The Migration And Settlement Of Refugees In Britain

The increase in the number of asylum seekers arriving in Europe has placed the issue of migration high on the policy agendas of national governments and the European Union. This book analyzes the impact of policy on the social and economic settlement of refugees in Britain in that context. The issues explored include: current UK and EU migration policy; the history of migration to Britain and policy responses; theories of migration and migrant settlement; social and economic settlement of refugees in Britain - including language, employment, social networks, the migratory process, community, development and policy recommendations.

There may be 20 million refugees around the world today. For many, their search for freedom ends in camps in countries of first asylum. There they wait for offers of permanent resettlement in the West. This book explores how two countries traditionally noted for their humanitarian treatment of refugees have responded to the refugee crisis of the 1980s and 90s, how they have recast their admission criteria, developed reception policies and constructed resettlement programmes.

This book critically interrogates the principle of asylum for refugees in UK law and proposes that, when faced with the migration of non-European refugee groups, this principle has often been limited. The book considers the response of the State to the migration of various groups of refugees through five centuries. The reaction of the legal system to the arrival of gypsies and Huguenots from the Gudor period is analysed. The responses to the arrival of African refugees from the American War of Independence is also considered here, along with an examination of the reactions to refugees from the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars; various European refugee groups in the mid-Victorian period; Jews from Eastern Europe and later from Nazism; and groups displaced in Europe as a result of the Second World War. Refugees, Race and the Legal Concept of Asylum in Britain also provides a detailed discussion of the backlash against African and Asian refugee groups, in particular, as against the East African Asians, Vietnamese and Tamils from Sri Lanka. An analysis of the major legislative reforms of the 1990s which have been directed against the settlement of Asian and African refugees is also presented. The post-Second World War period is scrutinised in the context of the failure of European human rights law and international norms of refugee protection to secure the principle of asylum, and the implications of the development of a 'Fortress Europe' that is premised on the tight control of non-European migrants are drawn out.

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.

The issues around settlement, belonging, and poor relief have for too long been understood largely from the perspective of England and Wales. This volume offers a pan-European survey that encompasses Switzerland, Prussia, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Britain. It explores how the conception of belonging changed over time and space from the 1500s onwards, how communities dealt with the welfare expectations of an increasingly mobile population that migrated both within and between states, the welfare rights that were attached to those who “belonged,” and how ordinary people secured access to welfare resources. What emerged was a sophisticated European settlement system, which on the one hand structured itself to limit the claims of the poor, and yet on the other was peculiarly sensitive to their demands and negotiations.

This is the first social history to explore experiences of British emigrants from the peak years of the 1960s to the emigration resurgence of the turn of the twentieth century. It explores migrant experiences in Australia, Canada and New Zealand alongside other countries. The book charts the gradual reinvention of the ‘British diaspora’ from a postwar migration of austerity to a modern migration of prosperity. It offers a different way of writing migration history, based on life histories but exploring mentalities as well as experiences, against a setting of deep social and economic change. Key moments are the 1970s loss of Britons’ privilege in Commonwealth destination countries, ‘Thatcher’s refugees’ in the 1980s and shifting attitudes to cosmopolitanism and global citizenship by the 1990s. It charts a long process of change from the 1960s to patterns of discretionary and nomadic migration, which became more common practice from the end of the twentieth century.

"The issues around settlement, belonging, and poor relief have for too long been understood largely from the perspective of England and Wales. This volume offers a pan-European survey that encompasses Switzerland, Prussia, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Britain. It explores how the conception of belonging changed over time and space from the 1500s onwards, how communities dealt with the welfare expectations of an increasingly mobile population that migrated both within and between states, the welfare rights that were attached to those who 'belonged, ' and how ordinary people secured access to welfare resources. What emerged was a sophisticated European settlement system, which on the one hand structured itself to limit the claims of the poor, and yet on the other was peculiarly sensitive to their demands and negotiations"--Provided by publisher.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315268958, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. The image we have of refugees is one of displacement – from their homes, families and countries – and yet, refugee settlement is increasingly becoming an experience of living simultaneously in places both proximate and distant, as people navigate and transcend international borders in numerous and novel ways. At the same time, border regimes remain central in defining the possibilities and constraints of meaningful settlement. This book examines the implications of ‘belonging’ in numerous places as increased mobilities and digital access create new global connectedness in uneven and unexpected ways. Belonging and Transnational Refugee Settlement positions refugee settlement as an ongoing transnational experience and identifies the importance of multiple belongings through several case studies based on original research in Australia and New Zealand, as well as at sites in the US, Canada and the UK. Demonstrating the interplay between everyday and extraordinary experiences and broadening the dominant refugee discourses, this book critiques the notion that meaningful settlement necessarily occurs in ‘local’ places. The author focuses on the extraordinary events of trauma and disasters alongside the everyday lives of refugees undertaking settlement, to provide a conceptual framework that embraces and honours the complexities of working with the ‘trauma story’ and identifies approaches to see beyond it. This book will appeal to those with an interest in migration and diaspora studies, human geography and sociology.