Reimagining society in the age of superdiversity
IRiS is dedicated to being at the cutting edge of research into superdiversity. To support this commitment we regularly publish working papers that seek to address emerging areas of interest in the field. By encouraging new research we continue to promote new discussion and the most up-to-date analysis. The series has enabled new approaches to policy and service delivery across health services, migrant rights, refugee integration and social housing.
The series is edited by IRiS Director Professor Nando Sigona and is open for proposals from researchers, policy makers and practitioners. For queries and proposals, please email: n.sigona@bham.ac.uk.
List of Working Papers
IRIS Working Paper 49
Towards an Everyday Political Economy of Labour Migration
By Seb Rumsby
This paper introduces the concept of everyday political economy (EPE) to the issue of international labour migration, which has grown in political and economic prominence in the 21st century. The first section of the paper is a literature review regarding existing explanations of labour mobilities from the perspectives of international political economy (IPE), feminist studies, poststructuralist literature, anthropology and human geography, noting their strengths, limitations, and overlaps. Next, EPE is proposed as a way of reconciling the big picture of IPE with the mundane tactics, routines and realities of migrant labourers’ everyday lives. In this way, EPE is especially useful for understanding the agency of local actors to embrace, evade, resist and/or be disciplined and subjectivised in relation to powerful state and market structures. Finally, the utility of an EPE analytical lens is illustrated by applying it to the case study of recent Vietnamese migration to, and in, the UK
IRIS Working Paper 48(2021) [PDF]
The Impact of COVID19 on Foreign Residents in‘No Immigration’ Japan: Structural Inequity, Japanese style Multiculturalism, and Diminishing Social Capital
By Burgess, C.
While few have remained untouched by the effects of COVID-19, migrants have been disproportionally affected by the pandemic in terms of mobility (movement restrictions), employment (loss of jobs), and health (high infection rates). A further risk unique to migrants is that the progress made to date on integrating into host communities could be reversed or even erased. Clearly, increased pressure to “stay home” and “social distance” – institutional restrictions on movement and human contact – has resulted in isolation and loneliness for many; however, for migrants who lack connections, support networks, and social capital in a host society this isolation can be especially debilitating. This working paper looks at the impact of COVID-19 on foreign residents in Japan.
IRiS Working Paper 47(2021) [PDF)
The views of forced migrant survivors of Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) in Sweden
By Akyuz, S. and Bradby, H.
This working paper sets out evidence from interviews with forced migrant survivors of SGBV in Sweden. The interview material is contextualised with a brief account of services for the prevention of and protection against SGBV that are generally available in Sweden and the specific ways that refugees access those services. The methods through which 17 women and 13 men were contacted and interviewed are described, along with brief demographic characteristics to illustrate their diversity in terms of legal and marital status, sexuality and country of origin. The sexual and gender based violence that these 30 forced migrants report took place across the refugee journey, from country of origin to country of refuge. The violence was experienced both physically and psychologically and forced migrants’ vulnerability was compounded, when women were reliant on their husband for migration status, and when financial control was exerted. Gendered expectations reinforced suffering and hindered recovery from the harms of violence for men and women. The long waiting time for migration status decisions were a significant barrier to recovery and to integration.The lack of access to information was a notable barrier for women’s recovery and integration with wider society, especially in the context of fear of losing custody of one’s children to the state, which reinforced isolation. Forced migrants were generous in sharing their own insights and information to support others’ efforts towards recovery and integration.
IRiS Working Paper 46(2020) [PDF]
Conceptualising experiences of sexual and gender based violence across the refugee journey: the experiences of forced migrants from the MENA region in the UK
By Goodson, L., Darkal, H., Hassan, P., Taal, S., Altaweel, R. and Phillimore, J.
This paper discusses the experiences of forced migrant SGBV survivors originating in the MENA region who have sought refuge in the UK. Based on the analysis of data from interviews with survivors of SGBV in the UK, the findings identify types of violence of experienced, sources of resilience and support and the impacts of SGBV experience on integration prospects and outcomes. The main findings of the paper are threefold. First, SGBV survivors experience (inter)personal, structural and symbolic violence throughout the forced migration journey, from the country of origin to settlement. Second, SGBV survivors suffer from multiple vulnerabilities and therefore strengthening their resilience needs to be multifaceted including social assistance as well as properly designed comprehensive policy support covering the needs of access to a safe shelter. Third, SGBV securing their status in the UK is pivotal for survivors’ integration prospects and for overcoming their personal and social trauma, caused both by the forced migration experience and experiences of violence and discrimination. The paper concludes with recommendations on the ways that vulnerability to SGBV can be addressed at three stages, in the pre-migration condition, during the asylum process and in the long-term integration.
