Mary Gilmartin is the Principal Investigator for MobiliseCare. She is a Professor in the Department of Geography, Maynooth University. You can learn more about Mary’s background, research and publications here.
Zoë O’Reilly is a researcher and visual ethnographer currently working as a postdoctoral researcher on ‘MobiliseCare’, a project funded by Taighde Eireann and led by Professor Mary Gilmartin. Zoë completed her PhD in 2013 with the Departments of Geography and Media in Maynooth University. Her thesis explored experiences of people living in the ‘Direct Provision’ system in Ireland, through a collaborative visual project with people living in the system. She is author of a book on this subject, entitled The In-Between Spaces of Asylum and Migration: a participatory visual approach (Palgrave 2020). She is a member of the Scottish Irish Migration Initiative, recently developing a project entitled ‘Building an Ethical Research Culture’ with colleagues in University College Dublin and the University of Edinburgh. She is also a member of the research team of UCD Earth Institute-funded project ‘IE-NARR’, mapping narratives of energy transition in Ireland. Previous work includes ‘Transcultural Research’, a collaboration with TU Dublin and Rua Red Gallery and Civic Theatre, Tallaght. Her research interests include ethnographies of displacement, migration, asylum and cultural diversity. She is interested in the continued overlaps between extractivist thinking which has resulted, on the one hand, in racism, slavery and colonisation, and, on the other, in the exploitation of land and resources. She also has a particular interest in visual, sense-based and collaborative methodologies. Much of her work has been through photography, but she has also collaborated with artists to use storytelling, theatre and map-making in exploring identity, place, culture and subjective experience. She is excited by collaboration – across disciplines, across art forms and across communities, and between academic and non-academic settings. You can learn more about Zoë’s background, research and publications here.
Dr Nataliia Boiko is working as a Research Fellow on MobiliseCare, a project funded by Taighde Éireann and led by Professor Mary Gilmartin.
Nataliia completed her PhD in 2002 and her Doctor of Science degree in 2021 at the Institute of Sociology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv, Ukraine). She is a researcher with more than 30 years of academic experience and has authored over 150 scientific publications, including two sole-authored monographs. Nataliia Boiko has participated in numerous national and international research projects, including: Access to Information and Media Literacy about Politics and Elections: A Collaborative Study of Ukraine (supported by UNESCO and the People of Japan, with in-kind support from the University of Oxford’s Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre, GCSCC); Observance of Human Rights in Ukraine in Relation to Refugees and Asylum Seekers (commissioned by UNHCR); Prediction of the Occurrence of Collective Labour Disputes (Conflicts) and Prevention of Their Occurrence: Methods and Experience (commissioned by the National Mediation and Conciliation Service); Population Perception of the Management System and Quality of Communal and Social Services (Human Development Index project); Systemic Risks of an Unstable Society: Poverty, Social Tension, Cultural Involution; Social Interests in the Dynamics of Intergroup and Interpersonal Interactions; Factors and Mechanisms of Regulation of Social Behaviour in Situations of Social Instability (commissioned by the Government of Ukraine), among others.
Nataliia was forced to leave Ukraine in 2022 and has since been staing in Ireland. Over the past three years, she has been conducting research on Ukrainians in Ireland, including A Study of Ukrainians in Ireland: In-depth Focused Interviews with Ukrainians in Ireland. Findings from this study have been presented at several academic events, including: The ESA RN03 “Biographical Perspectives on European Societies” mid-term conference (in association with the Sociological Association of Ireland, 15–16 February 2024, Athlone, Ireland), where she delivered the paper “Trust and Ethics in Biographical Research: Experience of In-depth Focused Interviews.”. The Refugee Week 2024 workshop “Experience of In-depth Focused Interviews with Ukrainians,” held at University College Cork (UCC) as part of the Im/Mobilities module with MA students. The online survey “The Social and Psychological Situation of Ukrainian Refugees in Europe” (Ireland–Germany, 2024), with selected results presented at the 16th International Conference of the European Sociological Association, Tension, Trust and Transformation (Porto, Portugal, 27–30 August 2024).
