Population geographies

Post Conflict Identities: Practises and Affiliations of Somali Asylum Seeker Children (Principal Investigator with Professor Gill Valentine, University of Leeds).

This project is one of 25 projects funded by the ESRC's Identities and Social Action Programme and explores the contemporary identity practices of post-conflict refugee and asylum seeker children in the UK. Drawing on case study research with young Somalis aged between 11 and 18 living in Sheffield, the project seek to understand the complex ways that these children's identities are spatially constituted through their diverse histories of mobility and are accomplished in specific geographical sites.

The findings will highlight the identity practices that make a difference to young asylum seekers' integration in order to develop policies to support their social inclusion. The project runs from February 2005 to July 2007. Further details can be found at the Identities website (see right).

Population Geographies of Minority Ethnic Groups

Following on from Deborah's PhD research that examined the differential fertility of ethnic minorities in the Paris region, France, subsequent research has examined migrant networks and demographic behaviour; the ageing of ethnic minority groups (through a PhD studentship); and the educational performance of ethnicity groups (through a specially commissioned study for the ONS, 1997).

Deborah was a member of the ONS expert panel of advisors to project the ethnic minority population of the UK from the 2001 census. She has published on, and is an advocate of, the use of multi-methods and in particular qualitative methods in population research. Her other research interests within this area encompass both international and internal migration. She was awarded an ESRC case studentship in 2002 on ethnicity and health.