SOC007000 Archives

Postcolonial Citizens

According to the International Organisation for Migration, the Bangladeshi diaspora is one of the world’s largest with around 2.4 million members, and the United Kingdom and the United States are two of the primary countries of settlement. Postcolonial Citizens examines the experiences of different generations of Muslim Bangladeshi migrants in London and Los Angeles. Although narratives of globalisation suggest increasing homogeneity this book shows how the Bangladeshi diaspora experience has been shaped by their cities of settlement. We examine how the context of reception influences experiences of citizenship. Crucial to this analysis is the concept of ‘racial regimes’ developed by Cedric Robinson and Alana Lentin, which demonstrates how ‘race’ and racial hierarchies are (re)produced in different historical and geographical contexts and how they evolve over time.

Since 9/11, the transnational practices of diasporic Muslims have received significant negative attention, as both security threats and impediments to citizenship. Postcolonial Citizens unpacks the mutually constitutive relationship between citizenship and transnationalism by focusing on three transnational domains – remittances, religion and investment – in relation to Bangladesh-origin migrants in the US and the UK. It is a tale of two cities separated by the Atlantic, and by the respective, albeit interconnected, histories of colonialism and settler colonialism but which remain intimately interlinked in the current conjuncture.

Migrant Labour in Global Factories

The labour of hundreds of millions of internal migrant workers plays a crucial role for China and Vietnam’s national development and the expansion of global production chains in these market socialist countries. As the Communist party states have been promoting both marketization and welfare expansion since their respective reforms began, the contradictions between the commodification and the social protection of labour that coexist in these polities lead to significant obstacles to the migrant workers’ welfare and wellbeing in the post-reform era.

Bringing into focus the connection between the reconfiguration of labour and changes in the two countries’ welfare systems, Migrant Labour in Global Factories analyses how these contradictions shape the care of their huge migrant labour forces. It explores how they unfold in the historical and political contexts of both countries, bringing a range of relevant theories about welfare and social policymaking to bear on the features of the market socialist economy. The book argues that the evolving welfare systems in China and Vietnam fail to address meaningfully the social consequences of labour commodification in contexts where neoliberal development is instrumentalized to serve the political control and legitimacy of the party states. This is often at the cost of long-term and sustainable social policies for migrant labour in global factories.

Hosts, Hospitals and Hospitalities

Current historical and political issues, such as the refugee crisis and climate emergency, are deeply intertwined with notions, images and narratives of (in)hospitality and climate emergency. Departing from seminal works such as those by Kant and Derrida on these subjects, the chapters in this volume engage with these issues and examine how new postcolonial, gender, environmental and medical perspectives reshape current approaches to hospitality in literature, culture and the arts.

Through a comparison of case studies from multiple national backgrounds, Hosts, Hospitals and Hospitalities shows how the concept of hospitality shapes the way in which we relate with the Other in diverse – as well as changing – cultural, political, social and environmental contexts. By examining the issues of hospitality from a post-pandemic standpoint, which revised the roles of our private and public spaces in the aftermath of Covid-19, by dwelling on novel issues of climate emergency and by focusing on current developments in terms of migration and displacement, the book adds new light and significant theoretical and methodological perspectives to previous debates about hospitality.

Architecture as a Way of Seeing and Learning

At the beginning of 2020, 66 long-term refugee camps existed along the East African Rift. Millions of young children have been born at the camps and have grown up there, yet it is unknown how their surrounding built environments affect their learning and development.

Architecture as a Way of Seeing and Learning presents an architect’s take on questions many academics and humanitarians ask. Is it relevant to look at camps through an urban lens and focus on their built environment? Which analytical benefits can architectural and design tools provide to refugee assistance and specifically to young children’s learning? And which advantages can assemblage thinking and situated knowledges bring about in analysing, understanding and transforming long-term refugee camps?

