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Portrait of Nicola Piper

Nicola Piper

Professor of International Migration and British Academy Global Professor Fellow, Queen Mary University of London
EducationPhD and MA, University of Sheffield
https://www.qmul.ac.uk/law/people/academic-staff/items/piper.html (external link) 

Visiting Toronto Metropolitan University

Spring 2023

Research focus while a CERC Scholar - Governing labour migration in a comparative perspective

While a CERC Scholar, Nicola will examine the global governance of labour migration from the vantage point of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and its involvement in global processes and fora of international migration. Her project aims to increase understanding of “Global migration governance” as an arena comprising multiple actors operating at various levels (national, regional, international) and representing different constituencies (governments, employers, workers, professional associations, etc.). 

Related to CERC research theme Governance of Migration in a Globalizing World and Managing Labour Migration in the 21st Century

Career Achievements

Nicola Piper, a political sociologist, is Professor of International Migration at the University of Sydney and the Founding Director of the Sydney Asia Pacific Migration Centre. She is currently a British Academy Global Professor Fellow hosted by Queen Mary University of London’s School of Law, where she is conducting research on global governance of labour migration and the role of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in the promotion of decent work for migrant workers (January 2019 to December 2022). Nicola is also partner investigator in the Global Challenge Research Hub on South-South Migration and Inequality, funded by the U.K. Research and Innovation agency and the co-lead of the Gender Work Package (2019-2023). Furthermore, she is co-chief editor of the journal, Global Social Policy, and editor of two book series with Routledge (Asian Migration with Yuk Wah Chan and Jonathan H.X. Lee; Labour and Skills Mobility in Asia with Eric Fong).

Relevant Publications

Monography

Grugel, J., & Piper, N. (2007). Critical Perspectives on Global Governance: Rights and Regulation in Governing Regimes. Routledge.

International Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Basok, T., & Piper, N. (2012). Management versus Rights: Migration of Women and Global Governance Organizations in Latin American and the Caribbean. Feminist Economics, 18(2), 1-26.

Fanning, C., & Piper, N. (2020) Global Labor Migration: Shifting Governance Regimes, Rights Deficits, and the Search for Order. LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History. 

Hennebry, J., Hari KC, & Piper, N. (2018). Not without them: Realising the sustainable development goals for women migrant workers. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS), 45(14), 2621-2637.

Piper, N. (2015). Democratising Migration from the Bottom Up: The rise of the global migrant rights movement. Globalizations, 12(5), 788-802.

Piper, N., Rosewarne, S., & Withers, M. (2017). Migrant Precarity: ‘Networks of Labour’ for a rights-based governance of migration. Development and Change, 48(5), 1089-1110.

Piper, N., & Rother, S. (2014). More than remittances - Resisting the Global Governance of Migration. Journal fuer Entwicklungspolitik/Austrian Journal for Development Studies, 30(1), 30-45. (Special Issue on “Rethinking Resistance in Development Studies”.)

Piper, N., & Rother, S. (2019). Political Remittances and the Diffusion of a Migrant Rights Agenda in transnational activist networks: The case of the Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA) (external link) . Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Rother, S., & Piper, N. (2015). Alternative Regionalism from Below: Democratizing ASEAN’s Migration Governance. International Migration, 53(3), 36-49.

Spitzer, D., & Piper, N. (2014). Retrenched and Returned: Filipino Migrant Workers During Times of Crisis. Sociology, 48(5), 1007-1023. (Special issue.)

Book Chapters

Lavenex, S., & Piper, N. (2019). Regional Migration Governance – Perspective from ‘above’ and ‘from below’ (external link) . In A. Geddes, M.V. Espinoza, L. Hadj-Abdou, & L. Brumat (Eds.), The Dynamics of Regional Migration Governance (pp. 15-35). Edward Elgar. 

Piper, N. (2017). Global Governance of Labour Migration: From “Management” of Migration to an Integrated Rights-Based Approach. In P. Drahos (Ed.), Regulatory Theory – Foundations and Applications (pp. 377-394). ANU University Press.

Simeone, L., & Piper, N. (2018). Making Rights in Times of Crisis: Civil Society and the Migrant Workers’ Convention. In A. Desmond (Ed.), Shining New Light on the UN Migrant Workers Convention (pp. 45-71). PULP.