I am Professor of History and hold a Chair in International History at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow). I specialise in migration and diaspora history and my main research interest is in immigrant community life, especially ethnic associational culture and immigrant collective action. This includes situating post-Brexit activism among EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in the EU in the historical context of immigrant associationalism.
My current project is entitled ‘Transeuropean Scots: Scotland’s European Diaspora Post-Brexit in Longitudinal Perspective’ and funded through a Personal Research Fellowship by the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Beyond my immediate research, I also engage the wider public with my research, working with NGOs, think tanks, community groups and museums. I was recently part of a programme in Edinburg’s Fringe Festival and have an extensive impact portfolio, including Impact Case Studies in the two last REFs; the latest one is available here.
I was Principal Investigator of the ESRC Future Research Leaders project ‘European, Ethnic and Expatriate: A Longitudinal Comparison of British and German Social Networking and Associational Formations in Modern-day Asia’ and Co-Investigator of the AHRC funded project ‘Locating the Hidden Diaspora: The English in North America in Transatlantic Perspective, 1760-19’.
Select external funding
My current project is entitled Transeuropean Scots: Scotland’s European Diaspora Post-Brexit in Longitudinal Perspective and funded with a Personal Research Fellowship by the Royal Society of Edinburgh. While Scottish diaspora scholarship has expanded significantly, continental Europe has received relatively little attention and we lack understanding of how Scotland’s European diaspora is an interconnected part of ‘global Scotland’. Brexit brings this into sharp focus, marking a rupture in Scotland’s relationship with continental Europe that has real impact on the Scottish immigrant community there. Utilising Scottish associations as a lens and drawing upon hitherto neglected archives, a survey and interviews, the proposed project seeks to demonstrate change and/or persistence of the Scots’ diasporic organisation over time to assess what it can tell us about Scottish present-day migrant life in continental Europe. In so doing, the project will offer a new reading of Scotland’s European diaspora as one of ‘transeuropean Scots’: connected diasporically with each other and to Scotland, but also with a continental Europe post-Brexit in which they now live as Europeans who no longer are EU citizens.
Until taking up my current role at the University of Strathclyde, I was Northumbria University’s lead for the consortium project: ‘Transforming academic-policy engagement’, securing Research England funding with the consortium; partners include UCL, Cambridge, Manchester and Nottingham; award value: £3,953,094 in total for the consortium.
Principal Investigator for the ESRC-funded project ‘European, Ethnic and Expatriate: A Longitudinal Comparison of German and British Social Networking and Associational Formations in Modern-day Asia’; value: £293,512.
Co-Investigator for the AHRC-funded project ‘Locating the Hidden Diaspora: The English in North America in Transatlantic Perspective, 1760-1950’; value: £286,000. The main publication from the project is the co-authored monograph The English Diaspora in North America.
Publications
In preparation: European, Ethnic and Expatriate: German and British Social Networking and Associations in Asia since c1880.
[with D.M. MacRaild] The English Diaspora in North America: Migration, Ethnicity and Association, 1730s-1950s (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017; paperback edition 2019).
Clubbing Together: Ethnicity, Civility and Formal Sociability in the Scottish Diaspora to 1930 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014). Winner of the Saltire Society Research Book of the Year 2015 award.
[with A. Hinson and G. Morton], The Scottish Diaspora (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013).
[with Brad Patterson, Tom Brooking, Jim McAloon and Rebecca Lenihan], Unpacking the Kist: The Scots in New Zealand. (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013).
Scottish Ethnicity and the Making of New Zealand Society, 1850 to 1930 (Scottish Historical Review Monograph Series, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011).
[with D.M. MacRaild and J.C.D. Clark] British and Irish Diasporas: Societies, Cultures, and Ideologies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019).
[with D. Gleeson and D.M. MacRaild] Locating the English Diaspora, 1500-2010 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012).
[with A. Hinson and G. Morton] Ties of Bluid, Kin and Countrie: Scottish Associational Culture in the Diaspora (Guelph: Guelph Series in Scottish Studies, 2009).
[with L.C. Robinson] ‘Making Home in a Sojourner World: Organised Ethnicity and British Associationalism in Singapore, c1880s-1930s’, Britain and the World, 9:2 (2016), pp. 167-96.
