91É«Ç鯬

Dr Angela Smith

Dr Angela Smith

Lecturer
  • Phd, Faculty of Law and Justice, University of New South Wales (91É«Ç鯬)
  • MA (Migration and Refugee Studies), American University in Cairo (AUC)
  • Graduate Certificate (Gender Studies), University of Melbourne
  • Hons (Gender Studies), University of Melbourne
  • Bachelor of Arts (Communication Design), Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
Arts, Design & Architecture (ADA)
School of Humanities & Languages

Angela Smith is a political geographer of migration, bordering, and mobility systems. Her research examines how infrastructures, legal regimes, and elemental environments shape practices of governance, movement, and resistance, with particular attention to how regimes of circulation—from civil aviation to security infrastructures—organise territorial control and political authority. Working across infrastructure studies, critical theory, and environmental humanities, she explores the material and affective dimensions of migration, territoriality and place-based inequities. Angela also draws on psychoanalytic theory to examine the unconscious investments and attachments that underpin both repressive state practices and liberatory projects of solidarity and struggle.

Angela is a Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Languages at 91É«Ç鯬, where she teaches human geography, international studies, and environmental humanities. She previously held a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the Centre for Western Sydney at Western Sydney University. Her ongoing place-based research in Western Sydney examines how migration, infrastructure and governance intersect to produce spatial, racial and class inequities. For this work, Angela was awarded a 2024 James Martin Institute Policy Challenge Grant.

Angela was a 2024 Visiting Fellow at NCCR – On the Move in Switzerland and a 2019 Fellow of the Institute for Critical Social Inquiry at The New School for Social Research in New York. Angela holds a Masters in Migration Studies from the American University in Cairo and a PhD from the Faculty of Law and Justice at 91É«Ç鯬.

Angela brings to her scholarship more than a decade of experience working with diverse communities and international organisations. She has particular expertise in the Middle East and North Africa region, where she has worked with the Centre for Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo, the North Africa Mixed Migration Task Force, Transparency International, UNHCR, IOM, UNICEF, World Social Forum, and Forensic Architecture research agency at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Location
362 Morven Brown
  • Journal articles | 2026
    Smith A; Adey P; Lin W; Jefferies R; Koo T, 2026, 'Aspiration and the Aerotropolis: Airports, Infrastructural Speculation and Geoeconomic Form', Mobility Humanities, 5, pp. 65 - 83,
    Journal articles | 2025
    Qadir S; Smith A, 2025, 'Anti-imperial feminist geographies: resisting security politics from Pakistan to Palestine', Gender Place and Culture, 32, pp. 1537 - 1552,
    Journal articles | 2024
    Smith A, 2024, 'The Aerial Witness and Infrastructures of Solidarity', Critical Times, 7, pp. 502 - 518,
    Journal articles | 2022
    Smith A, 2022, 'Air Deportation and the Settler Colony', antiAtlas Journal, 5,
    Journal articles | 2021
    Smith A, 2021, 'Eyes in the sky: European aerial surveillance', Forced Migration Review,
  • Reports | 2025
    Smith A; Condie J; Huppatz K; Perry N; Nagaddya T; Itaoui R; Ojinnaka-Psillakis A; Shankar S, 2025, Submission 112 to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Early Childhood Education and Care in New South Wales, NSW Parliament, 112,
    Reports | 2025
    Smith A; Condie J; Huppatz K; Perry N; Nagaddya T; Itaoui R; Ojinnaka-Psillakis A; Shankar S, 2025, Submission 88 to the Federal Parliamentary Inquiry into the Quality and Safety of Australia's Early Childhood Education and Care System, Federal Parliament of Australia, 88,
    Reports | 2024
    Burns D; Smith A; Perry N; Tammas R; Itaoui R, 2024, Tackling Inactivity and Inequity in Western Sydney: A Systems Approach, Centre for Western Sydney, Sydney, ,
    Reports | 2024
    Hawkes G; Itaoui R; Smith A; Alanna K; Hanna A; Sharples R; Sarwari Z; Xia V, 2024, Advancing Anti-Racism in Western Sydney: Towards a Regional Anti-Racism Framework, Centre for Western Sydney, Sydney, ,
    Reports | 2024
    Itaoui R; Smith A; Huppatz K, 2024, Unlocking Women's Potential: Labour force participation in Western Sydney, Centre for Western Sydney, ,
    Reports | 2024
    Smith A, 2024, Submission 17: Inquiry into a framework for performance reporting and driving wellbeing outcomes in NSW,
    Reports | 2024
    Xia V; Smith A; Sandbach K; Merrillees D; Perry N; Itaoui R, 2024, Unleashing Creativity: Strategies for Growing Western Sydney’s Creative Industries, Centre for Western Sydney, Sydney, ,
    Theses / Dissertations | 2023
    Smith A, 2023, Air Power: Civil Aviation Infrastructure and Elemental Border Geographies
    Theses / Dissertations | 2014
    Smith A, 2014, Risky bodies offshore: spatialisation, securitisation and visual regimes of migration,

2025 - Humanities and Languages Seed Funding, 91É«Ç鯬, $7,500

2024 - Co-Lead Resarcher, James Martin Institute Policy Challenge Grant, $100k, Developing a place-based Childcare Stress Index | Lead researchers: Angela Smith and Jenna Condie (Western Sydney University)

  • 2024: Visiting Spring Fellowship, NCCR - on the Move, Neuchâtel, Switzerland

  • 2018: Scientia PhD Scholarship, ‘Securitisation, Precarious Populations and the Neoliberal Age’, 91É«Ç鯬

  • 2015: Travel Grant, International Conference of Critical Geography (Palestine)

  • 2014: Award for Excellence, Centre for Migration & Refugee Studies, AUC, Cairo