Responding to the extreme lack of information about East African camps, Nerea Amorós Elorduy has built contextualised knowledge – nuanced, situated and participatory – to describe, study and transform the East African long-term camps, and uncover hidden agencies in refugee assistance. She uses architecture as a means to create new knowledge collectively, include more local voices and speculate on how to improve the educational landscape for young children.

With this book, Amorós Elorduy brings nuance, contextualisation and empathy to the study and management of long-term refugee camps in East Africa. It is empathy, she argues, that will help change mindsets, decolonise humanitarian refugee assistance and its study. Crossing architecture, humanitarian aid and early career development, this book offers many practical learnings.

Queer Migration and Asylum in Europe

Europe is a popular destination for LGBTQ people seeking to escape discrimination and persecution. Yet, while European institutions have done much to promote the legal equality of sexual minorities and a number of states pride themselves on their acceptance of sexual diversity, the image of European tolerance and the reality faced by LGBTQ migrants and asylum seekers are often quite different.

To engage with these conflicting discourses, Queer Migration and Asylum in Europe brings together scholars from politics, sociology, urban studies, anthropology and law to analyse how and why queer individuals migrate to or seek asylum in Europe, as well as the legal, social and political frameworks they are forced to navigate to feel at home or to regularise their status in the destination societies. The subjects covered include LGBTQ Latino migrants’ relationship with queer and diasporic spaces in London; diasporic consciousness of queer Polish, Russian and Brazilian migrants in Berlin; the role of the Council of Europe in shaping legal and policy frameworks relating to queer migration and asylum; the challenges facing bisexual asylum seekers; queer asylum and homonationalism in the Netherlands; and the role of space, faith and LGBTQ organisations in Germany, Italy, the UK and France in supporting queer asylum seekers.

Polish Cities of Migration

Polish Cities of Migration analyses how Poland is transitioning to a new identity as a ‘country of immigration’, although its ‘country of emigration’ identity remains strong outside a handful of bigger cities. The book explores two interconnected puzzles: how Poland’s migration transition is influenced by the fact that it is simultaneously a country of emigration, and why migrants are spreading out beyond the metropolises, often settling with their families in smaller cities with limited labour markets, cities from which Poles themselves continue to migrate. It argues that migrants’ feeling of comfort in such locations can be explained mostly by network and lifestyle considerations. These link to impressions that local Poles – who used to be migrants themselves, and/or have family and friends abroad – possess pragmatic and accepting attitudes towards migration, particularly from Ukraine.

The book is based on in-depth interviews with 37 Polish return migrants, 70 Ukrainians and 17 other foreigners living in Kalisz, Płock and Piła. Key concepts include migration culture, livelihood strategies and place attachment. The analysis is situated within a wide range of existing secondary literature and contributes towards understanding the impact of migration on Poland, Ukrainian labour migration and wider global migration processes in the twenty-first century.

Paradoxes of Migration in Tajikistan

Paradoxes of Migration in Tajikistan is the first ethnographic monograph on migration in Tajikistan, one of the most remittance-dependent countries in the world. Moving beyond economistic push-pull narratives about post-Soviet migration, it foregrounds the experiences of those who ‘stay put’ in the sending society and struggle to reproduce their moral communities. Elena Borisova examines the role of mobility in historical and cultural ideas about the good life and how it becomes entwined with people’s efforts to become good, moral and modern subjects. Addressing the complex relationship between the economic, imaginative and moral aspects of (im)mobility, she shows that mass migration from Tajikistan is as much a project of navigating ethical personhood as it is a quest for economic resources.

This book reveals how transnational regimes and structures of mobility, citizenship and histories map out in the intimate spheres of the body, the person and the family. It is a contribution to contemporary migration research, which is mostly centred on Europe and North America, and to the field of Central Asian studies. It will be of interest to researchers of migration, (im)mobility and citizenship, and to scholars of all disciplines working on Central Asia.

Crisis for Whom?

