Introducing the blog series ‘UK Borderscapes: sites of resistance and enforcement’

Introductory post by Dr Karen Latricia Hough and Dr Kahina Le Louvier. Karen is an anthropologist and migration expert who is currently working in the area of trafficking in human beings. Kahina is a social science researcher working on migration policies and experiences. In this post, the authors introduce a Border Criminologies blog series dedicated to seven unique research and practice-inspired blog posts exploring the shaping and reshaping of the systems and imaginaries of the ‘UK borderscape’.

In March 2023, despite the numerous reprisals given by migrants rights organisations, human rights lawyers, the UNHCR and the IOM, the UK government has proceeded to propose even stricter asylum and immigration rules with the proposed Illegal Migration Bill. The purpose of the Bill is to prevent and deter migration, and in particular migration by irregular routes, by denying the right to claim asylum and requiring the removal from the UK of persons who have entered in breach of immigration control. At the time of writing, the Bill is currently in the committee stage in the House of Lords.

Introduced in Parliament barely a year after the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, this legislation fits within a pattern of anti-immigration speeches and laws that have gradually dehumanised and reduced the rights of non-British persons deemed “unwanted”. The Bill takes an unprecedented step in the dismantlement of human rights by effectively putting a ban on the right to claim asylum in the UK.

Shaping of systems and imaginaries

To understand how we got here and what the effects of such a law will be, we need to understand how and against what such migration systems and imaginaries have been shaped. This is what we explore in this blog series, derived from the book UK Borderscapes: Sites of Enforcement and Resistance, which will be published in the Routledge Borderlands Series in September 2023. By borderscape, as found in the work of Brambilla et al (2015), we refer to the multitude ways borders are formed, contested, re-enacted, and ultimately resisted by people who have sought safety in the UK, migrants rights groups and other citizens.

This book unites the views of activists, migrants, leading practitioners, along with an interdisciplinary collection of academic accounts straddling anthropology, sociology, geography, refugee and migration studies, law and history to highlight the ways in which borders permeate the everyday life of migrants, fore-fronting how they are subsequently negotiated, deconstructed and reconstructed.

12 perspectives of the UK borderscapes

The impetus for the book began with the research that we did on the Horizon 2020 PERCEPTIONS project, a project focused on the complex relationships between perceptions of Europe, migration journeys, policies and personal experiences of security and insecurities.  This fieldwork laid the seed for our edited volume, as we searched for similar accounts from the various actors who shape the UK borderscape. Thus, the 12 chapters in the book explore this from the perspective of politicians and policymakers, overseas Immigration Liaison Officers, police, security, and airline professionals from all over the world, lawyers, caseworkers, migrant rights activists, Higher Education and NHS professionals, and individuals who came to the UK seeking physical, economic, and emotional safety. Together, the different chapters in the book investigate people living on both sides of the border, people travelling from one side to the other, and people who remain stuck on one side– either because the UK’s bordering practices catch them repeatedly or because their ideological border mentality is too deeply rooted, as can be the case for politicians and policymakers.

A devastating impact

In uniting these different studies and evidence-based accounts, the book, and indeed this blog series, shed light on the protection gaps for people stranded, exploited, marginalised, and discriminated against by the UK’s bordering practices. By doing so, the authors’ contributions demonstrate that the discourses, legislations and enforcement practices that paved the way to the new Illegal Migration Bill have not lowered the number of people taking dangerous journeys across the Channel. Instead, they had a devastating impact on those seeking safety in the UK, including vulnerable groups such as unaccompanied minors, survivors of trafficking and modern slavery, survivors of torture, women and LGBTQ+ persons. The cases analysed in the book - some of which are presented in this blog series - show that, if enacted, the Bill would lead to an increased number of border-related deaths and an increased marginalisation and poverty for those inside the UK. It would fuel negative stereotypes and lead to further harms of detention and deportation as the Bill severely reduces a person’s ability to challenge removals.

Shaping an alternative borderscape

The editors and contributors have shown that alternative ways to shape the UK borderscape are possible and that people fight for it every day at the collective and individual level.  With our book and this blog series, we want to advocate for a borderscape based on human rights, with safe and legal pathways for migration, asylum and family reunification, no detention, deportation or forced dispersal, faster and fairer asylum procedures, amnesties for undocumented workers, integration strategies that start from day one and include everyone, public discourses and information campaigns that foster positive narratives around migration, a true protection for all, and especially those who are the most vulnerable (children, survivors of trafficking, etc), the end the hostile environment, and why not, a disbordering of the borderscape.

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