2020
IRiS Working paper 45 (2020) [PDF]
SGBV in the Governance of Forced Migration: Service Providers’ Perspective in Sweden
By Selin Akyüz and Hannah Bradby
This working paper addresses sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) in the governance of forced migration from the perspective of service-providers in Sweden. The paper is based on 24 in-depth interviews with 29 representatives of non-governmental organisations, international non-governmental organisations, international organisations, voluntary associations and public institutions including municipalities that offer different services to forced migrants. The context in which SGBV services for forced migrants are provided is sketched out, describing the parameters of the governance of forced migration including how then refugee “crisis” was managed in Sweden. The paper then describes the different actors in the field of service provision for forced migrants, including the ways they various ways that SGBV is defined and the groups that it is assumed to effect. The interventions and services offered by these actors are described, along with how they describe specific migrants as being particularly “at risk” or “vulnerable”. The ways that the politics and governance of forced migration create or reinforce vulnerabilities and insecurities for forced migrants are set out, with a particular interest in service providers’ views on the sources of resilience that survivors of SGBV can draw on. The empowerment strategies that service providers offered and the effects of these strategies are described. The paper focusses on the importance of the various markers and dimensions of integration for refugees as related to identity, culture and also the feeling of belonging to the host society, as recounted by service providers. The paper concludes with a summary of the service-provision for forced migrant survivors of SGBV in Sweden and refers to the multi-faceted way that the gendered harm of this violence plays out.
IRiS Working paper 44 (2020) [PDF]
Forced Migration and Sexual and Gender-based Violence: the experiences of forced migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa in the UK
By L. Goodson, H. Darkal, P. Hassan, S. Taal, R. Altaweek and J. Phillimore
This paper discusses the experiences of forced migrant SGBV survivors originating in sub-Saharan Africa who have sought refuge in the UK. Based on the analysis of data from interviews with survivors of SGBV in the UK, the findings identify types of violence experienced, sources of resilience and support, and the impacts of SGBV experiences on integration prospects. The main findings of the paper are threefold. First, the SGBV survivors experience both structural and interpersonal violence throughout the forced migration journey – from country of origin to settlement. Second, SGBV survivors suffer from multiple vulnerabilities; therefore, strengthening their resilience needs to be multifaceted and to include social assistance and properly designed comprehensive policy support covering the needs of access to a safe shelter. Third, SGBV survivors’ integration prospects remain conditional upon their capacity to gain secure status and to overcome their social trauma induced both by the forced migration experience and experiences of discrimination.
IRiS Working Paper 43 (2020) [PDF]
Sheffield: A history of memories of the‘sanctuary city’
By Rachel Humphries
This working paper details a history of the memories of how Sheffield became the first sanctuary city in the UK. The paper is based on fieldwork; 45 formal semi-structured interviews with elected and non-elected municipal officers, NGOs, activists and urban residents; informal conversations and documentary analysis that began in May 2019 and are ongoing. The aim of the paper is to provide a resource for those working for progressive migration policies in Sheffield and beyond.
IRiS Working Paper 42 (2020) [PDF]
Local-level integration policies in Japan: exploring municipal measures through the MIPEX
By Nobuko Nagai
This paper investigates integration policies of Japanese cities, specifically Hamamatsu, Kawasaki and Osaka based on the five policy areas given by the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX). This study also suggests that it is challenging for countries like Japan whose integration policy takes a decentralized approach to capture an entire image of migrant integration with national-level integration policy assessment tools such as the MIPEX, which links to methodological nationalism.
IRiS Working Paper 41 (2020) [PDF]
The nature of ‘illegal’ migration in Japan and the United Kingdom
By Jotaro Kato, Irina Kuznetsova and John Round
In this paper the experiences of Vietnamese technical migrants in Japan are used to examine how individuals are unable to obtain refugee status and are thus constructed by the state/media as ‘fake refugees’. While the scale of irregular migration differs greatly between the UK and Japan, the paper demonstrates that often the effects of politics and law enforcement towards ‘illegal’ migration have implications for everyday lives of migrants and support xenophobic discourses in society.
IRiS Working Paper 40 (2020) [PDF]
Policy and politics of migration post-1945
By Laurence Lessard-Phillips, Glenda Roberts and Jenny Phillimore
This paper outlines the current state of the immigration and settlement policy landscape of Japan and the UK, focussing on immigration trends in recent decades and the way in which immigration figures have been represented in official statistics. The paper concludes by drawing the main lines of comparison between the approaches in both countries.
