We need a new conversation and a new imagination about immigration: not just here in the UK, but in every country around the world. Economic and social precarity has made populations in host countries fearful of immigrants, even as technology has made it easier than ever to cross geographical borders.
As I’ve written before in this newsletter, even developing countries – whose citizens and economies are beneficiaries of outward immigration – are increasingly hostile to inward immigration.
So in January this year, we invited Petra Molnar, a lawyer and anthropologist specialising in migration and human rights, to engage with our newsroom as openDemocracy’s first ‘Scholar in Residence’. Over the next six months, Petra will attend newsroom meetings, write for our website, and serve as a thinking companion for our journalists as we tackle one of the biggest stories of our time.
