Seeking Asylum In The Uk

An examination of the emergence of the legal regime in the United Kingdom addressing refugees and asylum seekers.

Pirouet, a Briton who has taught at universities in Uganda and Kenya, surveys UK immigration policy between 1987 and 1999 and finds that xenophobia frequently has won out, in spite of political rhetoric in praise of giving shelter to those fleeing persecution. "The legislation passed in the last decade has made it progressively more difficult for anyone seeking asylum in the UK and life progressively more uncertain and uncomfortable for those who, against all odds, manage to reach this country," she writes. "A mixed message is coming from government....Britain is now irreversibly a multicultural nation, and the only healthy kind of self-definition must take that into account." c. Book News Inc.

"Anti-asylum media campaigns have exercised enormous influence on government policy and political discourse, resulting in the belief that we are sinking under the weight of refugees clambering onto our island. The facts show otherwise: two-thirds of the world's refugees are in the Middle East and Africa. Britain's hardening stance means that the numbers now entering the country are negligible and steadily declining. Reluctant Refuge attempts to show how current attitudes reflect a centuries-old tradition of ambivalence towards the world's dispossessed, fuelled by economic protectionism and the perceived need to maintain social cohesion. Woven throughout are the voices of asylum seekers and refugees, illuminating the uncertain and often challenging future they face here in Britain."--Jacket.

The situation of refugees is one of the most pressing and urgent problems facing the international community and refugee law has grown in recent years to a subject of global importance. In this long-awaited third edition each chapter has been thoroughly revised and updated and every issue, old and new, has received fresh analysis.

Winner of the 2018 British Society of Criminology Book Prize Britain is often heralded as a country in which the rights and welfare of survivors of conflict and persecution are well embedded, and where the standard of living conditions for those seeking asylum is relatively high. Drawing on a decade of activism and research in the North West of England, this book contends that, on the contrary, conditions are often structurally violent. For survivors of gendered violence, harm inflicted throughout the process of seeking asylum can be intersectional and compound the impacts of previous experiences of violent continuums. The everyday threat of detention and deportation; poor housing and inadequate welfare access; and systemic cuts to domestic and sexual violence support all contribute to a temporal limbo which limits women’s personal autonomy and access to basic human rights. By reflecting on evidence from interviews, focus groups, activist participation and oral history, Gendered Harm and Structural Violence provides a unique insight into the everyday impacts of policy and practice that arguably result in the infliction of further gendered harms on survivors of violence and persecution. Of interest to students and scholars of criminology, zemiology, sociology, human rights, migration policy, state violence and gender, this book develops on and adds to the expanding literatures around immigration, crimmigration and asylum.

Asylum seekers are not welcome in Europe. But why is that the case? For many scholars, the policies have become more restrictive over recent decades because the asylum seekers have changed. This change is often said to be about numbers, methods of travel, and reasons for flight. In short: we are in an age of hypermobility and states cannot cope with such volumes of ‘others’. This book presents an alternative view, drawing on theoretical insights from Third World Approaches to International Law, post- and decolonial studies, and presenting new research on the context of the British Empire. The text highlights the fact that since the early 1990s, for the first time, the majority of asylum seekers originate from countries outside of Europe, countries which until 30-60 years ago were under colonial rule. Policies which address asylum seekers must, the book argues, be understood not only as part of a global hypermobile present, but within the context of colonial histories.

Asylum.