IRiS Working Paper 39 (2020) [PDF]
Migration to and from Japan and Great Britain to 1945
By Hideteka Hirota, Nando Sigona and Nobuko Nagai
This paper investigates migration to and from Japan and Great Britain to 1945, including the patterns of migration and the legal status of the migrants which were largely shaped by economic, political, and legal effects of colonialism.
IRiS Working Paper 38 (2020) [PDF]
Economic Migration in the UK and Japan: Examining the Roles of Labour Shortages, Automation, Migration Policy and Demographic Aging
By Ceren Ozgen, Gracia Liu-Farrer, Matt Cole and Anne Green
This paper examines the roles of labour shortages, automation, migration policy and demographic aging in the UK and Japan. The paper demonstrates that post-war Japan and UK have had very different approaches towards immigration and suggests a number of areas for future research on the topic.
IRiS Working Paper 37 (2020) [PDF]
What can literature tell us about migration?
By Amy Burge
This paper explores the benefits of placing literature more centrally in investigations of migration. It explores the categorisation and content of the literature and considers what this literature can tell us about migration. Finally the paper describes areas of migration literature that have been less widely theorised, but which are considered of particular interest to social scientists interested in literary approaches.
IRiS Working Paper 36 (2020) [PDF]
Understanding access to healthcare in diverse neighbourhoods: an ethnographic perspective
By Aleksandra Kazlowska
This paper discusses results from two ‘mini ethnographies’ which were conducted in superdiverse areas the city of Birmingham between February and July 2017. These mini ethnographies examined the ways in which people seek help to address their health and well-being concerns and their methods of “doing bricolage” as part of the UPWEB Project.
IRiS Working Paper 35 (2020) [PDF]
Thinking through SGBV experience from the survivors’ perspectives: protection, resilience and integration
By Saime Ozcurumez and Selin Akyuz
This paper discusses the SGBV survivors’ perspectives on their experience in forced migration contexts. Based on the analysis of data from interviews with survivors of SGBV in Turkey, the research identifies the types of violence, the sources of resilience and the integration prospects.
IRiS Working Paper 34 (2020) [PDF]
Forced migration and SGBV: Service provider perspectives from the UK
By Siân Thomas, Hoayda Darkal and Lisa Goodson
This working paper sets out findings from semi-structured interviews with 26 stakeholders working with forced migrant survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in the UK, as part of the SEREDA project. The paper highlights the challenges for support provision at the individual, organisational and structural levels, and sets out participants’ recommendations for future migrant SGBV related policy and practice.
IRiS Working Paper 33 (2020) [PDF]
Risks and Prospects in SGBV Prevention, Intervention and Protection: The Service Prodivers' Perspective in Turkey
By Saime Ozcurumez and Selin Akyuz
Risks and prospects of SGBV prevention, intervention and protection in forced migration contexts display similarities as well as differences across countries. This working paper discusses the risks and prospects in SGBV prevention, intervention and protection by analysing the international protection context through the service providers’ perspective in Turkey.
2019
IRiS Working Paper 32 (2019) [PDF]
Understanding Sexual and Gender-Based Violence among Refugees in Transit and Resettlement Contexts
By Dale Buscher
This policy brief highlights findings from the IRiS working papers series undertaken to fill research gaps on the experience of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) among refugees in countries of transit and resettlement and the impacts thereof on refugees’ integration. There is a growing body of literature on refugees’ risks and experience of SGBV in contexts of displacement, but little remains known about the longer-term repercussions of those experiences on transiting and resettling refugees’ coping and recovery.
IRiS Working Paper 31 (2019) [PDF]
Sexual and gender-based violence and refugees: The impacts of and on integration domains
By Jenny Phillimore, Sandra Pertek, and Lailah Alidu
In considering the state of knowledge around sexual violence and war Skjelsbaek notes the reluctance of researchers to “look into how this crime affects the victims” (2001:212). Given the prevalence of SGBV across the refugee journey, experiences need to be conceptualised as an ongoing and multi-faceted experience of trauma, with both immediate and long-term consequences. Pulling together the piecemeal evidence in the literature on SGBV, we describe distal impacts of SGBV on integration, wherein traumatic but largely sporadic events impact on integration. We also describe the proximal impacts of integration domains on SGBV survivors’ lives, whereby refugees’ exposure to, and ability to recover from, SGBV is shaped by experience within the integration domains. We conclude that the experience of SGBV can hamper survivors’ attempts to resettle and integrate into a new life through a number of distal impacts on and proximal impacts of integration, and embedded within these structural inequalities.
