Dr Ayushman Bhagat
Lecturer in Political Geography

Research area(s)

My current research examines the political geographies of migration, borders, stigma, abandonment and death, with particular interests in anti-trafficking, modern slavery, human smuggling and the spatial politics of im/mobility. In particular, I am interested in making sense of how measures intended to prevent extreme forms of exploitation produces immobility, confinement, exclusion, dependency and new forms of exploitation, and how people encounter, experience, navigate, negotiate, subvert and escape these forms of control. Bringing together critical anti-slavery scholarship, migration and mobilities studies, feminist geography, political economy and socio-legal approaches, I explore how migration bans, border controls and anti-slavery interventions shape the lives and possibilities of people on the move. 

Much of my empirical research focuses on Nepal and South Asian migration. I seek to extend critical migration and anti-slavery scholarship by examining what happens in the ‘spaces of origin’ from which migration takes place. In doing so, I engage critically with critical (Euro-American) theories of migration and mobility, asking how concepts developed in particular geographical contexts travel, what they reveal or obscure when applied elsewhere, and where their geographical and conceptual limits lie.

Methodologically, I draw on participatory, ethnographic and feminist approaches, placing the knowledge and experiences of people and communities impacted by migration and anti-slavery interventions at the centre of my research. I seek to connect academic research with law, policy, advocacy and public debate. 

Research Interests

Politics of Anti-Trafficking, Modern Slavery and Migration Control 

Mobility, Borders, Carceral Protectionism, Stigma, Escape

Abandonment, Desertion and Strandedness

'Modern Slavery' Funding Landscape

Migrant Workers' Death 

Research Centre

Global Lives

Research Groups

Human Geography: Space, Place and Soceity

Migration, Asylum and Law

Grants