Nishat Awan

Professor Nishat Awan

Early Career Fellow 2015-16

Migrant Narratives of Citizenship: A Topological Atlas of European Belonging

Where are the edges of Europe, how are they defined and who can be included within them? The project addresses these questions by creating contemporary narratives of European belonging that challenge prevalent conceptions of Europe and its citizens. I take as my starting point the historical connection between the way state entities represent themselves through maps and the ways in which they define citizens and non-citizens. In contrast to the traditional Western understanding of cartography as the representation of an already existing world, I view maps as world-making entities that are traditionally made by those in power.

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Areas of interest

Architecture Visual Culture Migration Digital Humanities Urban Studies Art Geography Media Studies Sociology Forced Displacement Diaspora Mapping

Cohort

ECF3

Biography

Nishat Awan is Professor of Architecture and Visual Culture at the UCL Urban Laboratory. She is an architect and researcher working across the arts, humanities and social sciences in the fields of migration and digital visual culture. Nishat's research is transdisciplinary working across architecture and urbanism in dialogue with art, geography, media studies and sociology. She has developed a long-term research agenda on migration and displacement, from an early interest in diasporas to current research on forced migration. Her monograph, Diasporic Agencies (Routledge, 2016), was one of the first book length studies on the subject in architecture. Nishat's co-authored book, Spatial Agency (Routledge, 2011), can be considered pivotal in bringing a socially and politically engaged agenda to architecture, transforming the discipline from a focus on the individual architect towards a more collaborative approach.

Biographical details correct as of 05.02.25