The Kabyle, the Indigenous Amazigh people of Algeria, face unique challenges in contributing to the ongoing research on migration. It is a rarity to encounter a paper about Kabyle migrants in established migration studies journals authored by a Kabyle scholar. The positionality of Kabyle migrant scholars is a complex interplay between their home country's persecution and the stringent migration policies of the West. The existing literature in this field is predominantly from an outsider perspective, either Western scholars or migrant Kabyle scholars in exile, whose fieldwork and analyses often ..read more

“We are Black, Indian, Mestiza, Sudaka, racialised flesh. We reject your PDFs and your disembodied lectures. We deny every trend of being and return to listening to each other, looking each other in the eye, telling each other stories, and building from lived experience.”  Manifiesto AFROntera – Terremoto (n.d.)   In May 2024, we will release a Special Issue, "Towards Engaged Migration Research: Unpacking Positionality, Inequalities and Access.” This issue aims to explore engaged migration research in-depth, including its practice and politics. Our approach focuses on ..read more

My PhD project combines participatory visual methods with ethnography and archival research to understand the meaning of the border for its inhabitants. As a sub-study of the Reel Borders ERC project, I hosted Participatory Filmmaking (PF) workshops to study ‘border narratives’ in three distinct borderlands: Derry, at the Irish border; Ceuta, the Moroccan-Spanish border; and Adana, a Turkish city that has become home to over a quarter of a million Syrian displaced people. PF involves collaborating with a community to create films. This process draws from various practices such as storytelling ..read more

When a six-page interim order by the Indian Supreme Court displayed inhumanity in sending Rohingyas to Myanmar, where human rights violations are still ongoing, a 56-page judgment paved the way for a new era of refugee jurisprudence based strongly on the human rights of refugees.  This blog intends to revisit the interim order of the Indian Supreme Court in Mohammed Salimullah v Union of India in light of the recent judgement of the United Kingdom Supreme Court (UKSC) in R (AAA) v. Secretary of State Home Dept. This reflection on refugee jurisprudence matters as it addresses the role of d ..read more

Halfway through a nearly two-hour commute to the outskirts of the capital city of Delhi, India where I was to meet with a group of community leaders, I was overcome by a sudden feeling of nervousness. It was the first month of my fieldwork, conducting life history interviews with Rohingya refugees living in Delhi, India and so far, I had little progress to show. This meeting had been hard to arrange, not least because of the increasingly hostile policy landscape for Rohingya refugees in India. In September 2022, the community was just emerging from a media storm set off by a controversial twee ..read more

Transdisciplinary research is essential to understand how migration management measures impact refugees and how refugees challenge these measures in their everyday struggles. As Martiniello (2022) described, ‘[t]ransdisciplinarity implies that each scholar ventures outside the comfortable borders of her/his academic discipline to learn from and understand other points of view and perspectives.’ In this short piece, I explore the insightful contributions that transcending the boundaries of a single discipline may provide for elucidating the complex interplay between migration management and ref ..read more

The enforcement of a return decision is a controversial and complicated undertaking, with potentially far-reaching implications for returnees. Currently, only a fraction of migrants with a return decision are in fact removed from the EU (Eurostat 2023). Instead, many have become stuck in (legal) limbo for extended periods (sometimes spanning years), as authorities struggle to enforce their return due to persisting barriers (Mezenes Queiroz 2018). While the reasons for situations of non-return are complex and diverse, my research focuses on cases involving practical and legal barriers to remova ..read more

Embarking on the journey of a PhD is a remarkable feat, and the pinnacle of this journey is the dreaded yet exhilarating PhD defense. As you stand on the cusp of this pivotal moment, the culmination of years of research and dedication, it's normal to feel nervous and apprehensive. I dreaded that moment from day 1 of my PhD trajectory. Preparing for an event that makes me nervous helps me best to calm my nerves. However, whenever I asked others on how to prepare I often heard “don’t worry, you got this! You are the expert!”. They are probably right and mean well – but such a statement is not to ..read more

Interrogating positionality in qualitative research is a central concern due to the researcher's intimate role in data collection and analysis (Serrant Green, 2002). As white British women not from a sanctuary seeking background, we, Lauren and Connie, PhD colleagues at the same university, acknowledge this positionality informs our research. In this blog, we came together following a shared reflection: How do you negotiate practitioner-researcher identity in PhD research? Connie’s research focuses on the administration of asylum applications, and she engages with immigration practitioner ..read more

‘Home’ is often weaponised by right wing media outlets. You only need to turn on the TV, radio, or check social media to see ‘home’ mentioned in relation to migrants. A quick Google search of the terms “home” and “migrants” will give you images of migrants on boats, as well as news articles concerned with “illegal migrants”, “stop the boats”, and “housing crisis”, all in relation to migrants arriving and living in the UK. What if we used ‘home’ as a ground of connection rather than difference and division? As someone who was born and brought up in a small city in Wales - Swansea - I lack a nua ..read more