Every year, people die trying to reach safety and a better future in a different country. But how many and who they are has been mostly unknown. The Missing Migrants Project, run by IOM, has started to collect data on who the people are who have lost their lives while migrating. 

In this episode: Kate Dearden, Project Officer

https://missingmigrants.iom.int/

Talking Migration is supported by the University of Manchester

45: Why do migrants go missing?

In 2017, Dina Nayeri, an American-Iranian author, wrote an article for the Guardian with the title ‘The ungrateful refugee: We have no debt to repay’. Last year, she published the book ‘The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You’, which tells her own and several other refugees’ stories while exploring themes of refugee life.

In this episode: Dina Nayeri http://www.dinanayeri.com/ 

Book: The Ungrateful Refuge https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-ungrateful-refugee/dina-nayeri/9781786893499
Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/04/dina-nayeri-ungrateful-refugee

Charities:
Refugee Support https://www.refugeesupport.eu/
Freedom From Torture https://www.freedomfromtorture.org/
SecondTree https://secondtree.org/
HostNation https://www.hostnation.org.uk/
RAID(Rights and Accountability in Development)https://www.raid-uk.org/

46: Should refugees be grateful?

The UK government has published the New Plan for Immigration policy paper and a consultation period ran from late March to early May. The policy paper describes reforms to the asylum system and other parts of the immigration system. In this episode, we discuss the plans, their implications and criticism. 

In this episode:

William Wheeler, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, University of Manchester https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/william.wheeler.html 

Recent work: https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/refugees-and-religion-ethnographic-studies-of-global-trajectories/ch13-conversion-through-destitution 

Robert Thomas, Professor of Public Law, University of Manchester https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/robert-thomas(6d45ce04-7714-421b-b67a-b19fd2d7fb37).html

Recent work: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PgCNG_godY0-rjwGyvP1hbXyWjdi55IW/view

Charity mentioned in the episode:
Migrant Destitution Fund https://www.migrantdestitution.co.uk/

Apologies for occasional poor sound quality.

47. What's the UK new plan for immigration?

EU citizens in the UK had to apply for settled status by the end of June. What does this entail and what happened to those who failed to do so? Why are employers checking the status of their employees?

In this episode: Olivia Vicol, co-founder and Director of Work Rights Centre - https://www.workrightscentre.org/ 

Talking Migration is supported by the University of Manchester

48. What rights do EU citizens have in the UK?

The Danish parliament has voted in favour of seeking bilateral agreements with third countries to process and protect asylum seekers there instead of in Denmark. The practical and legal obstacles are many, as are worries about the protection of asylum seekers' human rights. 

In this episode: Nikolas Tan, Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for Human Rights https://www.humanrights.dk/staff/nikolas-feith-tan

Blog post by Nikolas Tan on the Danish policy: https://rli.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2021/04/19/denmarks-extraterritorial-asylum-vision/

49. Can asylum be externalized?

Perhaps one of the most contentious questions within debates around migration is how the movement of people across international borders affect levels of crime. Simply asking the question carries certain assumptions about the relevance of someone’s migration background to whether or not they are more at risk of committing or being the victim or crime. What does the criminological research tell us about what, if anything, we know about immigration and crime? 

In this episode: Amber Beckley, criminologist at Stockholm University
https://www.su.se/english/profiles/ambe0256-1.187765

Talking Migration is supported by the University of Manchester.

50. What do we know about immigration and crime?

In this episode: Guy Aitchison, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Studies at Loughborough University https://www.lboro.ac.uk/subjects/politics-international-studies/staff/guy-aitchison/#tab3

If you need help or someone to talk to: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/guides-to-support-and-services/seeking-help-for-a-mental-health-problem/mental-health-helplines/

Article discussed in this episode in The Journal of Politics: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/729936?journalCode=jop

Article in the Journal of Social Philosophy: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/josp.12557

This podcast is supported by the Department of Politics at the University of Manchester

51. Is the government responsible for self-harm in detention centres?

What role do memories play in displacement? Are memories political? In this episode, we discuss questions of memory, war, exile and building a new home. 

In this episode:
Ammar Azzouz, Research Fellow at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford and the Principal Investigator of Slow Violence and the City https://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/staff/aazzouz.html 

Talking Migration is supported by the University of Manchester and produced by Clara Sandelind. 

