Gemma Bird
Senior Lecturer in Politics & IR at the University of Liverpool. Activist scholar working on the politics of migration and solidarity in the EU & African political theory. Views my own. She/her
- Trump’s Davos speech is just one racist, colonial, misogynistic stereotype after another! Rambling and offensive throughout!
- Reposted by Gemma BirdThere ought to be consequences for the abusive use of meritless prosecutions to harass activists.
- Wrote a piece with @davideschmid.bsky.social on the “new” Guest Worker schemes in Europe and how they borrow from practices of the past!
- Heading to the The University of Leeds for the day as the lovely people of the political theory seminar series kindly invited me to speak. Looking forward to testing out some of the ideas from the book I have been working on for the last eight years and that I am now in the final stages of editing!
- Reposted by Gemma BirdSee below EOI for AHRC-funded PhDs at UoL. Keen to supervise a project on critical approaches to migration.
- The @livunihss.bsky.social AHRC-funded ‘Crafting Care’ Doctoral Focal College is accepting applications for 2026. EOI due by 1st Dec. I am keen to supervise a project on the politics of abortion care. Get in touch with your project idea! www.liverpool.ac.uk/humanities-a... @livunipol.bsky.social
- Really excited to be spending the day in the @liverpooluni.bsky.social VG&M with the exhibition “A Place Along the Way: Stories from the Island of Samos” as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science where we are also collecting your recipes as a response to the wonderful work of Project Armonia.
- Really excited to be involved in a pop up exhibition Migration, Refuge & Solidarity‘ on 7th & 8th Nov at @victoriagallery.bsky.social. I will be sharing audio-visual exhibition ‘A Place Along the Way: Stories from the Island of Samos’ as a part of it. vgm.liverpool.ac.uk/whats-on/exh...
- Reposted by Gemma BirdCongratulations to Dr Sarah Elmammeri, our former PhD candidate and the winner of the Manchester Jean Monnet Centre of ExcellenceDoctoral Thesis Prize.Her lecture titled ‘Between Layers of Borders: Reflecting on EU Policies and Asylum Seekers’ reflects the very best of our PhD student scholarship.
- Reposted by Gemma Bird1️⃣ Reporting on migration & accountability can often feel futile Not today The ECHR ruled Greece violated the right to life in the 2018 Agathonisi shipwreck: 16 dead, incl. 7 children & 2 babies @rsaegean.org fought for the families; We had investigated w/ former @spiegel.de colleagues Decision ⬇️
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- Pleased to share our new article in which we critically engage with the role that the “categories of migration” play in determining who does and does not “belong” in Europe and how they are changing.
- Thank you to the SI editors @nawalabu72.bsky.social, Anna Agathangelou and Christian Kaunert for including us in this important collection.
- “Cinema is a friend for life”. Never a truer word spoken from @markcousinsfilm.bsky.social at the @cinemaforall.bsky.social #100YearsGala
- Loved attending the opening of Lightbulb Moments at the The University of Liverpool yesterday and sharing an object in it. It’s a privilege to work with the amazing Project Armonia and to be able to bring their cook book sharing the power of food and stories to a whole new audience is very special.
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- Some great summer reads!
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- This is appalling! People flea unimaginable horrors, claim asylum and will then face another awful challenge of fighting to be back with their family. This is just an added layer of cruelty in a broken system that no longer truly gives the refuge it should! www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
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- Condemnation and words are not enough. Political figures worldwide need to do so much more in the face of these constant atrocities! www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...
- “In Gaza, to be an academic today is to refuse to be reduced to a statistic.” www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
- The British media keeps calling the situation in Gaza a hunger crisis, but this underplays the reality. What we are witnessing is a starvation crisis, this is an active choice not to deliver aid, not a passive outcome with an unknown cause!
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- What more will it take for the world’s leaders to respond than the killing of children waiting for water! www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
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- “While life in Gaza is being obliterated and the West Bank is under escalating assault, this report shows why Israel’s genocide continues: because it is lucrative for many,” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
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- A great listen, and a pleasure to be included in this conversation. Thanks for having me!
- Very proud to know and have had the pleasure to engage with Dr Sarah Elmammeri’s excellent thesis “Trapped between Borders” who is now the very deserving winner of the Manchester Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence thesis prize for 2025! @sarahelm.bsky.social www.liverpool.ac.uk/politics/new...
- People starving and waiting for food aid are being killed as they wait! This is horrific! The world cannot keep ignoring what we are witnessing. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
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- Justice for the 97 run this morning in Liverpool with @davideschmid.bsky.social #YNWA #AlwaysRemember
- Just watched the excellent Afloat at @unitytheatre.bsky.social in Liverpool. It’s showing again tomorrow and well worth seeing. A stark reminder of the cruelty of the asylum system, but also of the hope and solidarity that exists in community. www.unitytheatreliverpool.co.uk/whats-on/afl...
- Reposted by Gemma BirdIf sending asylum seekers to countries they have never been to, and have no connection with, is „respecting the EU’s values“, then I‘m really not sure what these values are anymore. ec.europa.eu/commission/p...
