S2 E4 What do family migration rules reveal about British citizenship today?
Release Date: 09/16/2022
S4 E3 Forever Undocumented
Who do we think we are?
What does it actually mean to be “documented” or “undocumented” as a migrant to the USA? What’s the lived reality like of existing somewhere in between the two, including under the category of “temporary protected status”, or TPS, created by Congress in 1990 for people from countries deemed too unsafe to return to? UCLA sociologist and leading migration expert Cecilia Menjívar joins us to discuss her concept of “liminal legality”. Elaborated in a 2006 paper following fieldwork through the 1990s with migrants from Central America, the term remains enduringly relevant in...
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S4 E2 No place for migrants in the American Dream
Who do we think we are?
American Dream? Or American nightmare? The targeting of migrants and minoritised populations under President Trump poses a serious challenge to the long-standing idea that if a person comes to the USA and works hard, they will enjoy social mobility and ‘success’. Continuing our series on the role of borders and migration in the roll out of the ‘MAGA’ project of Trump and his backers, we’re joined by Professor Ernesto Castañeda, Director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies and the Immigration Lab at American University, Washington, DC. We ask: who still believes in...
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S4 E1 Raiding Sanctuary
Who do we think we are?
When anti-immigration raids intensified in the USA after Trump’s return to the presidency, it left many wondering: how could this happen in places like LA, ostensibly a “Sanctuary City”? What, in fact, are sanctuary cities? Launching our new series on the role of borders and migration in the roll out of Donald Trump’s MAGA project, Rachel Humphris, author of “Making Sanctuary Cities” joins us to explain all. She outlines the rich history of such places, with roots in both traditions of sheltering refugees but also in activist histories of non-cooperation. Rachel also describes how...
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S3 E11 Labour’s new immigration plan is anything but Brexit
Who do we think we are?
Michaela and Nando get together to discuss the UK’s Labour Government 2025 promise to restore control over immigration by reducing net migration. The resonance with Brexit rhetoric couldn’t be clearer in the language and narrative surrounding this. Yet, Brexit remains the elephant in the room. They reflect on several key elements of the paper: health and social care visas, shifts in qualification levels and income requirements, student visas and e-visas. As their conversation highlights, the new immigration plan embeds further the criminalisation of certain migrants—and seeks new ways...
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S3 E10 Migration and the making of Global Britain
Who do we think we are?
What’s the significance of migration for the making of ‘Global Britain’? And what are the theoretical and conceptual tools that can help to unpack this question? In this episode, we turn our attention to the value of racial capitalism for understanding migration to and from the UK after Brexit. Elena Zambelli explains what we mean when we talk about ‘Global Britain,’ its political trajectory, and the role of coloniality within it. Ida Danewid, Lecturer in Gender and Global Political Economy at the University of Sussex joins us to offer insights into the relationship between racial...
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S3 E9 (Not so) safe routes
Who do we think we are?
What are the UK Government’s ‘safe and legal routes’? How do these relate to ‘stop the boats’, the Rwanda Plan, and the curtailment of asylum as laid out in the 1951 Refugee Convention? What can we learn from listening to the Hong Kongers and Ukrainians beneficiaries of these humanitarian visas? And what if these routes are not so safe after all? In this episode we explore the UK’s safe and legal (humanitarian routes). Elena Zambelli explains what ‘asylum’ is, looking its history, scope and challenges to these international protections since 2015 ‘refugee...
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S3 E8 Fortress Britain?
Who do we think we are?
What’s Brexit got to do with the ‘small boats’ crisis? What does racialised border violence in the Channel tell us about 'Global Britain’? And what can we learn about the UK’s approach to its borders from the Hong Kong BN(O) and Ukrainian visas? We discuss all of this and more as we turn a lens onto Fortress Britain. Elena Zambelli explains what we mean when we talk about migrants’ irregularisation. We’re joined by Arshad Isakjee and Thom Davies talk about their research on the racialised border violence enacted by Fortress Europe and why we need to turn our...
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BtH2 E2 Beyond the headlines … Care Activism with Ethel Tungohan
Who do we think we are?
Migrant laborers worldwide are engaged in care work, but who provides care for them? And where can they seek care? In this discussion with Ethel Tungohan, the author of 'Care Activism', we go beyond the headlines that portray migrant domestic workers as victims or heroes. By focusing on their daily lives and the experiences of migrant care workers, we explore various sites of everyday resistance, ‘dissident friendships’, and the politics of critical hope and care. You can access the full transcripts for each episode on the . In this episode we cover … Migrant care workers in Canada and...
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S3 E7 Families at the borders
Who do we think we are?
What happens when borders cross families? How do families navigate these interruptions to their ability to live together? This episode considers what shifting perspective to families opens up to view in terms of thinking about the work of borders and their impact on people’s everyday lives. Helena Wray, Professor of Migration Law at the University of Exeter, explains the historical development of family migration laws and what these make visible about the racialization of the nation and its political community. Elena Zambelli explains what a ‘mixed-status family’ is, and the many ways...
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BtH2 E1 Beyond the headlines … at Manchester Museum with Senna Yousef and Caitlin Nunn
Who do we think we are?
We’re out and about in this episode! Ala and Michaela have been on the road. And in this episode they visit Manchester Museum and a new project aimed at decolonising the museum collection. They are joined by members of the Ancient History, Contemporary Belonging research project—youth researcher Senna Yousef and Dr Caitlin Nunn from Manchester Metropolitan University—which retells the history of objects held by the Museum through archival research and young people’s experiences of migration. You can access the full transcripts for each episode on the . In this...
info_outlineYou start a relationship with someone living abroad. As the relationship gets serious, you decide to take the next steps and live together. But there's a border in the way. We’re joined by Ala Sirriyeh, senior lecturer in sociology at Lancaster University to talk about how borders disrupt and remake families, why as a British citizen your non-British family members are not exempt from immigration controls and what this tells us about British citizenship today.
George Kalivis goes back into the archive to look at the secret deportation of Chinese merchant seamen from Liverpool after WW2 and how this shattered families and left many unanswered questions for their wives and mixed-race children left behind. Michaela Benson looks at the 2012 changes to the UK’s immigration rules and their impact on non-British family members, the ‘Surinder Singh’ route which exempted from the UK’s domestic immigration controls for some family members under EU free movement directives. And Ala talks to Michaela about how family migration rules exclude people on the grounds of race and class, and the creative ways in which people try to overcome these in order to simply live together.
You can access the full transcripts for each episode over on the Rebordering Britain and Britons after Brexit website.
In this episode we cover …
- The secret deportation of Chinese Merchant Seamen
- Family Migration Rules
- The right to family life, the Surinder Singh Route and Brexit
Quote
In looking at the impacts of these family migration rules shows us the blurring of the migrant-citizen divide … The kind of hierarchies of citizenship are not simply about being citizen or migrant but are based in much more complex and less stable ways … around a kind of hierarchy around axes of race and class.
— Ala Sirriyeh
Find out more … about Ala and her work here, take a look at her books Politics of Compassion and Inhabiting Borders, and follow her on Twitter.
Further Resources
Ala’s article ‘All you need is love, and £18,600’.
Dan Hancox’s Guardian articles on The Secret Deportations and how they were coerced to leave by the Home Office.
Michaela’s co-authored works on marriage-migration to the UK and how Brexit has deepened the inequalities of status within families.
If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy our episodes on English language testing for migration and citizenship and the children denied the right to British nationality.
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