Lucy Kneebone is a Fellow in the International Relations Department at LSE. Her research engages with border studies, migration and mobility studies, critical international relations theory and carceral infrastructures, among other fields of interest.

Lucy’s current book project investigates the global immigration detention archipelago through the lens of struggle. It begins with flashpoints of resistance and refusal by detained people and their supporters to explore what these acts reveal about the contours of immigration detention across the world. Drawing on examples from Australian and UK immigration regimes in particular, the book analyses them in the context of global mechanisms of externalisation, colonial fault lines and private capital that shape the diffusion of detention. The project explores how people engaged in detention struggles draw links between this form of confinement and colonial histories of Indigenous dispossession; racialised policing and mass incarceration; uneven forms of covid confinement; and issues of housing and labour exploitation more generally.

Lucy’s other current research projects include work on the political economy of deportations, and policy approaches for safe routes to sanctuary in the UK.

Lucy received her PhD in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London, and her research was supported by the Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholarship ‘Mobile Peoples’ programme.

Before joining LSE IR, Lucy worked as a post-doctoral researcher at King’s College London, and she has held teaching positions at Queen Mary University of London and Monash University, Melbourne.

She currently teaches IR100: International Relations: Concepts, Theories, Debates.

Research Cluster Affiliation

Theory/Area/History Research cluster

Not available to supervise MPhil/PhD students.