Dr Conor Wilson is a critical criminologist and interdisciplinary researcher working at the intersection of border criminology, policing, urban studies and the criminology of sport and leisure. His main research interests explore the discursive, socio-spatial and visual construction of border control, policing and spatial stigma. He has a particular interest in how state practices, such as police stop & search tactics, border policing or immigration detention, are constructed, and contested, though media representations and political discourses.

His previous research has explored the spatial, cultural and political dynamics of territorial stigma in ‘crime-affected’ areas. This includes  the discursive functions of ‘crime’, ‘decline’ and ‘violence’ in legitimating urban political events that range from urban regeneration practices to sports-mega events. His work has also addressed the criminalisation of football supporters, and the use of police stop and search tactics.

Conor’s recent work has increasingly been located within border criminology, or the criminalization of mobility. His research increasingly focuses on the visual politics of (crim)migration and bordering. More specifically, his work addresses how the dual framing of punitive and humanitarian rationales (re)produces and legitimate state sovereignty and border policing regimes, and how this is manifested in (social) media representations. This work includes, inter alia, the visuality of the crimmigrant other in state communications about people smuggling, NGOs and advocacy work in challenging immigration detention or the border police recruitment activities.

His work has appeared in leading criminological and inter-disciplinary journals such as Theoretical Criminology, Urban Geography and Soccer & Society, Innovations in Education and Teaching. His work has also been written about in national publications such as the Daily Record.