52. What role does memory play in exile?

Migrants Rights Network recently published a report on the extent and nature of immigration raids in the UK. This episode interviews two of its co-authors.  

In this episode:

Julia Tinsley-Kent, Head of Policy and Communications
Lauren Fernandes, Policy and Campaigns Assistant
https://migrantsrights.org.uk/about/our-people/

To read the report 'Immigration Raids: An Anatomy of Racist Intimidation': https://migrantsrights.org.uk/projects/hostile-office/immigration-raids-an-anatomy-of-racist-intimidation/

Research referenced in the episode: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/48675912.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3Ae070afe890cb0445565697dad034ef76&ab_segments=&origin=&initiator=&acceptTC=1 

Apologies for the occasional poor sound quality.

This podcast is supported by the Department of Politics, the University of Manchester

53: Are immigration raids racist kidnappings?

In this first ever episode of Talking migration, we talk to Professor Ruud Koopmans on attitude surveys of Muslims in Europe and to Professor Andrew Geddes on his forthcoming book The Politics of Migration and Immigration in Europe.

1. What Muslims might think and what's going on in the EU

With Professor David Owen, David Goodhart and Professor Heaven Crawley on the refugee crisis. 

2. What is the right to asylum and why are people crossing the Med?

In this episode, Professor Tariq Modood talks about his new edited book Multiculturalism and Interculturalism: debating the dividing lines and Timo Lochocki at the German Marshall Fund tells us about German refugee policy and the success of the far right.  

4. Multiculturalism versus interculturalism and is it the end of open door Germany?

In this EU-special we talk to Andy Mycock, Reader in Politics at the University of Huddersfield, about the role of identity and immigration in the referendum and to Madeleine Sumption, Director of the Migration Observatory, on what might happen to EU migration if the UK leaves the EU.

5. Brexit or Bremain? Immigration and identity before and after the referendum

This episode was recorded ad the British International Studies Association's Annual Conference in Edinburgh. We hear short versions of three research papers presented on the refugee crisis, by Dr James Souter, the University of Leeds, Kelly Staples, The University of Leicester, and Simon McMahon, Coventry University. Questions raised include whether accepting refugees is part of being a good international citizens, if the EU can really be held responsible for the refugee crisis and what the role of informal reception is in managing migration in It

6. Europe and the refugee crisis: perspectives from BISA

In this episode, we speak to Professor Keith Banting, Queen’s Research Chair in Public Policy and Professor in the Department of Political Studies and the School of Policy Studies at Queens University, and Dr Andreas Bergh, Associate Professor in Economics at Lund University as well as the Research Institute of Industrial Economics in Stockholm, about whether there is a conflict between migration and the welfare state. We also talk to Dr Lucy Hovil, Senior Researcher at the International Refugee Rights Initiative, about her new book Refugees, Conflict and the Search for Belonging.

9. Does migration threaten the welfare state and how do refugees in Africa challenge citizenship?

10. What's wrong with ethnic discrimination in immigration policy?

In this episode, we speak to Dr Marcia Vera Espinoza, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Sheffield, and Esteban Sanchez Botero, Master student from Colombia at the University of Sheffield, about refugees and migration in Latin America. The discussion begins with the question of how a US wall at the Mexican border may affect immigrants in the US from Latin America, as well as immigration within Latin America. But what about Latin American countries themselves, how welcoming are they to refugees and migrants, and who is welcomed?

11. Who is welcome in Latin America?

We are told that we are currently witnessing the biggest refugee crisis sine World War Two and that the average stay in refugee camps is 17 years. But is this true? Refugee historian Benjamin Thomas White, Lecturer in History at the University of Glasgow, joins the podcast to take issue with these claims. He argues that statistics are incomplete, that our understanding of refugees' experiences are often mistaken and that exaggerating the extent of the problem is unhelpful.

Benjamin Thomas White is a Middle East historian by background, who now teaches the history of refugees in the world since the late nineteenth century. He also does research on the global history of the refugee camp. Find more on his blog, Twitter and here about his work on refugees in Syria.

14. What do we really know about refugees?

Italy is one of the key destinations for migrants coming to Europe, with many coming by boat from Libya. Now Italy is threatening to close its ports to stem the inflow of migrants and refugees. Italy wants more support from the rest of the EU and EU ministers met earlier this month to discuss. But what would it actually mean for Italy to close its ports? Are these threats a result of a country becoming overwhelmed, or is it mainly a change of politics? And what is the role of NGOs operating search and rescue to save people's lives at sea?

