Parvati Nair - Biography#

Parvati Nair is Professor of Hispanic, Cultural and Migration Studies at Queen Mary University of London, on secondment at 80% to the United Nations University between 2012 and 2019. In 2017, she was the Working Level Chair of the Global Migration group, a forum of twenty-two agencies of the United Nations system at a time when the global compact on safe, orderly and regular migration was being negotiated.

Her research focuses on the nexus of migration and culture, focusing especially on visual (photographic and cinematic) representations of human mobility, forced or otherwise. She uses interdisciplinary methodologies, combining theoretical frameworks with ethnography and visual analysis. She has published very widely on migration, gender, ethnicity, xenophobia, marginality, cultural memory and related issues.

Parvati Nair has many years of teaching experience at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and of supervising doctoral dissertations successfully.

Since 2012, Parvati Nair has worked increasingly to lead research that informs policy-making on migration at the United Nations. In 2017, she acted as Working Level Chair of the Global Migration group, a forum of 22 agencies of the United Nations system working on international migration. She is highly informed about international and regional migration policies. She is also skilled in knowledge transfer and mechanisms to translate academic research findings to policy contexts.

As the former Director of UNU-GCM, she engaged in representing UNU in Spain and Catalonia. She also has excellent networks in Germany, within the EU and elsewhere. She is experienced in high level representational roles and in negotiating with a very wide range of stakeholders.