School of Geography
  1. School of Geography
  2. People
  3. Academic Staff
  4. Profiles

Dr Olivia Sheringham

Olivia

Lecturer in Human Geography, International Study Officer

Email: o.sheringham@qmul.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7882 3153
Room Number: Geography Building, Room 107

Profile

I am a social and cultural geographer with a broad interest in relationships between identity, space and power in the context of transnational migration and diaspora. My work has focused on place-making and integration, migration and religion, creolization and identities, and geographies of home and the city. My most recent book (co-written with Robin Cohen), Encountering Difference, critically engages with theories and practices of diaspora and creolization, historically and in relation to contemporary urban spaces.

Before joining QMUL as a Lecturer in 2017, I held post-doctoral positions at the International Migration Institute, University of Oxford, and the Centre for Studies of Home, QMUL. Much of my earlier work focused on Latin American migration and diasporas, and I was a founding member of a research network and seminar series for scholars working on Latin American and Caribbean Migration, MIGRALAC.

My current research includes home-city-street, a project (with Alison Blunt and Casper Laing Ebbensgaard) that explores home in the wider context of the neighbourhood, street and the city; a project (with Maria Villares, University of Southampton) on Migration, Religion and Entrepreneurship; and a public engagement project on story-telling, food and belonging among refugees and migrants in London with the refugee supper club Stories & Supper. I am also closely involved in an ongoing collaborative project, entitled Globe, led by former Leverhulme artist-in-residence Janetka Platun. This forms part of my ongoing interest in the possibilities of collaboration between geographers and artists for both theory and practice.

Academic Background:

BA in Modern Languages (University of Cambridge); MA in Latin American Area Studies (Institute for the study of the Americas, University of London); MA in Cities and Cultures (Geography, Queen Mary University of London); and PhD in Geography (Queen Mary University of London). 

Key publications include:

  • Blunt, A. and O. Sheringham ‘Home-city geographies: urban dwelling and mobility’ Progress in Human Geography
  • Cohen, R. and O. Sheringham (2016) Encountering Difference: Diasporic Traces, Creolizing Spaces. Cambridge: Polity Press Ltd.
  • Sheringham, O. (2016) ‘Markers of Identity in Martinique: Being French, Black, Creole’ Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39 (2): 243-263
  • Sheringham, O. (2013) Transnational Religious Spaces: Faith and the Brazilian Migration Experience. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Sheringham, O. (2010) ‘Creating alternative geographies: Religion, transnationalism and everyday life’, Geography Compass, 4(11):  1678–1694.
  • Sheringham, O. (2010) ‘A Transnational space?: Transnational practices, place-based identity and the making of ‘home’ among Brazilians in Gort, Ireland’, Portuguese Studies, 26(1): 60-78.

Teaching

Undergraduate:

I convene and/or teach on the following modules:

  • GEG5131: Contemporary London: Life in the Global Metropolis (convenor)
  • GEG5126: Cultural Geographies (lecturer - Week 11)
  • GEG6000: Independent Geographical Study (tutor)

Postgraduate

I convene and teach on the following modules:

  • GEG7129: Migration and Mobilities (co-convenor with Kavita Datta)
  • GEG7102: Art, Performance and the City

PhD Students:

  • Shabna Begum, ‘Stay and Fight: How a Bengali squatters movement claimed 'home' and belonging in the East End of London, in the 1970s’ (co-supervise with Kavita Datta) (QMUL Studentship)
  • Jade Hunter, ‘‘Home, migration and belonging on a suburban estate’ (with Eastside Community Heritage) (ESRC 1+3)

International Students:

I also convene and teach on the new summer school module which will take place in July-August 2018 in Paris and London.

Research

Publications

Books

  • Cohen, R. and O. Sheringham (2016) Encountering Difference: Diasporic Traces, Creolizing Spaces. Cambridge: Polity Press Ltd.
  • Sheringham, O. (2013) Transnational Religious Spaces: Faith and the Brazilian Migration Experience. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillian.

Edited Books & Special Issues

  • Cohen, R. and O. Sheringham (eds) (2013) Special Issue: Islands, Diaspora, and Creolization. Diaspora: A journal of transnational studies, 17 (1).
  • (2013) ‘Special Issue: Latin American Diasporic Practices’ (co-guest-editor with Maria das Graças Brightwell). Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 37(74).

Peer-reviewed journal articles 

Book chapters

  • Sheringham, O. and A. Wilkins (2018) ‘Transnational religion and everyday lives: spaces of spirituality among Brazilian and Vietnamese migrants in London’. In N. Bartolini, S. MacKian and S. Pile (eds.) Spaces of Spirituality. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
  • Lipman, C and O. Sheringham (2016) ‘Restor(y)ing home: reflections on stories, objects, and space in BHP’. In E.Padilha and T. Khonsari (eds.), My Home is Your Home. London: public works publishing
  • Horst, C., Pereira, S. and Sheringham O. (2015) ‘A matter of class? The impact of social distinctions on the migration of Brazilians to Norway, Portugal and the UK’ In O. Bakewell, M. L. Fonseca, G. Engberson and C. Horst (eds) Beyond Networks: Feedback in International Migration, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Sheringham, O. (2015) ‘Creolization, diaspora and carnival: Living with diversity in the past and present’, in A. Gamlen, G. Liberatore, H. Neveu Kringelbach and N. Signona (eds) Oxford Diasporas Programme Collection, University of Oxford.
  • Sheringham, O. and M. Sheringham (2015) ‘Everyday Life’, in von Stuckrad, K. and R. A. Segal (eds) Vocabulary for the Study of Religion. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: E. J. Brill Academic Publishers.
  • Sheringham, O. (2013) ‘Transnational faith, families, and belonging: Brazilians in London and ‘back home.’ In Jane Garnett and Alana Harris (Eds) Rescripting Religion in the City: Migration and Religious Identity in the Modern Metropolis. Farnham: Ashgate.
  • Sheringham, O. (2013) ‘Brazilian churches in London and transnationalism of the middle’, in C. Rocha and M. Vasquez (eds.) The Diaspora of Brazilian Religions. Boston: Brill.
  • Translation of the above: Sheringham, O. (2015) ‘Igrejas brasileiras em Londres: transnacionalismo de nivel medio’ in C. Rocha and M. Vasquez (eds) A Diáspora das Religioes Brasilerias. São Paulo: Ideias Letras. Translated by Ana Paula Figueiredo Silva.
  • Sheringham, O. (2011) ‘Faith across borders: religion in the everyday lives of Brazilians in London and ‘back home.’ In Cathy McIlwaine, (Ed.) Cross-Border Migration among Latin Americans: European Perspectives and Beyond. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Book reviews

  • (2018) Dominic Pasura and Marta Bivand Erdal (eds) Migration, transnationalism and Catholicism: global perspectives, New York, Palgrave MacMillan, 2016. In Social & Cultural Geography, Volume 19 Issue 8,
  • Sheringham, O. (2017) ‘Rethinking diversity in Europe: lessons from the new world?’ Review Essay: Creolizing Europe (edited by Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez and Shirley Anne Tate), Liverpool University Press: 2015. In Diaspora 19, 2/3 (2017) © Diaspora: a journal of transnational studies.
  • (2014) Mette Louise Berg, Diasporic Generations: Memory, Politics, and Nation among Cubans in Spain. New York: Berghahn Books. In New West Indian Guide 88 (1&2).
  • (2013) Françoise Lionnet and Shu-mei Shih (eds), The Creolization of Theory. In The Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 40 (2), pp. 233-236.

Reports and working papers

Other

Public Engagement

Public Engagement

Non-academic roles: