Research group: Centre for Migration and Postcolonial Studies (MAPS)

About our research

The Centre for Migration and Postcolonial Studies (MAPS) works in the fields of postcolonial, migration and diaspora studies, literary and cultural geography, and global testimony studies.

Our research deals with a range of disciplines relating to South Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and South East Asia, as well as minority and diasporic cultures in the UK and beyond.

With the current migration crisis, our work has never been more timely or more relevant.

We often work with award-winning writers from the Manchester Writing School, one of the largest postgraduate English and creative writing communities in the UK.

Manchester itself has a history of migration and postcolonial encounters, making it one of the more ethnically diverse cities in Europe.

We want to create an inclusive, international culture at the University through local and international partnerships, and by exploring how histories of migration shape and mark literary and cultural landscapes.

Our continuing aim is to connect the history of colonialism to the literary and cultural future.

As well as our MA English course in postcolonial studies, we also run a speakers’ series, a reading group, a film club and a writers’ forum on creative-critical conversations.

Our research topics

Postcolonial Trauma and Testimony Studies

The intersecting fields of trauma and testimony studies are widely researched in MAPS. Professor Minoli Salgado’s Leverhulme-funded project, The Other Side of Violence, offers a practice-based comparative critique of witness literature. This draws on fieldwork in Cambodia and Sri Lanka, as well as work with the National Peace Council, Sri Lanka. This research is reflected in the MA course on Postcolonial Trauma which engages with literature and film from these areas, as well as from Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan and Northern Ireland. It is currently taught by Professor Salgado, Dr Eleanor Byrne and Dr Sonja Lawrenson. 

Climate Change and the Global South

Dr Chloe Germaine and Dr Ben Bowman are leading a project on Climate Imaginaries relating to climate fiction and young people’s environmentalism funded by the Political Studies Association. In addition, Dr Muzna Rahman is interested in the intersections between climate change, sustainability and literary studies, and has worked as a visiting researcher at the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Decolonising Comedy Studies

Dr Sarah Ilott leads on a project that challenges the existing canon of comedy theory. Working with researchers, performers and writers from across the globe, the project provides alternative histories and ways of understanding comic performance that decentre the privileged white, male, European subject position.