Through an ethnographic lens, Charlie explores media, migration and encampment, mobility and immobility, identity and belonging. Focusing on the Thai-Myanmar border, she explores how encamped refugees living in protracted displacement in refugee camps mediate their everyday lives. Charlie is particularly interested in presence and mediated spaces. She examines multiple refugee experiences within different lived environments and explores the uses and consequences of new media technologies and communication practices.

Charlie has lived and taught in Thailand since 2008, which has greatly influenced her research. She gained her MA in Media, Culture and Communication from the Institute of Education, Knowledge Lab, University College London, where she examined the question What Does it Mean to be a Socially Conscious Female Thai Film Director in Contemporary Thai Culture? Charlie attended Goldsmiths, University of London, where she gained her doctoral degree entitled Mediating Encamped Identities and Belongings: An Ethnography of Everyday Karen Life in Mae La Refugee Camp

Research and Conferences

Hill, C. (2022). Karen Women (re)constructing the Self Through Rap: Crossing Boundaries

and Navigating Lived Spaces. Music and Arts in Action, Special Edition [preprint]

Hill, C. (2022) Mediating Encamped Identities and Belongings: An Ethnography of Everyday

Karen Life in Mae La Refugee Camp. Goldsmiths, University of London. [Dissertation]

Hill, C. (2021). Poetic resistance: Karen long-distance nationalism, rap music and YouTube. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 13678779211027179.

Migrant Belongings 2021 Conference: Digital Practices and the Every Day

Paper presented: Poetic Resistance: Karen Rap Music and YouTube

Hill, C., & Batcho, J. (2019). An invitation to bear witness: collective guilt and the ethical spectator in Haneke’s Caché. Studies in European Cinema, 16(2), 94-107.

Hill, C. (2017). Media Literacy in Thai Schools: A Paradoxical Challenge. Media Education Research Journal, Issue 7.2