Dr Sarah Kunz

Biography

I am a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex. Before joining the University of Essex, I was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Bristol. Trained in sociology and geography, my research explores privileged migration; the politics of migration categories and knowledge production on migration; the historical relationship between mobility, coloniality and racism; corporate migration management, and the commodification of citizenship. My first monograph ‘Expatriate: Following a Migration Category’ (Manchester University Press, 2023) draws on ethnographic and archival research to explore the postcolonial history and politics of the category ‘expatriate’, tracing it from the mid-twentieth-century era of decolonisation to today’s heated debates about migration. My current Leverhulme-funded research focuses on the global Citizenship Industry, the private sector involved in developing, administering and promoting citizenship by investment (CBI). Corporate actors have been key to the rise of investment migration and the Citizenship Industry has become a diverse and highly profitable global sector. From 2021-2022 I worked with the Migration Museum, London, to evaluate the first phase of the Migration Network, which brings together organisations from across the UK museum and heritage sector who work on migration and related themes. I co-founded and co-convene the Elite Studies Working Group and the BSA Sociology of Elites Study Group. I am also part of PriMob, an IMISCOE network of researchers of privileged migration and a co-founding editor of Postgraduate Pedagogies, an open-access journal focused on the experiences and perspectives of GTAs.

Qualifications

• PhD Geography University College London,

• MSc Sociology London School of Economics and Political Science,

• BA Liberal Arts and Sciences Maastricht University,

Appointments

University of Essex

• Lecturer, University of Essex (1/10/2022 - present)