communities. Her most recent work, funded by the ESRC (2016-2018), and in collaboration with Afghan colleagues at ACKU, included an examination of representations of migration in Afghan Oral Culture, a study of the Hopes, Plans and Fears of Afghan Families, and an exploration of the influence of the EU on the development of Afghan Migration Policy.
Dr Schuster prepares expert reports on Afghanistan for Immigration tribunals in the UK, and across Europe and contributes to debates on migration in a number of countries.
Dr Schuster originally came to City in September 2005 from the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at Oxford University. Before that she was T. H. Marshall Fellow at the London School of Economics working on a comparative project that explored processes of inclusion and exclusion in four European states: Britain, France, Germany and Italy. Since then she has offered critiques of access to the EU, British, French and Greek asylum systems, and developed a focus on deportation, examining the European returns directive, and the impact of deportation on those returned to Afghanistan and Uganda.
She teaches at all levels on the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, including modules in general Sociology, Racism and Global Migration.

Qualifications

  1. PhD, University of Southampton, United Kingdom, 1994 – 1998

Languages

French (can read, write, speak, understand spoken and peer review), German (can read, write, speak, understand spoken and peer review), Italian (can understand spoken) and Persian (can speak).

Expertise

Geographic Areas

  • Asia - Central
  • Europe

Research

At City, Dr Schuster is continuing her work on on domestic and European asylum policy (in particular the new European Agenda on Migration, Dublin regulations and deportation) as well as the consequences of deportation, and migration from Afghanistan. Much of this research is comparative in nature, looking at Britain, France, Germany and Italy, and increasingly Afghanistan and Uganda.

Currently Dr Schuster is exploring the impact of deportation on those deported, their families and communities, and the states and societies that deport and receive them. She has just returned from three years, Afghanistan, (partly funded by a Leverhulme Fellowship), asking what factors cause some deportees to re-migrate and what factors enable others to re-integrate into their communities of origin, and exploring the impact of deportation on their families and communities.

She is also collaborating with the Refugee Legal Project (Kampala) on another deportation-related project.

Publications

Publications by category

Book

  • Schuster, L. (2003). The use and abuse of political asylum in Britain and Germany. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7146-8320-1.

Chapters (15)

  • Schuster, L., Hussaini, R., Hossaini, M., Rezaie, R. and Shinwari, M.R.K. (2021). ‘My Beloved Will Come Today or Tomorrow’: Time and the ‘Left Behind’. Stealing Time (pp. 1–23). Springer International Publishing. ISBN 978-3-030-69896-6.
  • Schuster, L. and Majidi, N. (2018). Deportation and Forced Return. In Bloch, A. and Dona, G. (Eds.), Forced Migration: Current Issues and Debates (pp. 88–105). London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-65322-1.
  • Schuster, L. (2016). Unmixing Migrants and Refugees. The Routledge Handbook of Immigration and Refugee Studies (pp. 297–303). Oxford: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-79431-3.
  • Schuster, L. (2015). The sociologist as voyeur. Sociologists' Tales: Contemporary Narratives on Sociological Thought and Practice (pp. 17–22). ISBN 978-1-4473-1866-8.
  • Schuster, L. (2014). The Limits of Research. In Anderson, B. (Ed.), Migration: The COMPAS Anthropology Oxford: COMPAS. ISBN 978-1-907271-03-8.
  • Schuster, L. (2011). Engendering Insecurity: The EU Asylum Regime. In Lazaridis, G. (Ed.), Security, insecurity, and migration in Europe Ashgate Pub Co. ISBN 978-1-4094-0920-5.
  • Schuster, L. (2010). Globalization, Migration and Citizenship. In Solomos, J. and Collins, P.H. (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Race and Ethnic Studies (pp. 332–350). Sage Publications Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7619-4220-7.
  • Welch, M. and Schuster, L. (2008). American and British Constructions of Asylum Seekers: Moral Panic, Detention and Human Rights. In Brotherton, D.C. and Kretsedemas, P. (Eds.), Keeping Out the Other New York, US: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-14129-1.
  • Schuster, L. and Welch, M. (2006). Detention of Asylum Seekers in the UK and US: Deciphering Noisy and Quiet Constructions. In Critcher, C. (Ed.), Critical readings: Moral Panics and the Media Open Univ Pr. ISBN 978-0-335-21807-3.
  • Schuster, L. and Solomos, J. (2004). New Directions, or ‘The Same Old Story’? New Labour’s Policies on Race Relations, Immigration and Asylum. In Steinberg, D.L. and Johnson, R. (Eds.), Blairism and the war of persuasion Lawrence And Wishart Ltd. ISBN 978-0-85315-992-6.
  • Schuster, L. and Solomos, J. (2002). Racism, Politics and Mobilization. In Goldberg, D.T. and Solomos, J. (Eds.), A companion to racial and ethnic studies (pp. 303–318). Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-20616-3.
  • Schuster, L. and Solomos, J. (2002). Hate Speech, Violence and Contemporary Racisms. In Foundation, E. (Ed.), Europe's new racism? Causes, Manifestations and Solutions (pp. 43–55). Berghahn. ISBN 978-1-57181-333-6.
  • Schuster, L. (2001). Political Asylum in Britain and German. In Ghatak, S. and Showstack - Sassoon, A. (Eds.), Migration and mobility (pp. 109–123). Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-92036-7.
  • Schuster, L. and Solomos, J. (2000). Citizenship, Multiculturalism and the Politics of Identity: Contemporary Dilemmas and Policy Agendas. In Koopmans, R. and Statham, P. (Eds.), Challenging immigration and ethnic relations politics (pp. 74–94). Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0-19-829560-0.
  • Schuster, L. and Solomos, J. (1999). The Politics of Refugee and Asylum Policies in Britain: Historical Patterns and Contemporary Realities. In Bloch, A. and Levy, C. (Eds.), Refugees, citizenship and social policy in Europe (pp. 51–79). Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-21724-2.

Journal articles (43)

Report

Other (2)

Professional activities

Editorial activity (2)

  1. Editorial board of Ethnic and Racial Studies.
  2. Editorial Board Patterns of Prejudice.

Media appearance

  1. Channel 4 News. Interviewed by John Snow about deportations to Afghanistan

Online articles (6)

  1. President slams fleeing Afghans, but offers little incentive to stay. (2016). The Conversation
  2. Reduced sentences for murderers reveal the rotten heart of Afghan justice. (2015). The Conversation
  3. Ashraf Ghani is running out of fans - and this latest Taliban attack won't help. (2015). The Conversation
  4. A friend injured in Kabul and a sad message about testing limits in Afghanistan today. (2014). The Conversation
  5. Brutal, expensive, futile - the truth about deporting asylum seekers. (2013). The Conversation
  6. Kabul is no safe haven for deported refugees. (2014). The Conversation