People on the move

changing minds, changing places

People on the Move brings you research-based articles and migrant testimony seeking to shift the focus of public debate on migration away from borders, security and control, to developing migration policies that are fairer and more equitable.

We must oppose the cruelty of Northern Ireland's new detention centre

Anna Morvern 19 July 2011
The opening of the first purpose-built immigration detention centre in Northern Ireland this month, is a sad day as it will expand the detention estate once again. But we can resist the simultaneous expansion of our own mental barriers against human equality and freedom, by denying the necessity and normality of yet another detention facility.

The Crises of Multiculturalism

Alana Lentin and Gavan Titley 18 July 2011
Ironically, working through the idiom of multicultural failure is a form of political correctness; a way of talking about issues of migration, identity, power, belonging, legitimacy and socio-political anxiety while steering clear of a lexicon associated with the overt history of a shameful, racist past. However, it has also become a discourse that launders racism.

Migration: lives, loves and language

Vaughan Jones 18 July 2011
Migrants offer the broader society some reminders of what it's losing under the tarmac of corporate Britain, says Vaughan Jones

Shifting landscapes of citizenship

Christina Slade 18 July 2011
In a time of globalization, the renaissance of cultural nationalism is remarkable. Classical countries of immigration, such as Australia, Canada and the United States, have been joined for the first time by the countries of western Europe in this strong global tide towards citizenship testing.

Playing politics with Schengen

Polly Pallister-Wilkins 16 July 2011
The European Commission has been at the forefront of criticism of France and Denmark for re-introducing border controls. This was not because they in fact threatened Schengen but because such decisions undermine the Commission’s power as the executive of Europe, argues Polly Pallister-Wilkins

Why Britain’s refugees and asylum seekers have little to cheer about: a reply to Tim Finch

Clare Sambrook 24 June 2011
A reply to a piece highlighting the positive aspects of British asylum policy and politics, by a former Chair of National Refugee Week

Letter from Australia to Britain: Trading in human misery - immigration and the "Malaysian solution"

Linda Briskman 23 June 2011
Australia’s detention regime offers an ugly vision of where UK asylum policy may be headed

Reasons to be cheerful: 10 things to celebrate during refugee week

Tim Finch 22 June 2011
Surviving persecution, fleeing across continents– for most of us these experiences are unimaginable. But as history has shown, refugee communities also produce more than their share of stand-out individuals. Yet again we are seeing that some of the ‘best of British’ are from refugee backgrounds, says Tim Finch

A wound that shames our present

Jenny Moss 21 June 2011
In proposing to remove the most basic safeguards for migrant domestic workers, Jenny Moss asks whether the UK government has forgotten some of the most basic principles of justice which we as a country claim to espouse

Duty of Care: beyond the case of Mr Ward, cooked to death by gigantic outsourcer G4S

Clare Sambrook 8 June 2011

The horrible death of a respected Aboriginal elder casts doubt upon often-unchallenged assumptions about the virtues of privatisation.

"Jacks-in-the-box": Orenburg’s migrant workers

Elena Strelnikova 2 June 2011

Bordering Kazakhstan, Orenburg is a first destination for migrant workers from post-Soviet Central Asia. In her latest letter from the Russian Provinces, Elena Strelnikova considers the pluses and minuses of the visitors and how they integrate — or not — into the local society

Lush – cosmetic or real?

Rahila Gupta 23 May 2011
The EU is on the point of turning its back on the Schengen agreement. Welcome to the World Passport: 'this document confirms that its bearer is a human being, and not an alien'. Rahila Gupta reports on the campaign for open borders

The politics of fear

Joan Subirats 16 May 2011
Fear of responding to a politics of fear is a critical aspect of the present weakness in the situation in which Europeans find themselves.

Fast track to despair

Jerome Phelps 11 May 2011
In the UK, people lose their liberty simply for claiming asylum. On the 60th anniversary of the Refugee Convention, which enshrined the right to seek protection from persecution, it is worth reminding ourselves of how far we have fallen from those aspirations.

The UK continues to detain children, a year after the Coalition's pledge to end it

Simon Parker 11 May 2011

A year ago, the Coalition pledged to end the practice of child detention in the UK. Yet the real agenda of the UK Border Agency has not changed. The detention and enforced removal of children remains a key aspect of immigration control. Can the government be pressured into honouring their promise?

With thanks to

Barrow Cadbury Trust

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