Research interests
conflict, gender and displacement; gender, migration and integration
Biography
Maja got her PhD in Sociology from York University, Canada, and her BA and MPhil from the University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia/Serbia. She has held positions at the Department of Social Sciences, University of East London (UK), where she Co-Directed the Centre for Social Justice and Change, as well as two Post-Graduate Programmes: in Refugee Studies, and in Conflict, Displacement, and Human Security. Maja has also held posts at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford (UK), Centre for Refugee Studies and the Centre for Feminist Research, York University (Canada), and University of Belgrade (Yugoslavia/Serbia). She has experience in consultancy work for governments and non-governmental organizations in Canada and the UK. Maja’s research has always aimed to affect a positive social change in the areas of her expertise. This has led her to become one of the founding members of the Women in Conflict Zones Network (WICZNET), an international network of scholars, policymakers, and grassroots women’s groups from around the world. While at the University of Oxford, Maja was the Principal Investigator of a comparative study about the integration of refugees in the EU. Her book Remaking Home (Berghahn Books Oxford 2009; Serbian translation 2012) is one of her publications on social inclusion and integration, another area of Maja’s research. As part of her research in this area, Maja Korac was involved in the research project ‘Challenges of New Social Integration: Concepts and Actors’ at the Institute of Sociological Research, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia. She did research on the transnational mobility of Chinese traders in Serbia. Maja Korać’s research interest in state-centered security concerns informed some of her most recent publications, including her article ‘Gendered and Racialized Border Security: Displaced people and the politics of fear’, Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. In 2018-19, Maja was awarded a Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) grant by Research England to carry out research in Serbia, entitled ‘The Other’ and Ourselves: Culture as the agent of social change.
Selected publications
(2020) special issue ‘The Other’ and Ourselves: Artistic Interventions as the Key for Communication and Understanding ‘the Other’, Interculturality: Journal for stimulation and affirmation of Intercultural communication. Novi Sad: Kulturni centar Vojvodine ‘Miloš Crnjanski’. (co-edited with Milena Dragićević-Šešić)
(2020) Gendered and racialised border security: Displaced people and the politics of fear. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 9(3): 75-86. https://doi.org/10.5204/
(2018) ‘Feminists against Sexual Violence in War: The Question of Perpetrators and Victims Revisited’. Social Sciences, 2018, 7 (10) 182.
(2013) ‘Chinese traders in Serbia: Gender opportunities, translocal family strategies and transnational mobility’, Ars & Humanities, VII(2): 86-98.
(2009) Remaking Home, Oxford: Berghahn Books.
(2003) Feminist under Fire: Exchanges across War Zones, Toronto: Between the Lines. (co-edited with Wenona Giles et al.)