Children feature centrally in the ubiquitous narratives of ‘migration crises’. They are often depicted as essentially vulnerable and in need of special protections, or suspiciously adult-like and a threat to national borders. At the same time, many voices, experiences, and stories are rarely heard, especially about children on the move within the global South. This bilingual book, written in English and Spanish, challenges simplistic narratives to enrich perspectives and understanding. Drawing on collaborations between young (im)migrants, researchers, artists and activists, this collection asks new questions about how crises are produced, mobility is controlled, and childhood is conceptualised. Answers to these questions have profound implications for resources, infrastructures, and relationships of care. Authors offer insights from diverse global contexts, painting a rich and insightful tapestry about childhood (im)mobility. They stress that children are more than recipients of care and that the crises they face are multiple and stratifying, with long historical roots. Readers are invited to understand migration as an act of concern and love, and to attend to how the solidarities between citizens and ‘others’, adults and children, and between children, are understood and forged.

La niñez ocupa un lugar central en las narrativas omnipresentes de las “crisis migratorias”. A menudo ésta es representada como esencialmente vulnerable y necesitada de protección especial, como sospechosamente parecida a los adultos, o como una amenaza para las fronteras nacionales. Al mismo tiempo, existen muchas voces, experiencias e historias que rara vez son escuchadas, especialmente aquellas que hablan sobre las infancias en movimiento dentro del Sur global. ‘Este libro bilingüe, escrito en inglés y español, desafía las narrativas simplistas para enriquecer nuestra perspectivas y comprensión. Basada en colaboraciones entre jóvenes (in)migrantes, investigadores, artistas y activistas, esta colección plantea nuevas preguntas sobre cómo se producen las crisis, cómo se controla la movilidad y cómo se conceptualiza a la infancia y la niñez. Las respuestas a estas preguntas tienen profundas implicaciones para la distribución de recursos, la infraestructura y las prácticas de cuidado. Las y los autores ofrecen perspectivas que surgen de diversos contextos globales, construyendo un rico y detallado tapiz sobre la (in)movilidad infantil. Destacan que niñas y niños son mucho más que simples receptores de cuidados y que las crisis que enfrentan son múltiples y estratificadas, con profundas raíces históricas. Se invita a las/os lectoras/es a entender la migración como un acto de concientización y amor, y a poner atención en cómo se entienden y forjan las solidaridades entre ciudadanos y aquellos que son percibidos como “otros”; entre adultos y niñas/os, y entre las/os niñas/os mismas/os.

Precarious Motherhood

Precarious Motherhood explores the experiences of racially minoritised mothers living with insecure immigration status and financial hardship in London, UK. It exposes the impact of hostile immigration policies and precarity on mothers’ interpersonal relationships and access to support. The author draws attention to how mothers manage the constraints they face and enact belonging. She then explores the impact on mothers’ couple relationships, friendships, adult kin relationships and faith-based networks. The book underlines the vital role of personal relationships in providing access to resources and support, but also demonstrates how precariously positioned mothers must carefully navigate relational tensions in their everyday lives. It highlights how social infrastructure facilitates relational practices, helping mothers to sustain their children’s wellbeing and their own.

Self-Build Homes

Self-Build Homes connects the burgeoning interdisciplinary research on self-build with commentary from leading international figures in the self-build and wider housing sector. Through their focus on community, dwelling, home and identity, the chapters explore the various meanings of self-build housing, encouraging new directions for discussions about self-building and calling for the recognition of the social dimensions of this process, from consideration of the structures, policies and practices that shape it, through to the lived experience of individuals and households.

Divided into four parts – Discourse, Rationale, Meaning; Values, Lifestyles, Imaginaries; Community and Identity; and Perspectives from Practice – the volume comes at a time of renewed focus from policy managers and practitioners, as well as prospective builders themselves, on self-build as a means for producing homes that are more stylised, affordable and appropriate for the specific needs of households. It responds to recent advances in housing and planning policy, while also bringing this into conversation with interdisciplinary perspectives from across the social sciences on housing, home and homemaking. In this way, the book seeks to update understandings of self-build and to account for housing as a distinctly social process.