Belinda is a PhD researcher on the Vulnerable State project and a qualified lawyer. She has worked at the University of Warwick’s School of Law since 2019 as an Associate Tutor and Research Assistant. During this time, she has been involved in numerous socio-legal projects related to decolonisation, human rights, migration, global health, and criminal law. Belinda also has over a decade of experience working in the private and public legal sectors in Sydney and has extensive experience undertaking volunteer work with asylum seekers in both Australia and the UK. She completed her Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts (Ancient History) degrees at the University of New England in Australia (2018, First Class Honours), and has received further training through the UN Refugee Agency and the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Her PhD is a conceptual and empirical investigation of the punitive-humanitarian complex as it operates in asylum claims processes and judicial outcomes in the UK. By studying these processes, her research examines the vulnerabilities of the state, and how frontline workers are affected by the burden of enacting state power at the ground level. It explores the extent to which humanitarianism is a useful framework for guiding more humane forms of immigration governance, or whether it only serves to legitimise more punitive solutions.

Contact: bel.a.rawson@warwick.ac.ukLink opens in a new window