At SPERI Maya will conduct a new research project entitled 鈥Centrism beyond methodological whiteness: Racism, the centre ground, and Britain鈥. With the rise of 鈥渘ational populism鈥 and a resurgent far-right coinciding with increased incidences of racial violence, there are increasing calls for a return to the political centre ground. Responding to this, the project will focus on racism and the centre ground in British politics. It will place race at the core of analysis to develop a qualitative study of centrist political narratives and how these are related to by people of colour and migrants. Maya will research three intersecting case studies 鈥 鈥榚conomic migrants鈥, (anti-)globalisation, and Englishness 鈥 to produce a new counter-history of British political development and provide a new contribution to our understanding of politics and race.
Maya joins SPERI from SOAS, University of London where she received her PhD in 2019. Her doctoral thesis explored race and processes of racialisation in British international development discourse about India between 1997-2017. She is the author of , published by Verso in 2019. Maya has written for The Guardian, New Statesman and the New York Times, among others.