Biography
Maria Hagan is a PhD candidate in the Geography department at the University of Cambridge. Her current research explores the spatial and regulatory regimes impacting migrant encampment in European border zones through ethnography. Maria holds a first class Master’s degree in international development studies from the University of Amsterdam, for which she wrote a dissertation on the policing of asylum seekers and their informal settlements in Calais, France since the destruction of the notorious ‘Jungle’ in late 2016. For this purpose, she spent 6 months conducting ethnographic research with asylum seekers and grassroots humanitarian organisations in Calais through 2017-2018. Maria graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a first class BA degree in English Studies and a Gold Medal award in 2014.
Research
Maria is interested in the experiences and materialities of spaces of informal settlement, border surveillance & policing, as well as grassroots humanitarian initiatives.
