Prof Maggy S Y Lee
Honorary Professor
9.19, 9/F., The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus
3917 8948
Maggy was formerly a student at HKU Sociology (1983-1989) and the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge (1989-1992), a criminal justice researcher at the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence in London (1992-1996), and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at University of Essex in the UK (1996-2005).
She returned to HKU in 2005 and has published extensively in sociology and criminology, engaging with key policy debates and pushing conceptual boundaries especially in the field of crime and control. Her work on human trafficking and migration control has become a key reference point in scholarly and international policy debates. She has served as an academic member and expert adviser to numerous organisations, including the German government organisation Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on gender-responsive community policing in Bangladesh, ESRC Research Grant Peer Review Committee in the UK, and the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (Social Sciences Panel). She has also served on the editorial boards and international advisory boards of many sociology and criminology international journals, including Sociology; Theoretical Criminology; Policing and Society; Crime, Media and Culture; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology. Maggy is currently the book series co-editor of Routledge Studies in Criminal Justice, Borders and Citizenship (2024-2029) and an appointed specialist at the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications (2024-2027).
PhD
University of CambridgeMPhil
The University of Hong KongBSocSc
The University of Hong KongTransnational migration and cities
Criminology of mobilities
Crime and incivilities
Youth and ethnicity
Big Data, Live Methods and Surveillance Subjectivities among Transnational Migrants in Hong Kong – British Academy Small Research Grant (2016-2018) (Co-Investigator with M. Johnson, Goldsmiths, University of London and M. McCahill, University of Hull, UK).
Curating Development – UK Arts and Humanities Research Council Translating Cultures/Care for the Future Innovation Awards on International Development (2016-2018) (Co-Investigator with M. Johnson, Goldsmiths, University of London and D. McKay, Keele University, UK).
Jockey Club Lab for Cultural Diversity Study, Social Inclusion and Ethnic Minorities in Hong Kong – Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust (2016-2019) (Co-Investigator with S.F. Lam, W. Chan, K. Shum, P. Wong, W.F. Lam and E. Chan, Faculty of Social Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong).
Fear of crime and trust in crime control in Hong Kong (2012 – 2014), Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, General Research Fund (Principal Investigator with Michael Adorjan, University of Calgary, Canada).
Home and Away: Female transnational professionals in Hong Kong (2011 – 2013), Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, Public Policy Research, Principal Investigator.
Lifestyle migration in East Asia: A comparative study of British and Asian lifestyle migrants (2011– 2013), Economic and Social Research Council UK/Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (Co-Investigator with Karen O’Reilly, Loughborough University and Rob Stones, Western Sydney University).
Books:
Handbook on Border Criminology (2024) (Mary Bosworth, Katja Franko, Maggy Lee and Rimple Mehta eds.), Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Trafficking and Global Crime Control (2011), London: Sage.
Human Trafficking (2007, ed.), Cullompton: Willan.
Journal articles:
'Zen photography and happiness in correctional institutions in Hong Kong' (with Venerable Chang Lin) (in press), GNH and the Law Journal .
‘The Externalization of Border Control in the Global South: The cases of Malaysia and Indonesia’ (2022), Theoretical Criminology, https://doi.org/10.1177/13624806221104867
'Protests in Hong Kong during the Covid-19 pandemic' (with Ismangil, M.) (2021), Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal, 17(1), 17-20.
‘Beyond the “All Seeing Eye”: Filipino Migrant Domestic Workers’ Contestation of Care and Control in Hong Kong’ (with M. Johnson, M. McCahill and R. Mesina (2019), Ethnos, DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2018.1545794
‘One World Is Not Enough: The Structured Phenomenology of Lifestyle Migrants in East Asia’ (with R. Stones, K. Botterill and K. O’Reilly) (2018), British Journal of Sociology, DOI: 10.1111/1468-4446.12357
‘Doing criminology on media and crime in Asia‘ (with K. Laidler and G. Wong) (2017), Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal, 13(2): 135-151.
‘Public assessments of the police and policing in Hong Kong’ (with M. Adorjan) (2016), Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, DOI: 10.1177/0004865816656721
‘Gendered Discipline and Protective Custody of Trafficking Victims in Asia’, Punishment and Society (2014), 16(2): 206-222.
‘Doing criminology from the periphery: Crime and punishment in Asia’ (with K. Laidler), Theoretical Criminology (2013), 17(2): 141-157.
‘A letter from Bangladesh – Developing gender-responsive community policing in Bangladesh’ (with S.J. Haider) (2012), Crime Prevention and Community Safety, Vol. 14: 69-77..
‘ Women’s imprisonment as a mechanism of migration control in Hong Kong’, British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 47: 847-860.
Book chapters:
'Beyond Fortress Europe: instrumentalised migration management in Central and Eastern Europe' (with Diego Caballero-Vélez and Matthew Light) in Bosworth et al. (2024) (eds.) Handbook on Border Criminology, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
‘Borders and Migrant Domestic Workers’ in Leanne Weber and Claudia Tazreiter (2021) (eds.) Handbook of Migration and Global Justice, Edward Elgar.
‘Re-thinking Public Criminology: Politics, Paradoxes, and Challenges’ (with E. Carrabine and N. South) in K. Henne and R. Shah (eds) (2020), Routledge Handbook of Public Criminologies, New York, NY: Routledge.
‘From Expatriates to New Cosmopolitans? Female Transnational Professionals in Hong Kong’ (with T. Wong) in Lehmann, A. and Leonard, P. (eds) (2018), Destination China, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
‘Race, Gender, and Surveillance of Migrant Domestic Workers in Asia’ (with M. Johnson and M. McCahill) (2018), in Bosworth, M., Parmar, A. and Vázquez, Y. (eds), Race, Criminal Justice, and Migration Control – Enforcing the Boundaries of Belonging, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
‘Sex trafficking and control’, in T. Sanders (ed) (2017), The Oxford Handbook of Sex Offences and Sex Offenders, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
‘Public Perceptions of Crime and Safety in Hong Kong’ (with M. Adorjan) (2017), in Chui, E. and Lo, T.W. (eds), Understanding Criminal Justice in Hong Kong, London: Routledge.
‘Border trading and policing of everyday life in Hong Kong’ (with K. Laidler) in Pickering, S. and Ham, J. (eds) (2014), The Routledge Handbook on Crime and International Migration, London: Routledge.
‘Human Trafficking and Border Control in the Global South’ in K.F. Aas and M. Bosworth (eds) (2013), The Borders of Punishment – Migration, Citizenship, and Social Exclusion, Oxford: Oxford University Press.