[with D. Gleeson and D.M. MacRaild], ‘Invisible Diaspora? English Ethnicity in the United States before 1920’, Journal of American Ethnic History 33:4 (2014), pp. 5-30.
‘Ethnizität und Organisierte Geselligkeit: Das Assoziationswesen deutscher Migranten in Neuseeland im mittleren und späten 19. Jahrhundert’, Historische Zeitschrift, 295:3 (December 2012), pp. 660-89.
[with D.M. MacRaild], ‘Globalising St George: English Associations in the Anglo-World to the 1930s’, Journal of Global History, 7:1 (2012), pp. 79-105.
‘“The Image of Scotland which We Cherish in Our Hearts”: Burns Anniversary Celebrations in Colonial Otago’, Immigrants & Minorities, special issue, 30:1 (2012), pp. 78-97.
‘Manly Games, Athletic Sports and the Commodification of Scottish Identity: Caledonian Gatherings in New Zealand to 1915’, Scottish Historical Review LXXXIX, 2:228 (2010), pp. 224–247.
‘“No Colonists are more Imbued with their National Sympathies than Scotchmen”: The Nation as an Analytical Tool in the Study of Migrant Communities’, New Zealand Journal of History, 43:2 (2009), pp. 169-181.
‘“Where the Measureless Ocean between us will Roar”: Scottish Emigration to New Zealand, Personal Correspondence and Epistolary Practices, c1850-1920’, Immigrants & Minorities, 26:3 (2008), pp. 242-65.
[with Graeme Morton], ‘Partners in Empire: The Scottish Diaspora since 1707’, in D.M. MacRaild, Tanja Bueltmann and J.C.D. Clark, British and Irish Diasporas: Societies, Cultures, and Ideologies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019).
‘Mutual, Ethnic and Diasporic: The Sons of England in Canada, c1880 to 1910’, in D. Gleeson (ed.), English Ethnicity and Culture in North America (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2017).
‘Ethnic Associationalism and Networking among the Scots in Asia: A Longitudinal Comparison, c1870 to the Present.’, in T.M. Devine and Angela McCarthy (eds), The Scots in Asia since c.1700: Settlers and Sojourners (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
‘Scottish Ethnic Associationalism, Military Identity and Diaspora Connections in the Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Centuries’, in D. Forsyth and W. Ugolini (eds), A Global Force: War, Identities and Scotland’s Diaspora (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016).
‘“Gentlemen, I am going to the Old Country”: Scottish Roots-Tourists in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries’, in Mario Varricchio (ed.), Back to Caledonia: Scottish Return Migration from the Sixteenth Century to the Present (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2012).
‘Anglo-Saxonism and the Racialization of the English Diaspora’, in T. Bueltmann, D. Gleeson and D. M. MacRaild, Locating the English Diaspora, 1500-2010 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012).
‘Remembering the Homeland: St Patrick’s Day Celebrations in New Zealand to 1910’, in O. Frawley (ed), Memory Ireland: Diaspora and Memory Practices (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2012).
[with G. Horn] ‘Migration and Ethnic Associational Culture: A Comparative Study of New Zealand’s Irish and Scottish Migrant Communities to 1905’, in V. Comerford and J. Kelly (eds), Associational Culture in Ireland and the Wider World (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2010).
‘Ethnic Identity, Sporting Caledonia and Respectability: Scottish Associational Life in New Zealand to 1910’, in T. Bueltmann, A. Hinson and G. Morton (eds), Ties of Bluid, Kin and Countrie: Scottish Associational Culture in the Diaspora (Guelph: Guelph Series in Scottish Studies, 2009).
[with Alexandra Bulat, ‘EU Citizens’ Identity, Belonging & Representation Post-Brexit – Interim Report’ (May 2021, published at thisisourhome.uk/research)
‘Experiences and Impact of the EU Settlement Scheme: Report on the3million Settled Status Survey (January 2020). Full report here (.pdf).
‘Endangered Rights: The Impact of Brexit on EU Citizens’ (London: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, September 2018). Available for download here (.pdf).