We're joined in this episode by Dr Simon McMahon, who is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations at Coventry University, and who has been part of a large project research migration to Europe over the Mediterranean, MEDMIG. Two previous episodes discuss the findings of that project: episodes 6 and 2. Simon McMahon's research has looked at the situation in Italy and he has written a blog on 'Italy's bluff to close its ports'.

16. Is Italy closing its ports for migrants?

Political theorists have long debated the question of open borders. Do states have a right to exclude migrants from their territory? Is there a human right to immigrate? The focus has been on the external borders of states. Yet, in the forthcoming book Immigration and Freedom, Professor Chandran Kukathas, Chair in Political Theory and Head of the Department of Government at the London School of Economics, argues that political theorists must also consider internal border controls, such as restrictions on employers, landlords and universities. According to Kukathas, these internal controls do not just restrict the freedom of migrants, but of current citizens and residents too.

17. Is immigration control bad for everyone's freedom?

Restrictions on immigration, as well as certain integration policies, are sometimes justified on the basis that too much, or a certain kind of, immigration risks erode social cohesion in democratic welfare states. Political philosophers who analyse the ethics of immigration have therefore become interested also in the empirical validity of these claims. This was the topic of a recent conference at the Centre for Advanced Migration Studies, University of Copenhagen. Two political philosophers who presented their work at the conference joins this episode to discuss social cohesion and immigration. Nils Holtug, Professor at the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication at the University of Copenhagen, runs a major research project on shared values on social cohesion. Patti Tamara Lenard, Associate Professor Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, has written extensively on trust, immigration and culture, especially in her book Trust, Democracy and Multicultural Challenges.

21. Is immigration bad for social cohesion?

When we talk, write and research about migration, do we see like a nation? Would we approach issues differently, and ask different questions, if instead we saw like a migrant? In his new book 'Toward a Cosmopolitan Ethics of Mobility; The Migrant's-Eye View of the World', Alex Sager, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Portland State University, claims that much research in migration is biased by methodological nationalism. If we could rid ourselves of methodological nationalism, perhaps we would be less focused, for example, on people moving between states and more focused on mobility as such. In this episode, Alex Sager discusses what methodological nationalism is and its consequences.

26. Are we biased by methodological nationalism?

No one will have missed the royal wedding between American actress Meghan Markle and Prince Harry happening this week. Markle has moved to the UK is expected to become known as the Duchess of Sussex after the wedding. But not all family migration procedures are quite so joyful and straightforward. In a new research paper, Dr Marcia Vera Espinoza and Dr Joe Turner, both at the Department of Politics at the University of Sheffield, investigate the intimacy of the family migration visa application in the UK. They both have personal experience of the process, which is also part of the research. The disruption, fear and anxiety they describe is quite far from a fairy tale royal wedding.

28. What does the royal wedding (not) tell us about the UK family migration regime?

If you have worked for a Western military in places such as Afghanistan or Iraq, you may think that you would be able to settle in the Western country that you worked for, especially if your life is at risk due to the work you performed. But things are not that straight forward. A new report by the UK parliament’s Commons defence select committee is highly critical of how the UK government has treated Afghan interpreters and other civilians who are not safe in Afghanistan. Earlier this month, the UK government made some concessions towards interpreters who have applied for indefinite leave to remain in the UK.

Yet many people’s lives are still in limbo, including Nazir Ayeen’s, a former Afghan interpreter now living in the UK, who joins this episode to discuss how the UK and other Western countries treat their former military employees. We are also joined by Dr Sara de Jong, Research Fellow at the Open University. Sara de Jong currently conducts research on the claims for protection, rights and settlement by Afghans and Iraqis who have worked for Western military forces and development organisations, as well as on the activities and strategies of their supporters.

29. Why don't Afghan interpreters get to stay?

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration was adopted at the end of 2018. Will is safeguard migrants' human rights, or undermine state sovereignty? 

