Dr. Claire Walkey

Bio

Claire's doctoral research was supervised by Professor Tom Scott-Smith and funded by Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The title is ‘Building a Bureaucracy: The Transfer of Responsibility for the Management of Refugee Affairs in Kenya’. It explored how the Government of Kenya and United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) negotiate and implement decisions about how to manage refugee affairs in Kenya. It focuses on negotiations regarding the transfer of registration and refugee status determination from UNHCR to the Government and how a capacity-building project to facilitate the transfer was implemented. It examined this through ethnographic methods, exploring the everyday bureaucratic practices of both managerial and ‘street-level’ bureaucrats. It contributes to theoretical ideas about the role of bureaucratic surveillance in post-colonial African states and the politics and practice of international development projects.

In her current role, Claire is a researcher on the commissioned project ‘Refugee Integration Yorkshire and Humberside’, funded by EU Asylum Migration and Integration Fund. She works with Professor Phil Brown at University of Huddersfield and colleagues at Migration Yorkshire, a local government partnership. The research utilises semi-structured interviews to understand how statutory, private and third sector organisations impact the integration of refugees in the UK. The research will inform strategy development by local councils and produce both academic and policy outputs.

Alongside her PhD, Claire has presented her research at a range of refugee and migration related conferences and workshops, co-organised various events, including a workshop on the impact of biometric technology on refugee registration, and completed a consultancy with IOM and African Union for which she wrote a chapter of an upcoming report on the migration-development nexus.