A view of Singleton Campus including Singleton Park and the beach, with the sea stretching into the horizon

Dr Imogen Dobie

Lecturer in Twentieth-Century European History (Enhanced Research), History

i.r.dobie@swansea.ac.uk

Research Links

About

Imogen Dobie is a Lecturer in Twentieth Century European History. Her research focuses on humanitarian aid and its connection to forced migration and state bordering practices. She examines how aid agencies have historically responded to the movement of refugees and other displaced persons, asking what this teaches us about asylum, immigration policy and the principles and politics of emergency relief.

Before joining Swansea University, Imogen completed her DPhil at the University of Oxford, where she was based at the Refugee Studies Centre and was also Senior Scholar at Lincoln College. She holds an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, also from the University of Oxford. In 2022, Imogen was a visiting researcher at Yale University and she has also worked with the humanitarian sector on projects which use history to inform present day policymaking.

Imogen’s research has been published in a number of peer-reviewed scholarly journals, including the European Review of History and Humanity. She is currently working on her first book, provisionally entitled Rocking the Boat: the Provision of Humanitarian Aid at Sea.

Areas Of Expertise

Modern history (20th and 21st century)
History of humanitarianism
History of forced migration
Immigration, asylum policy and the global refugee regime
International development
Global and transnational history
Postcolonial approaches to history

Career Highlights

Teaching Interests

Imogen teaches across a range of modules at Swansea, including ‘Britain and the World, 1800-2000’, ‘The Practice of History’ and ‘Europe of Extremes’. She leads the second year module ‘Refugees in the Twentieth Century’ as well as an MA module entitled ‘The History of Humanitarianism 1863-1971’.

Research Award Highlights Collaborations

Taught Modules

HI-M38 Themes in History

This module provides an introduction to advanced historiography. It is designed to develop students¿ awareness of traditional historiographical concerns alongside their knowledge current trends and new directions in writing and thinking about the past.
HIH124 Britain and the World, 1800 to 2000

This module will provide an overview of the history of British politics, society, culture, and the economy from c. 1800 to the present, from a national and international perspective. The lectures and seminars for this module will give students the opportunity to engage closely with events, processes, and people - both male and female, from diverse ethnic backgrounds - who contributed to the making of the modern British state and society, and who defined Britain¿s relationship with the wider world. We will discuss the transformative impact of warfare, Empire and colonialism, industrial and technological change. We will also consider the significance of race, class, and gender, and how they relate to national sentiment and social and political emancipation movements in Britain and beyond.
HIH237 The Practice of History

The purpose of the module is to encourage you to think more deeply about how historians work and, in particular, about how we as historians can locate and use primary historical sources effectively as a means of interpreting and understanding the past. During the module we will learn about the survival of historical evidence, how it is organised and made accessible to historians to undertake their research, and how to effectively locate and interpret it in your studies. We will consider how the process of doing historical research changes over time, in particular with the impact of recent developments like digitization. At the core of the module will be the work you undertake with others in your seminar group using a range of primary sources which your seminar tutor will introduce to you. As part of the module assessment you will also undertake your own primary source based research project using items from these collections. The module is designed strengthen your analytical skills and to help prepare you for the more extensive uses of primary evidence which you will encounter in final year special subjects and dissertation.

Dr Imogen Dobie

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Research Links

About

Areas Of Expertise

Career Highlights

Taught Modules

HI-M38 Themes in History

HIH124 Britain and the World, 1800 to 2000

HIH237 The Practice of History