Current Role:

Paul Statham is Professor of Migration and Director of the Sussex Centre for Migration Research (SCMR) in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. The SCMR is one the University’s flagship research Centres of Excellence. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS) one of the largest and highest ranked academic journal in the social sciences, ranked no1 in “Ethnic Studies” impact factor ratings. Sussex is No1 in the World for Migration Studies according to Scholar GPS rankings 2025. In Spring semester 2017, he held the position of Distinguished Professor at the Advanced Research Collaborative at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York.

His programme of international research has been supported by 18 large grants from academic funding bodies, including the ESRC, British Academy, Leverhulme, EU framework programmes and ESF.

International Partnerships: Paul is committed to building research networks on migration across the globe and has collaborated to establish the Sussex-Mahidol Migration Partnership (Thailand), and partnerships with the Global Migration and Mobility Research Center (Nankai, China) and the Center for the Study of International Migration (UCLA, USA).  

Research and Publications:  

Paul has published seven collaborative monographs and edited volumes, 43 articles in international academic scholarly journals -including the American Journal of Sociology and Annual Review of Sociology- and 44 chapters in edited books and volumes.

Paul’s earlier research focused on cross-national comparative approaches to migration, ethnic relations and citizenship in Europe, and the emergence of a transnational public sphere for the European Union. His books include ‘Contested Citizenship: Immigration and Cultural Diversity in Europe’ (Minnesota UP 2005), widely seen as a modern classic that systematically compares migration and ethnic relations in five European countries. His later books on European integration, political communication and politicization were influential in shaping debates on transnational communication and politics, ‘The Making of a European Public Sphere’ (Cambridge UP 2010) and ‘The Politicization of Europe’ (Routledge 2013). He has retained an interest throughout his career on questions of integration/assimilation, shown by the recent volume, ‘Re-thinking Assimilation and Integration’ (Routledge 2025), and in particular with regard to Muslims, by ‘Muslims in Europe: comparative perspectives on socio-cultural integration’ (Routledge 2017). Over the last decade he has led a group of researchers through the Sussex-Mahidol Migration Partnership that has significantly contributed to establishing the research field on cross-border intimate mobilities between Thailand and the West, including in the volume ‘Thai-Western Mobilities and Migration: intimacy within cross-border connections’ (2021).

Paul’s current interests focus on sustainability, social protection and tourism within the context of cross-border intimate mobilities between the Global South and North, including a focus on LGBTQI+. At the same time, he continues to write about minorities of Muslim faith and how they are researched. In addition, he is undertaking and publishing a series of biographical interviews with leading US migration scholars, including Richard Alba, Nancy Foner and Roger Waldinger. The orientation of his current research is reflected in a selection of his recent publications:

2026. Cross-Border Intimate Mobilities Between the Global South and North: Resetting the Research Agenda Beyond Marriage Migration. Annual Review Sociology. 52: In press. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-011824-031039 (with S. Sunanta)

2025. ‘Re-thinking how people and societies change through migration: comparisons across boundaries – Nancy Foner discusses her intellectual, career, and life journey with Paul Statham’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1–36. doi: 10.1080/1369183X.2025.2521560. (with N. Foner)

2024. ‘Challenging the Muslimification of Muslims in research on ‘liberal democratic values’: why culture matters beyond religion.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 50 (1): 203–232.https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2268894

2024. ‘Assimilation and Integration in the Twenty-First Century: Where have we been and where are we going? Introduction to a Special Issue in honour of Richard Alba’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 50 (1): 4–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2293537 (with N. Foner)

2023. ‘Transgender Kathoey and gay men using tourist-zone scenes as ‘social opportunities’ for nonheteronormative living in Thailand’, Gender, Place & Culture, 30:2, 183-210, DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2021.1997937 (with S. Scuzzarello)

Past:

Paul was formerly a Professor and Research Director in Sociology Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol (2006-2012), and the University of Leeds (1999-2005), where he was made Chair in 2005. He was a researcher at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB) (1996-2000) and prior to that conducted his doctoral research at the European University Institute (EUI) in San Domenico di Fiesole, Firenze.