- Really looking forward to our workshop tomorrow Languages, Objects and Homes: Transnational Communities in Border Scapes. This collaboration between @livunilanguages.bsky.social and @livunipol.bsky.social includes great talks, so if you are around do drop in. www.ticketsource.co.uk/lcf/language...
- It’s not enough to just stop trade talks when this is happening! www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
- A very important lecture this evening at @livunipol.bsky.social as Professor Erika Harris talks to us about ‘Nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe: Dilemmas and Controversies’. This timely lecture is the first of a two day engagement with Erika’s vastly important work.
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- Josep Borrell arguing that what we are witnessing in Gaza is the “carrying out the largest ethnic-cleansing operation since the end of the second world war in order to create a splendid holiday destination” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
- Great first day of conferencing at @mpc-eui.bsky.social. Particularly enjoying engaging with citizenship scholarship and thinking through questions of movement and belonging through a range of disciplinary lenses. Good to have an excuse to venture outside of our academic silos.
- Greatful to everyone who came to see the exhibition launch in Amsterdam yesterday. “A Place Along the Way: Stories from the Island of Samos” will be exhibited at De Verbroderij all May, so please do go and see it and let me know what you think!
- Very excited for this venue! Exhibition A Place Along the Way: Stories from the Island of Samos opens tomorrow at 3!
- Reposted by Gemma BirdShe lives! My book published by @manchesterup.bsky.social ‘Women’s Troubles: Gender and Feminist Politics in Northern Ireland.’ Cover image kindly provided by @frecklescorp.bsky.social of her work ‘The Slapper’ www.emmacampbell.co.uk/emma-campbell @livunipol.bsky.social @livunihss.bsky.social
- Solidarity this 1st of May! An important day to remember that the struggle for rights and freedoms for all is as important and necessary now as it ever was!
- What a city! What a club! #You’llNeverWalkAlone
- Next Sunday (4th May) Simone van den Akker, Andrew Foreman and I will be taking audio exhibition “A Place Along the Way: Stories from the Island of Samos” to #Amsterdam. If you’re around please do join us. deverbroederij.nl/agenda/24-04...
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- This deportation will put Fatou’s life at huge risk. Systems of detention and deportation of asylum seekers and refugees are intentionally cruel but they are also extremely dangerous! #Stopdeportations
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- Reposted by Gemma BirdPlease share in your networks. Goldsmiths, UoL are offering 5 scholarships in Undergrad & MA courses for Palestinian students. The scholarships include: tuition fee waiver, £19,550 allowance, return trip to & from the UK. Eligibility details & further info at link👇🏽 www.gold.ac.uk/fees-funding...
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- Exhibition among the book shelves! A pleasure to be joining the @bisasee.bsky.social 20 year celebration workshop at @livunipol.bsky.social @livunihss.bsky.social today with our exhibition A Place Along the Way: Stories from the Island of Samos.
- Very much looking forward to being a part of this excellent workshop on Thursday, and sharing photos and audio stories from the island of Samos.
- This is an important decision for people seeking safety in Greece! www.ekathimerini.com/news/1264822...
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- Watched the really excellent documentary Grand Theft Hamlet yesterday. Would really recommend it whether or not you liking gaming and/ or Shakespeare. mubi.com/en/gb/films/...
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- Let’s go Bulls!
- Looking forward to joining a panel on Politics of Migration in Europe at #ISA2025 tomorrow. Davide Schmid and I will be discussing changing discourses around the “good” migrant in Europe. Interesting conversations today about the need to keep struggling in so many arenas. To be continued tomorrow!
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- The UK Government are turning vulnerable people irregularly entering the country to claim asylum into a spectacle and it does nothing other than put people at risk, cause fear and worry, and make people struggling with the asylum process even more vulnerable! A spectacle of cruelty!
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- This will put so many more people at risk at a time when aid and support is vital. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
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- A truly terrifying speech that we will look back on for many decades. We must fight to protect people crossing borders, respond to climate change and protect generations to come. Solidarity always in the face of a politics that looks to divide the world.
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- Happy New Year, all! In 2024 I learnt from & struggled with activists demanding an end to deportation, detention & pushbacks for people on the move, students demanding scholarships & an end to destruction of Gaza. In 2025 struggles continue, but hope is in community & solidarity!
- 10 years ago on this day I submitted my PhD. I wasn’t really sure whether I would make it as an academic or what the next decade would look like. But looking back now I am so grateful to everyone who has supported me since and for the opportunities I have had to pass it on!
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- In our new article “Theorising the migration fix” @davideschmid.bsky.social & I continue thinking about how to develop the concept of the “migration fix” as a tool for understanding the complex, often contradictory, relationship between political & economic logics & the the role of borders
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- Reposted by Gemma BirdIn July, I FOI'd the Home Office for the full breakdown of spending on the Rwanda scheme I was refused because the government planned to publish the data in future, and today is the day. These numbers are in millions www.gov.uk/government/p...
- A big thank you to @eleanorbpaynter.net who joined my class on Activism, Solidarity and Borders today to share her brilliant book Emergency in Transit with my students. We were all very moved by the stories and I would highly recommend the book to all those interested in borders and migration!
