HOMELandS (Hub on Migration, Exile, Languages and Spaces) is an innovative and vibrant research hub with a distinct focus on the intersection between mobilities, languages and spaces in global context.
Building on Westminster’s long-term commitment to the teaching and research of modern languages and cultures, it brings together scholars from the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures and other departments in the university to document, analyse and (re)conceptualize contemporary and historical mobilities in and across a wide range of diasporic spaces.
The hub’s purpose is to promote theoretically informed, interdisciplinary-oriented and language-based research to generate critical understanding of new mobilities in increasingly dynamic and intersected diasporic worlds. The hub currently comprises three major research areas: the French, Chinese and Hispanic diaspora, and has a strong interest in developing new research on Arabic and other European migrants.
The transcultural and comparative perspectives underpinning our collaborative research aim to stimulate more intellectual dialogues between often segregated studies of migrants in different cultural contexts.
Research aims
The hub is committed to:
- developing innovative and interdisciplinary language-based research projects on cutting-edge issues that are core features of contemporary mobilities, and having increasing impact on both sending and receiving countries and between these two ends
- carrying out collaborative research on different migrant experience by examining the movement of people and things in and across diasporic spaces through a comparative and transcultural lens
- running research seminars and workshops, film viewings and discussions, and impact events to provide a platform for regular and vibrant academic exchange and debate within and beyond the group as well as with the public
- developing research networks with expertise in other universities in the UK/EU, Asia and Latin America; and establishing close links with professionals and policy making bodies in relevant areas
- fostering MPhil and PhD training in language-based interdisciplinary research of migration and diaspora drawing on research and supervisory expertise across the university’s different departments
Useful links
Research units
- Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies
- Centre for Mobilities Research
- Centre for the Study of Migration
- COMPAS
- Global Migration Centre
- Language on the Move
- London Migration Research Group
- Sussex Centre for Migration Research
- The Centre for Research on Migration, Refugees and Belonging
- The Migrations and Society Research Unit
- The NCCR – on the Move