Iain Walker is an ESRC Research Fellow working on issues of identity among transnational communities of East African origin. His current project is "A Passport Home: the Significance of belonging in the Comoros, Zanzibar, the UK and France." Click here to go to the ESRC website.
His early research on ethnic identity and social change, was carried out among the Chagossians in Mauritius, forcibly removed from their homeland in the early 1970s to pave way for an American military base on Diego Garcia.
His research interests have remained focused on identity and ethnicity, expanding to include migration, globalisation and notions of home and belonging, as well as age systems. His geographical focus has slowly moved northwards.
He carried out doctoral research on mimesis, custom and belonging on the Comorian island of Ngazidja; since then he has worked on movements of people between the Comoros, Zanzibar and Hadramawt and he is now working on perceptions of belonging among mobile communities of East Africa, the Arabian peninsula and western Europe.
Iain also lectures on the MPhil course in Migration Studies based at ISCA.