Beth Katz

Background

About Beth Katz

I currently am a PhD candidate in Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh and a social inclusion consultant and practitioner. My PhD research, for which the viva/defense will be held in January 2025, focused on how the UK and US Governments crafted immigration environments of extreme unwelcoming during the Brexit and Trump eras (~2017-2020) and their impacts on immigrant inclusion efforts in those countries. It constructs profiles of key components of the Brexit and Trump Governments’ harsh immigration approaches, facilitating a comparative examination and identifying seven common features. This research highlights the pivotal role that a national government plays in crafting immigration environments of un/welcoming. It explores the substantial and enduring repercussions of these harsh approaches on immigrant inclusion efforts in the UK and the US. My work offers original contributions and insights about the significant ways that the national government can affect the immigration environment and the immigrant inclusion field. It invites further research and collaboration to profile how governments prosecute immigration environments of extreme unwelcoming and to identify practical ways forward for expanding welcoming, inclusion, and equity in immigration environments of extreme unwelcoming. While pursuing my own PhD research, I also served as a research assistant on several projects led by University of Edinburgh faculty related to immigration, participatory democracy, and democratic innovations. Prior to embarking on the PhD programme, I founded and for nearly ten years ran a US-based non-governmental organisation that worked to advance community-based social inclusion, particularly around religious and cultural identity and diversity. This work grew to encompass inclusion efforts on multiple levels of society (e.g. Iocal, regional, national, international, and online) and collaborations with practitioners in other countries, including the UK, as well as with governments and intergovernmental organisations such as the Obama Administration and the UN Alliance of Civilizations. In addition, I have developed and taught undergraduate and graduate courses on social inclusion; religious and cultural identity, diversity, and rights; and international conflict management at the Creighton University Heider College of Business and the University of Nebraska at Omaha. I earned a Master of Public Policy and a Master of Social Work from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Science in Education from Creighton University.