Staff Profile

My research is primarily focused on questions of anti-racism, migrant justice and the spatial politics of borders and immigration controls. I come from a background in political anthropology and the anthropology of relatedness: care, friendship and solidarity.

I am based in Glasgow and gained my PhD at Edinburgh University Social Anthropology with a dissertation entitled 'Holding Space: Friendship, Care and Carcerality in the UK Immigration Detention System.' I am committed to the importance of combining campaigning and academic work where possible and work closely with a number of groups in Glasgow that organise around mutual aid, migrant solidarity and anti-racism. I have also been involved with the Arika and Counterflows festivals, occasionally do music and journalistic writing, and help run a small record label called GLARC.

I joined Geography at Newcastle in May 2023 to undertake a 21-month postdoctoral project with Professor Peter Hopkins, looking at activism around islamophobia, racism and asylum seeker rights in Scotland and the North East of England.

I am an experienced ethnographic researcher, and have also utilised artistic, sound-art and podcast based methodologies. I have worked extensively with people at the sharp edge of the UK Border Regime, particularly those going through immigration detention. I believe in considering the possibilities of care, friendship and solidarity as a methodology as well as a theoretical focus. My research draws on theoretical work including black feminism, racial capitalism, anti-colonialism, No Borders, prison abolition, and social movement history, along with urban social, cultural and political geography.

• Book Chapter

  • White J. Responsibility and complicity in the UK “hostile environment”. In: Demian, M., Fumanti, M., & Lynteris, C, ed. Anthropology and Responsibility. London, UK: Routledge, 2023, pp.220.