Dr Deirdre Conlon

Profile

Deirdre Conlon is a critical geographer working in the US and Britain. She completed her PhD at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her work focuses on how immigration and border controls are proliferating as they are monetized. She is co-author, with Nancy Hiemstra, of Immigration Detention Inc. The Big Business of Locking Up Migrants (2025, Pluto Press). Recent scholarship includes articles in Geopolitics (2024) and Urban Studies (2022). Conlon recent work, with Hiemstra is also available at the Border Criminologies blog, Border Chronicle podcast, and news media outlets including The Financial Times and DW News. In addition to 30+ academic articles, Conlon has co-edited two collections Intimate Economies of Immigration Detention: Critical Perspectives (2017, Routledge) and Carceral Spaces: Mobility and Agency in Imprisonment and Detention (2013, Routledge). Deirdre is Associate Editor of Political Geography and on the editorial board of Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space. Deirdre is a member of national and international research networks including the Carceral Geography Working Group of the Royal Geographical Society with Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG).

Conlon’s work is typically collaborative. With an interdisciplinary background in environmental psychology her interests, teaching, and approach in research not only draw from critical human geography but also from feminist studies, urban studies, anthropology, and sociology Deirdre is interested in supporting PhD projects that focus on contemporary migration issues, carceral systems and confinement, political and feminist geographies.

Research Projects include:

The ‘internal economies of U.S. immigration detention’ (ongoing) - This long-standing collaborative research with Dr. Nancy Hiemstra, Stony Brook University, NY shows how financial dependencies on detention contribute to the continued expansion of detention regimes around the U.S. as well as globally. Their recently published a book draws on this research, Immigration Detention Inc: The Big Business of Locking Up Migrants (Pluto Press, June 2025).

Racism, Xenophobia, and Sexism in the intersection of Security and Migration - A Global South-North comparison in post-pandemic times (2023, six months) - This collaboration with Dr. Emilio Ayos, University of Buenos Aires, Gino Germani Research Institute and collaborators in Leeds and Argentina compared the intersection of security and migration in the rhetoric, policy, and ‘politics of hostility’ within a comparative (global south-north) context.

Research Matchmaking: Linking the demand and supply of research with migrants (2013-2014) - This ESRC Knowledge Exchange Grant project, with Professor Nick Gill developed an online architecture enabling researchers and civil society groups to connect and collaborate in addressing the research needs of migrant support communities. The site provided resources aimed at facilitating and navigating collaborative and participatory engagement practices.

Latino/a Engagement in Education Project (2012 –2013)- This William E. Simon Foundation funded project (with Professor David Surrey, Saint Peter’s University, New Jersey) worked with community and religious organisations and local schools in Jersey City, New Jersey to facilitate Latino/a parent’s involvement in their middle and high school-aged student education; tasks included community outreach, development and implementation of workshops, seminars and ESL classes for parents and a mentoring program for Jersey City Latino/a youth.

Making asylum seekers legible and visible: An analysis of the dilemmas and mitigating strategies of asylum advocacy organisations in the UK and US (2010-2012) - This ESRC funded research with Nick Gill and Imogen Tyler charted the challenges and successes of community, non-profit organizations engaged in supporting asylum seekers and migrants held in detention centres in the US and UK in the post-global financial crisis period. View the final report here.

Responsibilities

• Deputy Head of School (Geography)

Qualifications

• Ph.D. Environmental Psychology –The Graduate Center, City University of New York
• Graduate Certificate Women’s Studies – The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Professional memberships

• American Association of Geographers (AAG)
• Gender and Feminist Research Group of the RGS-IBG

Student education

Teaching:

FOEV5002 Skills for Urban Sustainability – MSc (convenor)

GEOG 3290 Geographies of Global Insecurities

GEOG 3145 Sicily: Exploring the Migration Crisis – field course

GEOG 2005 Citizenship and Identity

Research groups and institutes

• Social Justice, Cities, Citizenship

Current postgraduate researchers

• Lauren Cape-Davenhill
• Arwanto