Nick Mai
Senior Research Fellow in Migrations and Immigrations at ISET, the Institute for the Study of European Transformations of London Metropolitan University. Nick Mai is currently leading the research team delivering a 2 year-long ESRC funded project on ‘Migrants in the UK sex industry.
From 2005 to 2007 he was part of the research team undertaking the 'Rhythms and Realities of Everyday Life' Joseph Rowntree Foundation flagship project on immigration and social integration in the UK. The project aimed at understanding the way different groups of long term residents and new arrivals negotiate everyday life across six different sites in the UK: Kilburn/Downham (London), Peterborough, Leicester, Glasgow, Dungannon (N. Ireland).
His main current research interest is on the mobility of minor and young migrants from Albania, Morocco and Romania within the EU, their strategies of survival and the associated risks and opportunities, including issues of exploitation and the engagement in illegal activities. Another current research strand is on youth radicalisation and the role of secular and religious ideologies in legitimising politically motivated violence, which will be the title of an ESF-funded exploratory workshop to be held at ISET on 26/27 June 2008.
From August 2003 to January 2005 he was Morris Ginsberg post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Sociology of the LSE working on the relation between the introduction of new forms of media consumption the emergence of 'migratory' life trajectories and 'youth' identities and migration with reference to three transnational migratory spaces: Italy-Albania, Morocco-Spain and Cuba-USA.
From April 2001 to July 2003 he was Research Fellow in the Sussex Centre for Migration Research at the University of Sussex and worked on a Leverhulme Trust funded project on the social exclusion and stigmatisation of Albanian migrants in Italy and Greece.
In 2000 he was a researcher within the project 'Archives of the Memory: from an individual to a collective experience' funded by the International Organisation for Migrations and carried out in Belgrade and Pristina.
During his PhD fieldwork he was the director of a development project aimed at the setting up and management of four youth centres in central and southern Albania.
Email: n.mai@londonmet.ac.uk
Selected Publications
Authored Books
King, R. and Mai, N. (2008) Out of Albania, Oxford: Berghahn
King, R., Mai, N. and Dalipaj, M. (2003) Exploding the Migration Myths. Analysis and Recommendations for the European Union, the UK and Albania, London: Oxfam and Fabian Society.
Journal Articles
King, R. and Mai, N. (2009) ‘Italophilia meets Albanophobia: paradoxes of asymmetric assimilation and identity processes amongst Albanian immigrants in Italy’, in Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies, forthcoming
King, R., Dalipaj, M. and Mai, N. (2006) ‘Gendering migration and remittances: evidence from London and northern Albania’ in Population, Space and Place, 12(6), pp. 409-434
Mai, N. (2005) ‘Transnational Media and Migration: the re-negotiation of ‘youth identities’ within the Albanian migratory flow’, in Transitions, Vol. 45 Issue 1, pp..79-91. Available online: http://www.ulb.ac.be/is/045-7Mai.pdf
Mai, N. (2005) 'The Albanian Diaspora in the Making: media, transnational identities and migration', in Georgiou, M. and Silverstone, R. (eds) Media and Participation in Multicultural Societies, special issue of Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, pp. 543-561.
Mai, N. (2004) 'Looking for a More Modern Life…': the Role of Italian Television in the Albanian Migration to Italy in Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, Vol: 1 Issue 1, pp. 3-22. Available online: http://www.wmin.ac.uk/mad/pdf/Mai.pdf
Mai, N. (2003) ''The cultural construction of Italy in Albania and vice versa: migration dynamics, strategies of resistance and politics of mutual self-definition across colonialism and post-colonialism'' in Modern Italy, 9(1), pp. 77-94.
Chapters in Edited Books
Mai, N. (2008) Albanian migrations: demographic and other transformations, in Batt, J. (Ed.) Is there an Albanian question? Paris: EU Institute for Security Studies, pp. 61-72. Available online: http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/cp107.pdf
Mai, N. (2007) ‘Errance, Migration and Male Sex Work: on the Socio-cultural Sustainability of a Third Space’ in Ossman, S. (Ed.) Places We Share: Migration, Subjectivity, and Global Mobility, Lanham (MD): Lexington Books, pp. 97-120.
Kapllani, G. and Mai, N. (2005) "Greece belongs to Greeks!: the case of the Greek flag in the hands of an Albanian student", in King, R., Mai, N. and Schwanders-Sievers, S. (2005) (eds) The New Albanian Migration, Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.
Mai, N. (2004) 'Albanian Masculinities, Sex work and Migration: Homosexuality, AIDS and other Moral Threats', in Worton, M. and Wilson-Tagoe, N. (eds) National Healths: Gender, Sexuality and Health in a Cross-cultural context, London: UCL Press, pp.45-58.
Mai, N. (2002) ''Youth NGOs in Albania: civil society development, local cultural constructions of democracy and strategies of survival at work'', in Schwandners-Sievers, S and Fischer, B. J. (eds) Albanian Identities: Myth, Narratives and Politics, London: Hurst, pp. 215-225.
Mai, N. (2002) 'Myths and moral panics: Italian identity and the media representation of Albanian immigration', in Grillo, R.D. and Pratt, J. (eds.) The Politics of Recognising Difference: Multiculturalism Italian Style. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 77-95.
Mai, N. (2001) ''The Archives of Memory: Specific Results from Research in Serbia'', in Losi, N. Passerini, L. and Salvatici, S. (eds.) Archives of Memory: Supporting Traumatised Communities through Narration and Remembrance, Geneva: International Organization for Migration, Psychosocial Notebook Vol. 2, pp. 87-135.
Mai, N. (2001) ''Italy is Beautiful'': the role of Italian television in the Albanian migratory flow to Italy', in King, R. and Wood, N. (eds) Media and Migration: Constructions of Mobility and Difference, London: Routledge, pp. 95-109.
Mai, N. (2001) ''Transforming traditions: a critical analysis of the trafficking and exploitation of Albanian girls in Italy'', in King, R. (Ed) The Mediterranean Passage Migration and New Cultural Encounters in Southern Europe, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, pp. 258-278.
Edited books and special issues of Journals
King, R., Mai, N. and Schwanders-Sievers, S. (2005) (eds) The New Albanian Migration, Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.
Mai, N. and Schwandners-Sievers, S. (2003) (eds) Albanian Migration and New Transnationalisms, special issue of Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 29(7).
Other publications (research reports)
Mai, N. (2008) COLOURFUL HORIZONS: Interventions for the prevention of deviance and for the reintegration in society of foreign children facing criminal proceedings, Save the Children Italy, Rome, available online in Italian: http://www.savethechildren.it/2003/download/pubblicazioni/rapporto_mai.pdf The report will soon be available in English language at http://www.savethechildren.it/2003/index.asp?area=pubblicazioni&n_pag=1&anno=2008
Mai, N. (2007) L’Errance et la prostitution des mineurs et des jeunes majeurs migrants dans l’espace de l’Union Europèenne, available online (in French and English) as ISET Working Paper 2: /research-units/iset/wps/wps_home.cfm
