Nicola Mai

Publications

Authored Books

Hickman, M., Mai, N. and Crowley, H. (2012) Migration and Social Cohesion in the UK, Palgrave Macmillan.

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

Mai, N. (2012) ‘Embodied Cosmopolitanisms : the Subjective Mobility of Migrants Working in the global sex industry, Gender, Place and Culture, published online (forthcoming in press) DOI : 10.1080/0966369X.2011.649350.

Mai, N. (2012) The Fractal Queerness of Non-Heteronormative Migrants Working in the UK Sex Industry, Sexualities, 15(5-6) : 570-585.

Nick Mai (2011) ‘Tampering with the Sex of “Angels” : Migrant Male Minors and Young Adults Selling Sex in the EU’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 37(8) : 1237-1252.Mai, N. (2010) ‘The politicisation of migrant minors : Italo-Romanian geopolitics and EU integration’, AREA, available online in early view, forthcoming.

Mai, N. and King, R. ‘Love, Sexuality and Migration : Mapping the Issue(s), Mobilities, 4(3), pp. 295-307.

Mai, N. (2009) ‘Between minor and errant mobility : the relation between the psychological dynamics and the migration patterns of young men selling sex in the EU’, Mobilities, 4(3), pp. 349-366.

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/me...

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)

Hickman, M., Crowley, H. And Mai, N. (2008) Immigration and Social Cohesion, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York, available online : http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/...

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://images.savethechildren.it/IT... The English language version can be downloaded SavetheChildren.pdf .

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 : www.londonmet.ac.uk/research...

Thèmes de recherche

Nick’s main research area is on the relationship between migration and the emergence of different forms of cosmopolitan and essentialist consciousness and identities, which he addressed through different and interrelated research strands. These include :

 the interplay between media consumption and the imagination/enactment of migration, which was the topic of his earlier doctoral work on the role of Italian media in attracting Albanian migrants to Italy ;

 the relation between migration, social exclusion and the emergence of migratory and diasporic individual and collective identities, which was the topic of his post-doctoral research at Sussex ;

 the mobility of migrant minors and young people from Eastern Europe and North Africa within the EU, their strategies of survival and the associated risks and opportunities, including issues of exploitation and the engagement in illegal activities ;

 youth radicalisation and the role of secular and religious ideologies in legitimising politically motivated violence, which was the topic of an ESF-funded exploratory workshop he organised at ISET on 26/27 June 2008 ;

 initiatives of social intervention addressing migrant groups which are constructed as vulnerable by policies as well as by academic and public debates ;

 the negotiation of gender, sexuality and subjectivity through the migration process, with particular reference to international (female and male) sex work as a contested and ambivalent space of control and autonomy.

Enseignements

Postgraduate Supervision

Maria Elfani : The Impact of National Minimum Wages on the Non-Wage Benefits of Labour Migrants - Evidence from the UK

Calogero Giametta : The impact of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity on Contemporary Migration ot the UK

Crissy Hunter : Trans Identities and Expressions : Gender Normativity, Resistance, Culture and the Law

Chika Onugha : Policies in Cyber Crime Prevention and Prosecution in the United Kingdom

Teaching

Nick Mai is teaching the Migration and Diversity module (HUP088N) of the MA Managing Equality and Diversity

Parcours

Nick Studied Modern Italian Literature and Media Studies at Bologna University, 1990-1995, before going to the University of Sussex, where he obtained his PhD in 2001. Nick’s doctoral research was on the relationship between migration and transcultural media consumption and addressed the role played by Italian media in the Albanian migration to Italy. During his PhD fieldwork he was the director of an Italian development project aimed at the setting up and management of four youth centres in central and southern Albania, where he lived for over two years. 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.

After he completed his PhD, from April 2001 to July 2003 Nick 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. This project was integrated with a second research opportunity, funded by OXFAM UK, examining the specific realities of Albanians migrating to the UK, including the impact of their remittances at home and the issue of the sustainability of return.

From August 2003 to January 2005 he was Morris Ginsberg post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Sociology of the LSE working on the interplay between new forms of transcultural media consumption, the emergence of ’migratory’ life trajectories and ’youth’ identities, and the eliciting of migratory flows with reference to three transnational spaces : Italy-Albania, Morocco-Spain and Cuba-USA.

In 2005 Nick joined ISET and until 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).

Between 2007 and 2009 Nick led the ESRC-funded project on ‘Migrants in the UK Sex Industry, addressing the nexus between migration and the sex industry, by interviewing migrant women, men and transgender people working in all sectors on the sex industry in central London and from the main areas of origins involved. The project was delivered in October 2009. For more information on this project, visit its webpage : /research-units/iset/projects/esrc-migrant-workers.cfm

Until June 2011 Nick was involved in the METOIKOS project, funded by the EU and based at the EUI in Florence, analysing the links between different types of circular migration and processes of integration (in the country of destination) and reintegration (in the source country). Within this project, he studied the Italo-Albanian migratory flow. For more information on this project, visit its webpage : http://www.eui.eu/Projects/METOIKOS...

Nick is an associate researcher at IRIS, the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Social Dynamics of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris (Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les Enjeux Sociaux de l’École des Haute Études en Sciences Sociales). This is his webpage at IRIS : http://iris.ehess.fr/document.php?i...

Nick is also a member of IMéRA the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Aix-Marseille University (Institute Méditerranéen de Recherches Avancées). This is his webpage at IMéRA : http://www.imera.fr/index.php/en/co...

Nick has also been involved in a range of wider activities in the social sciences. He undertook research for international intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations, including the International Organisation for Migrations and Save the Children. Nick is member of the peer review boards of the ESRC and of the ESF. He is also member of the editorial boards of Sextures (http://www.sextures.net) and of the Albanian Journal of Politics (http://ajp.alpsa.org/).