Professor Marcia Vera-Espinoza is Acting Director of the Institute for Global Health and Development.
- Overview
- Research Interests
- Research Publications
- Teaching and PhD Supervision
- Funded Projects
Professor Marcia Vera Espinoza is Professor of Migration and Refugee Studies and Acting Director of the Institute for Global Health and Development. She is an interdisciplinary social scientist whose main areas of specialisation sit at the intersection of development, political and social geography. Her work is at the forefront of migration and refugee research in Latin America, focusing on the study of inclusion of refugee and migrant populations and migration governance in the region. Marcia, alongside colleagues of the , has also conducted research on the impacts of social connections in refugees’ experiences of integration in Scotland.
Before joining Queen Margaret University in 2021, Marcia was a Lecturer in Human Geography at Queen Mary University of London and an associate researcher in the ERC funded project ´Prospects for International Migration Governance´ (MIGPROSP) at the University of Sheffield.
Marcia has an undergraduate degree in Social Communication and Journalism from Universidad de Chile (Chile), a MA in International Studies and a PhD in Human Geography, both from the University Sheffield (UK).
Prof Vera Espinoza is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
In 2022, Marcia was awarded a place on the Scottish Crucible, an award-winning leadership and development programme. In 2024, she was appointed as a member of the Young Academy of Scotland at the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Marcia is also a Researcher and co-funding member of Comparative Analysis in International Migration and Displacement in the Americas ().
Professor Vera Espinoza serves as a member of the Editorial Board ofÌý, and is a member of the International Advisory Board ofÌý.
My research interests are in international and regional migration governance, refugee and migrant integration and wellbeing, social connections, refugee resettlement and ‘durable solutions’, immigration policies and responses to ‘crisis’ in Latin America, and refugee and migrant organisation and resistance.
I am a researcher and a co-founding member of the research group Comparative Analysis in International Migration and Displacement in the Americas (CAMINAR), established in April 2020 with colleagues from across 8 countries in Latin America. Our current comparative research explores the subjectivation of the migration regularization processes and documentary trajectories, and its impact on both migration projects and access to rights.
Currently I am PI of the project 'CONNECT-WELL: Adapting methods to assess social connectedness and well-being among young refugees in Scotland and Lower Saxony' (with Co-I Prof. Cordula von Denkowski), funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh Scotland-Lower Saxony Research and Innovation Scheme. I am also leading the Peru case study of the UNHCR funded project 'Health System Resilience, Enhancement and Refugee Response Project'.
In 2021-2023 I was PI of the EU-AMIF project ‘New Scots Integration: A Pathway to Social and Economic Inclusion’ in partnership with the Scottish Refugee Council, Bridges Programme and WEA. I was also Co-I of a RSE Research Grant to explore long-term refugee integration in Scotland (with Dr Emilia Piętka-Nykaza). In 2020-2021, I was also Co-PI of the project 'Migration, Pandemic and Responses from the Third Sector: Lessons from Brazil and India' (with Prof Parvati Nair).
Active research interests:
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Refugee ‘integration’
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Refugee and migration governance in Latin America
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Humanitarian responses and refugee ‘crisis’
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Refugees and migrants’ political lives
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Resettlement and durable solutions
Research Methods:
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Qualitative research
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Mixed method research
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Participatory workshops
TEACHING AND SUPERVISION
I coordinate the MSc Dissertations Module for our On Campus Programmes and the Independent Enquiry Projects for our Online Programmes.
PhD Supervision
I welcome applications from those interested in pursuing a PhD researching topics related to refugee integration, refugee and migration governance, responses to displacement and experience of mobility.
Current PhD researchers
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Duke Fan Chiang (with Alastair Ager and Kathleen Rutledge) QMU: 'The impact of cross-sector intervention on conflict-affected children’s mental health in protracted humanitarian settings. The case of children in refugee settlements in Uganda' (2021 - )
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Funke Adetutu (co-supervised with Stefanie Van De Peer): 'JAPA Journeys: Exploring Integration of Nigerian Immigrants in Scotland through Film' (2022 - ).
