Maggie Paul

Maggie Paul is a Lecturer in Politics at La Trobe University. Her teaching and research sit at the intersection of global politics, political economy, and global inequality. Her primary research interests are the politics of migration and citizenship amidst growing neoliberal nationalism.

Specifically, she has studied the relation between migration narratives and changing political economic regimes, centering colonial histories of racial capitalism in South Asia. For instance, Maggie’s PhD thesis completed at the University of Adelaide (Australia) - titled ‘Citizens or “Infiltrators”? Decolonising the Securitisation of Migration and Citizenship in India’ - traced the political history of discursive construction of Bangladeshi (economic) migrants in militaristic terms as ‘infiltrators’ in India and the destabilising impact of this discourse on the contemporary citizenship regime in the country, particularly for racialised minority-citizens. In this thesis she combined a variety of methods, like desk review, archival research and primary qualitative fieldwork conducted in the city of Mumbai, with a decolonial analytical/theoretical prism that foregrounded an intersectional analyses of racialised marginalisation in the subcontinent.

She has a strong interdisciplinary background with previous academic degrees in Development Studies. Her academic pursuits have been complemented by diverse professional experiences, including roles in research, policy, community development and education across Australia, India, and the UK. She is a member of the Community Economies Research Network and the Diversifying and Decolonising Economics (D-Econ) Network. She is also an executive committee member (secretary) of South Asian Studies Association of Australia (SASAA).

Overall, being an ardent believer in embedded scholarship, Maggie believes in utilising teaching and research for the pursuit of societal wellbeing.