Biography

Sophia Hayat Taha is a British-Lebanese postgraduate student whose experiences in a multi-cultural, multi-lingual upbringing made her realise how Eurocentric her education has been.

She is a PhD candidate whose work takes a postcolonial feminist critique working with migrant women who have ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’.

Sophia was fortunate enough to be supported by a wide range of people so that she gained ESRC funding and is a NWSSDTP PhD candidate.

She has worked on projects covering digital exclusion, international students’ learning environments during lockdown and decolonising the curriculum.  Sophia holds a BSc (Hons) in Physics, a PGDip in International Relations & Security Studies, MA in International Relations, MRes in Social Science Research Methods. 

Research and scholarship

PhD Project: Postcolonial Resistance to U.K. Bureaucracy: Centring Migrant Women as they navigate ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’

Co-Supervisors: Dr Jane Krishnadas and Dr Moran Mandelbaum

The project combines postcolonial legal methodology with empirical research in local partner agency, Staffordshire North and Stoke-on-Trent Citizens Advice (SNSCA) to address the research aims.

Her PhD uses an interdisciplinary approach combining Law and International Relations to allow for a different understanding of how the State interacts with migrant women, moving away from an Eurocentric interpretation of law.

Further information

Associate Fellowship HEA

Publications

Aneta Hayes, Sylvie Lomer & Sophia Hayat Taha (2022) Epistemological process towards decolonial praxis and epistemic inequality of an international student, Educational Review, DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2022.2115463

Krishnadas, Jane, and Sophia Hayat Taha. “Domestic Violence through the Window of the COVID-19 Lockdown: a Public Crisis Embodied/Exposed in the Private/Domestic Sphere.” Journal of Global Faultlines, vol. 7, no. 1, 2020, pp. 46–58. JSTORwww.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/jglobfaul.7.1.0046

Refugees, Migrants and Citizens in U.K. Socio-Political Discourse: A Postcolonial and Discourse Analytical Critique, Journal of Global Faultlines , Vol. 6, No. 1 (August-October 2019), pp. 17-38, stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/jglobfaul.6.1.0017 

The panel on ‘Decolonisation, Curriculum, Challenging Current Hierarchies’ at Keele Institute for Social Inclusion, ‘Tackling Inequalities’ Conference, Thursday June 13, 2019 Author(s): Sophia Hayat Taha, Ade Bakare and Fides Dagongdong Source: Journal of Global Faultlines , Vol. 6, No. 1 (August-October 2019), pp. 105-106 Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/jglobfaul.6.1.0105

Review Articles: 

Sophia Hayat Taha (2020) (B)ordering Britain: law, race and empire, Journal of Borderlands Studies, DOI: 10.1080/08865655.2020.1828143 

Sophia Hayat Taha (2022) Migration beyond capitalism, Review of African Political Economy, 49:171, 194-196, DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2022.2049146