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Dr Melanie Griffiths

Melanie

Associate Professor, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom

Email: m.griffiths.3@bham.ac.uk

Profile

Melanie Griffiths is a social scientist working on migration to the UK. In 2014-2017, she led an ESRC Future Research Leaders fellowship at the University of Bristol, working on the family lives and Article 8 rights of 'mixed-immigration status' families and men at risk of deportation. In 2025, she is conducting follow-up research with these families as part of a British Academy mid career Fellowship.

Research

Publications

Griffiths, Jackson, Woodhouse, Yaqub & Stalford (2024), “Unduly Harsh?”: An Empirical Examination of Best Interests Assessments in the Context of Parental Deportation, The International Journal of Children's Rights, v.32(3), pp690–720

Griffiths, M. & C. Morgan-Glendinning (2024): ‘Immigration Detention and UK Families’, Immigration Detention and Social Harm: The Collateral Impacts of Migrant Incarceration, ed. M. Peterie (Routledge)

Griffiths, M. (2023): ‘The emotional governance of immigration controls’, Identities, 31(1).

Griffiths, M. & C.Morgan. (2021) Deportability and the Family: Mixed-immigration status families in the UK. ESRC Project report. https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/documents/college-les/gees/research/deportability-families-report-2021.pdf
And: accompanying policy briefings: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/gees/research/projects/deportation-and-the-family/policy-outputs.aspx

Griffiths, M. (2019) ‘My passport is just my way out of here’. Mixed-immigration status families, immigration enforcement and the citizenship implications. Identities, 28(1)

Griffiths, M. (2017) Seeking asylum and the politics of family. Families, Relationships and Societies.

Expertise

Migration broadly, with a focus on irregular and undocumented migration, criminalisation and deportation, family migration and asylum/refugees. Melanie has researched and written on immigration enforcement and detention, the ‘foreign criminals’ discourse, hostile environment, time, men and masculinity, family life and Article 8 rights, belonging, citizenship, bureaucracies, law and the judiciary, identity and emotion. She is currently working on a project looking at the impact of insecure immigration status on people's British partners and children, including the long term impact on children as they grow up.
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