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Leyla Kerlaff (co-supervised with Karin Diaconu): 'Negotiating integration: refugees' experiences of place-making in the UK' (2023 - ).
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MD Rezaur Rahman (co-supervised with Arek Dakessian): 'A mixed-method study to examine the effectiveness of social mixing activities in promoting social cohesion between the long-term and new residents in West Lothian, Scotland' (2023 - ).
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Irsa Kadilli (co-supervised with Kieran Taylor) QMU: 'Belonging under constraint: EU migrants' integration and status-seeking strategies in the post-Brexit UK immigration system', (2026 - )
Former PhD researchers
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Dr Nuni Jorgensen (with Rachel Humphris and Kavita Datta) PHD-Queen Mary University of London: ‘Out of Sync: Transnational Venezuelan Families Facing Multi-Sited Temporal Uncertainties’ (2020-2024). QMUL Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholarship.
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Dr Giovanna Gini (with Kerry Holden) PHD-Queen Mary University of London: 'Anthropocene Mobilities: identity as a process between materialities and mobilities' (2019-2023). QMUL Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholarship.
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Dr Michael Blaney (with Oonagh O'Brien and Alison Strang) Queen Margaret University: '"Killing Hope" Refugee men's struggle to integrate and experience a sense of belonging in Ireland (2018 - 2023).
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Dr Gillian Hughes (with Kathleen Rutledge) Queen Margaret University: 'Creative use of the ‘Tree of Life’ narrative methodology to develop the emotional resilience of refugee children, young people and their parents in the UK'. PhD by Publication (retrospective) (2023 - 2024)
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Dr Helen Baillot (co-supervised with Daniel Reidpath) Queen Margaret University: 'Families of care and connection: a relational exploration of how refugees overcome structural constraints to integration in the UK' (2023 - 2025).
Current projects
CONNECT-WELL: Adapting methods to assess social connectedness and well-being among young refugees in Scotland and Lower Saxony
The CONNECT-WELL project uses a participatory approach to test and adapt qualitative methods for assessing social connectedness and well-being among refugee children and young people in Scotland and Lower Saxony. It focuses on developing culturally sensitive tools that are suitable across different ages, genders, and ethnic backgrounds, and that recognise young people as active social actors rather than passive participants in research. As a seed project, CONNECT-WELL also lays the groundwork for a larger, comparative study.
More about the CONNECT-WELL project.
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Refugee health care, integration and resilience
This project is examining evidence from global evidence and six country case studies to draw lessons on whether and how to integrate refugee health care into national health systems. This work was commissioned by UNHCR and feeds into important global debates on management of forcibly displaced populations.
More about The Health System Resilience, Enhancement and Refugee Response Project.
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Co-Designing Health Innovations to Reach Mobile Men with Co-Morbidities in Uganda and Zambia (HIMM)Ìý
Men in Uganda and Zambia experience high burdens of infectious and non-communicable diseases, alongside lower healthcare use, with mobility further complicating diagnosis and ongoing care. The HIMM project studies these challenges in mobile men and will co-design and test a mobility-sensitive intervention to improve access to screening and treatment by combining ethnographic, epidemiological, and health systems research.
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Past projects
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PI SRC-AMIF New Scots Integration: A Pathway to Social and Economic Inclusion
IGHD is working in partnership with Scottish Refugee Council, Bridges Programmes and Workers’ Educational Association to explore the role of social connections in the integration of recently recognised refugees living in Scotland. This project, funded by the EU’s Asylum, Migration and Immigration Fund (AMIF) has also tested and refined IGHD’s Social Connections Mapping Tool in a practice context.
Co-I RSE Refugee integration in Scotland, long term perspective
This project aims to discuss understandings of integration in a longer-term perspective, by bringing together scholars, practitioners, and refugee-lead groups in a series of workshops on knowledge exchange and agenda setting.
