Staff profile

Biography and Research Interests

Robin is a lecturer in human geography with interests that span social, cultural, urban, and political geographies. His research is broadly concerned with the complexities and intersections of lived diversity, social inequalities and place and has four core strands:

(1) Diaspora and its intersections with the urban

(2) Migration, asylum, and refuge.

(3) Everyday urban multiculture, racism, and Islamophobia.

(4) Geographies of marginalised youth. .

Robin is currently working on two projects about the experiences of asylum seekers and refugees. He is Co-I on an ESRC funded project that is examining the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on asylum seekers and refugees, and he is the lead postdoc researcher on the project ‘Refugee youth and Public Space’, which is funded by the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA). This project is researching the personal urban geographies of young refugees and asylum seekers in four European cities, mapping their migration histories, exploring their post-arrival experiences, and asking how their place-making and artistic practices contribute to the transformation of urban public space.

Robin completed his PhD in early 2016, which was an examination of Moroccan diaspora formations in the city of Granada in southern Spain. He has worked as a researcher at LSE Cities on the ‘Super-diverse streets: Economies and spaces of urban migration in UK Cities’ project and as the lead researcher on the projects ‘Muslim Youth and Political Participation in Scotland’ and ‘Young People, Diversity and Belonging in a Brexit-Age’ at Newcastle University. He also has government and policy research experience, working as a quantitative researcher at the Migration and Borders Analysis team at the Home Office in London.

Chapter in book

• Hopkins, P., & Finlay, R. (2023). Politics, Institutions and Place: Researching Sensitive Subjects in Urban Contexts. In Routledge Handbook of Research Methodologies in Human Geography (339-347). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003038849-30
• Najib, K., & Finlay, R. (2021). Religion. In Social Geographies: An introduction (143 - 151). London: Rowman & Littlefield

Edited book

• de Backer, M., Hopkins, P., van Liempt, I., Finlay, R., Kirndörfer, E., Kox, M., …Hörschelmann, K. (Eds.). (2023). Refugee youth: migration, justice and public space. Bristol University Press

Journal Article

• Benwell, M. C., Hopkins, P., & Finlay, R. (2023). The slow violence of austerity politics and the UK’s ‘hostile environment’: Examining the responses of third sector organisations supporting people seeking asylum. Geoforum, 145, Article 103845. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103845
• Finlay, R. (2022). Entangled histories of place and reconfigurations of diasporic home: Al‐Andalus history and the Moroccan diaspora in Granada, Spain. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 47(3), 604-617. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12513
• De Backer, M., Felten, P., Kirndörfer, E., Kox, M., & Finlay, R. (2022). ‘Their lives are even more on hold now’: migrants’ experiences of waiting and immobility during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social and Cultural Geography, https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2022.2111699
• Finlay, R., & Hopkins, P. (2020). Resistance and marginalisation: Islamophobia and the political participation of young Muslims in Scotland. Social and Cultural Geography, 21(4), https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2019.1573436
• Finlay, R. (2019). A diasporic right to the city: the production of a Moroccan diaspora space in Granada, Spain. Social and Cultural Geography, 20(6), https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2017.1378920
• Finlay, R., Nayak, A., Benwell, M. C., Pande, R., & Richardson, M. (2019). Race, place and young people in the age of Brexit. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 37(1), https://doi.org/10.1177/0263774x18811923d
• Finlay, R., & Hopkins, P. (2019). Young Muslim women's political participation in Scotland: Exploring the intersections of gender, religion, class and place. Political Geography, 74, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2019.102046
• Bos, D., Finlay, R., Hopkins, P., Lloyd, J., & Richardson, M. (2017). Reflections on the ESRC internship scheme for postgraduates. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 41(1), 106-118. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2016.1260099
• Hall, S., King, J., & Finlay, R. (2017). Migrant infrastructure: Transaction economies in Birmingham and Leicester, UK. Urban Studies, 54(6), https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098016634586
• Hall, S., King, J., & Finlay, R. (2015). Envisioning migration: drawing the infrastructure of Stapleton Road, Bristol. New diversities, 17(2), 59-72