In this episode:
Elspeth Guild, Professor of Law at Queen Mary University of London https://www.qmul.ac.uk/law/staff/guild.html
Tugba Basaran, Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Global Human Movement University of Cambridge https://www.crim.cam.ac.uk/People/tb317

They have edited a series of blog posts analysing the final draft of the Compact, published by the Refugee Law Initiative: https://t.co/ief51ru1MG and https://rli.blogs.sas.ac.uk/themed-content/global-compact-for-migration/

35. What is the Global Compact for Migration?

One of the key policy goals of President Trump has been to curb migration from Mexico. But how is this received at the Mexican end? What policies have actually been agreed with, or imposed on, Mexico by the Trump administration? 

In this episode:
Laura Carlsen, Director of the Americas Program at the Center for International Policy. Find more information about Carlsen's work here: 
https://www.internationalpolicy.org/laura-carlsen
https://www.americas.org/people/
https://www.americas.org/category/migration/

The podcast is supported by the Department of Politics, University of Sheffield.

37. What's the state of migration policy in Mexico?

The Coronavirus  pandemic has led to restrictions on movement for everyone. How has the politics and policy of migration and asylum in Europe been affected? What might the long-term impact on Europe’s asylum policy be? 

In this episode:
Catherine Woollard, Secretary General of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles: www.ecre.org

ECRE’s informationsheet on Covid-19: https://www.ecre.org/information-sheet-23-april-2020covid-19-measures-related-to-asylum-and-migration-across-europe/

Talking Migration is supported by the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield and produced by Clara Sandelind. Twitter: @talkingmig

39. How has the pandemic affected migrants and refugees?

Professor David Owen, University of Southampton, talks about his latest book: What Do We Owe to Refugees? 

https://www.southampton.ac.uk/politics/about/staff/dowen.page

To get the book: https://www.wiley.com/en-gb/What+Do+We+Owe+to+Refugees%3F-p-9781509539741

Talking Migration is supported by the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield and produced by Clara Sandelind (c.sandelind@sheffield.ac.uk). 

Twitter: @talkingmig

40. What do we owe to refugees?

Many people believe that some or all immigration laws are unjust. Does that imply that citizens and migrants don’t have to obey those laws? Do some of us even have a duty to resist them? Is it possible to believe that migrants don’t have to comply with immigration laws even if you think states have a right to exclude immigrants?

In this episode:

Matthew Lister, Senior Lecturer in Deakin Law School: https://www.deakin.edu.au/about-deakin/people/matthew-lister
Selected works:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/phc3.12653 
https://philarchive.org/rec/LISDAO 

Javier Hidalgo, Associate Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond: https://jepson.richmond.edu/faculty/bios/jhidalgo/ 
Selected works:
https://philarchive.org/archive/HIDRTU 
https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/mopp/3/2/article-p165.xml

41. Must immigration laws be obeyed?

Covid-19 has presented challenges for everyone, but some people are more affected than others. People with disabilities have not been able to socially distance to the extent that others can, and trying to do so may come with extra costs. For disabled asylum seekers, who in the UK are prevented from working and earning a living, this presents additional and significant challenges. 

In this episode: Dickson Tarnongo, PhD student in Law, Leicester University, Disability Rights and Citizenship
Tarnongo's article on asylum, disability and covid-19: https://www.migrantvoice.org/archive/the-plight-of-asylum-seekers-200820100823

42. How is Covid-19 affecting disabled asylum seekers?

In her new book, No Refuge, Serena Parekh describes what she calls the second refugee. This crisis means that the vast majority of refugees cannot find safety or conditions for a life with dignity. Parekh argues that this amounts to a structural injustice and she joins this episode to discuss her book. 

In this episode: Serena Parekh, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Northeastern University in Boston https://cssh.northeastern.edu/faculty/serena-parekh/

Book discussed: No Refuge https://global.oup.com/academic/product/no-refuge-9780197507995?cc=us&lang=en&#

43. What is the second refugee crisis?

The UNHCR plays a critical role in the protection of refugees. Yet while the UNHCR seeks to pressure states into providing aid and protection to refugees, it is also funded by states. What does this tension mean? How has the role of the UNHCR changed and how does it brand itself?

In this episode: Jeff Crisp, Research Associate at the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford https://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/people/jeff-crisp-1

Work mentioned: https://brill.com/view/journals/gg/26/3/article-p359_1.xml

44. What's the role of the UNHCR?

Discussions, debates and interviews on all aspects of the politics of migration.

Supported by the University of Manchester

Contact: clara.sandelind@manchester.ac.uk

Talking Migration

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