Nataliia’s research interests include forced migration, refugee integration in host countries (particularly Ireland), and qualitative methods in migration research, such as in-depth interviews, narrative analysis, and ethically sensitive approaches to working with vulnerable populations.
Nataliia notes that she never imagined becoming a migrant herself. Her personal experience now gives her a unique academic advantage — allowing her to be both the subject and object of migration research. She is grateful to stay in Ireland and be usefull to this beautiful & hospitable country.
Jayita Kundu is a PhD Researcher in the Department of Geography at Maynooth University, Ireland. Originally from Siliguri, a town in North Bengal, India, Jayita earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Delhi, specializing in Human Geography at the Delhi School of Economics. Her research focuses on care work, social mobilization, and digital ethnography, exploring the evolving dynamics of care geographies and participatory methodologies. She has presented her work at international conferences, including the 35th International Geographical Congress in Dublin and the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in London. Jayita’s professional experience reflects her dedication to both research and social impact. As a Teach for India Fellow, she worked closely with underserved communities in New Delhi, enhancing her understanding of education and urban ethnography. She is working on two research publications while contributing to the growing discourse on migration, mobilities, and leisure studies. Her academic and professional pursuits are grounded in a commitment to uncovering and amplifying the lived experiences of care and mobility in contemporary contexts. She is also a photographer, using visual storytelling to complement her work and connect with broader audiences.
Eray Canlar is a PhD Researcher in the Department of Geography at Maynooth University. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Department of International Relations at Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, Turkey, in 2019 and 2022, respectively. His master’s thesis focused on the regulatory governance of EU asylum policy and regulatory EU agencies, specifically the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (EBCG) and the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA). His research interests include human geography, (de)securitization and externalization of migration, as well as the process of European integration. Previously, Eray interned at the Provincial Directorate of Migration Management in Ankara. He later worked in various international projects. Additionally, he served as a student coordinator at the METUMIR (Migration Research at METU) platform. From 2021 to 2024, Eray worked as an EU project assistant and Associate Mobility Programs Coordinator at the International Cooperations Office (ICO) of METU.
Jack Edmunds-Bergin is a PhD Researcher and investigator on the project MobiliseCare, under the primary supervision of Professor Mary Gilmartin at Maynooth University. Its overall aim is to develop a new conceptualisation of migration based on how individuals, communities and organisations engage in and practice acts of care towards and with migrants. Growing up near Gorey, north Wexford and from a first-generation family of Dubliners who migrated there, Jack’s academic journey went from anthropology and linguistics (BA 2019-2023; University College Dublin), then back into his childhood passion for all things geography (MSc Critical Geographies 2023-24; University College Dublin). His research primarily concerns critical geographies of labour, migration, and working-class issues. Much of Jack’s realisations came from firsthand experiences with people he worked with as a language and literacy teacher. Seeing the disgraced housing and living conditions faced by students and friends, from Direct Provision to poor factory settings. It encouraged him to join a trade union (IWU) and tenants’ union (CATU), with the aim of getting people organised on the issues they face, as well as facilitating any resistance-building that is already happening at a grassroots level. His ambition is to be an auxiliary to workers and tenants through his research. His postgraduate dissertation exemplified this, casting a net to inquire on workplace and housing issues experienced by migrant workers in the north Wexford and south Wicklow area. Through surveys and interviews, he synthesised the work with co-researchers from the sites of housing and/or work. Then, workers and tenants could use this information to push their fight for better working and living conditions further. The fulcrum of the project was in the Marxist approach of Social Reproduction Theory, aided by the class sciences of Workers’ Inquiry and Mobilisation Theory that informed the framework on how a robust challenge can be brought to the workplace or housing provider. Besides this, Jack is a photographer and writer in his spare time. His personal ambition is to see as much of the world as he can. He has probably memorised too many useless facts and enjoys boundary-breaking experimental music as much as he wants his research to be. If you see him, the chances are his head is buried in making some poster design to add on top of the million other tasks he must do.