About me

Laura is a critical and feminist human geographer whose work both draws upon and contributes to feminist political economy, urban geography, and critical migration studies, while methodological innovation. Her research focuses primarily on labour, migration, gender, and violence in both Southeast Asia and Europe.

Laura holds a PhD in Human Geography and Urban Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and both an MSc and BSc from University College London.

Based on a decade of research in Southeast Asia and prolonged ethnographic fieldwork, Laura’s currently working on a book project which focuses on the experiences of women who have experienced forced migrant removal in Southeast Asia. Laura also has an ongoing collaborative project (with Sneha Krishnan at the University of Oxford) on abolition domesticities. This work builds on research she conducted while completing an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Oxford’s School of Geography and the Environment. Finally, Laura has also begun archival and ethnographic research on the legacy of forced migration within and from Cyprus.

Laura has published work in venues such as: Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers; Annals of the American Association of Geographers; Environment and Planning D: Society and Space; and Social and Cultural Geography.

Expertise Details

Feminist political economy; Labour migration; Violence; Care; Domesticity and domestic work; Gender; Southeast Asia

Selected publications

Antona, L. (2024). Geographies of Possession: Domestic Workers’ Shifting Owners and Ghostly Encounters in Singapore. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 114(5): 943 - 957.

Antona, L. (2023). Gendered disciplinary apparatuses and carceral domesticities in Singapore’s labour-migration regime. Environment and Planning D, 41(6): 931-1093.

Antona, L. (2022). “Cute face and quiet … but her look don’t match her personality”: Commodifying flesh, shaping labour expectations, and domestic workers’ treatment in Singapore Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 48(2): 425-438.

Antona, L. (2022). Shelters and clinics: sites where care and violence are mutually constitutive for migrant workers in Singapore. Social & Cultural Geography, 24(10): 1790-1807.

Guest Editorial of Journal Special Issues

Krishnan, S. & Antona, L. (forthcoming). “Carceral Domesticities”. Environment and Planning D: Space and Society.

Book Chapters

Antona, L. (2022). “The New Normal or Same Old? Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore and the Impact of Covid-19”. In: H B Shin, M McKenzie & D Y Oh (eds.) COVID-19 in Southeast Asia: Insights for a Post-Pandemic World. London: LSE Press.

Selected Public Writing

Antona, L. (2022). What is ‘acceptable’ accommodation? Position paper and report written for the Humanitarian Organisation of Economics.

Antona, L.(2021). Singapore: Stop Sending Migrant Workers Back to Crisis in Myanmar. New Naratif.

Antona, L. (2020). The New Normal or Same Old? The Impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Live-in Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore. Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre Blog, London School of Economics.

Antona, L. (2020). ‘Entering the field and discovering that I was ‘doing’ ethnography’. The Field Research Methods Lab Blog, London School of Economics and Political Science.