IRiS Working Paper 30 (2019) [PDF]
What responses, approaches to treatment, and other supports are effective in assisting refugees who have experienced sexual and gender-based violence?
By Karen Block, Hala Nasr, Cathy Vaughan and Sara Alsaraf
Violence, insecurity, persecution, and human rights violations have led to the forced displacement of an estimated 68.5 million people as of 2018 (UNHCR, 2018a). Of those 68.5 million, 25.4 million are refugees - the highest number ever recorded; 3.1 million are asylum seekers; and 40 million are internally displaced (UNHCR, 2018a). Humanitarian emergencies exacerbate the unequal power relations and structural inequalities that underpin the sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) experienced by girls and women, as well as boys and men (UNOCHA, 2016). In some humanitarian emergencies, more than 70 percent of women have experienced gender-based violence and an estimated one in five displaced women will experience sexual violence (UN Women, 2017). Conflict related sexual violence against men and boys has been documented around the world, though data to determine prevalence are limited (Solangon & Patel, 2012). Following displacement, and even after permanent resettlement, different kinds of insecurity such as breakdown of family and community networks, shifting gender roles, and limited access to resources can also increase the risk of SGBV. Responses to SGBV need to adapt to varying contexts and needs across the refugee journey, however there is no comprehensive evidence base for understanding how these needs evolve at different points for people on the move. This working paper is a critical overview of the current state of knowledge on responses to SGBV for refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons across all stages of the refugee journey.
IRiS Working Paper 29 (2019) [PDF]
Monitoring and reporting incidents of sexual and gender-based violence across the refugee journey
By Siân Thomas, Hoayda Darkal and Lisa Goodson
This paper considers the way in which incidents of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) have been recorded across the refugee journey to date. It takes a detailed look at current mechanisms used to record and monitor instances of SGBV and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of current systems. The barriers hindering the accurate recording of SGBV cases are discussed in relation to gendercultural norms, political, and practical dilemmas associated with self-reporting SGBV incidences. The importance and utility of developing more robust and systematic monitoring systems are finally considered alongside a series of practical and actionable recommendations on how to improve the monitoring of SGBV across the refugee journey.
IRiS Working Paper 28 (2019) [PDF]
Defining Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in the Refugee Context
By Andrew Simon-Butler and Professor Bernadette McSherry
This working paper provides an overview of how key terms relating to SGBV have been defined and how these terms may apply in the refugee context. It examines how a broad definition of SGBV has been used to explore current practices in conflict settings, with particular focus on the current conflict in Syria. The international community’s approach to SGBV is examined, with attention paid to definitions in Conventions and under international law. Finally, what gender means in the context of SGBV and the resulting debates about who should be the primary focus of humanitarian intervention are discussed.
IRiS Working Paper 27 (2019) [PDF]
What is the nature of SGBV?
By Saime Ozcurumez, Hannah Bradby and Selin Akyuz
Based on a review of scholarly work and reports, this working paper analyses different facets of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) by revealing the constraints that potentially cause gendered presumptions. Reviewing the conceptualization of SGBV in the literature dealing with gender and the governance of international migration not only juxtaposes existing approaches to understanding SGBV and its defining parameters but also presents how vulnerabilities, insecurities and victimization are presumed to intersect with that violence. This framework enables a critical analysis by indicating the theoretical and empirical gaps, which are enumerated. The final part of the paper proposes some notes for further research and asserts the need to understand the nature of SGBV from the perspective of refugees themselves, rather than from the perspective of humanitarian and/or medical professionals providing refugees with services. The view of SGBV violence as mainly consisting in physical violence against non-European women who lack agency, is juxtaposed with the absence of gender as an overt ground for protection under the Refugee convention.
2018
IRiS Working Paper 26 (2018) [PDF]
Welfare bricolage in different health regimes: motivations, logics and tactics
By Jenny Phillimore, Hannah Bradby, Michi Knecht, Beatriz Padilla and Simon Pemberton
This paper provides and overview of the findings from interviews with residents in four different European cities. It examines the actions that individuals take, in order to address a health concern. The paper outlines the different courses of action that individuals take including remaining within the public health system, bricolaging within that system, adding to the system, using entirely alternative systems or using no resources whatsoever. The ways in which they combine resources across different sectors and international borders is discussed alongside the use of virtual and social resources.
IRiS Working Paper 25 (2018) [PDF]
Pathways of Settlement among Recent Migrants in Super-diverse Areas
By Susanne Wessendorf
This report summarizes the main findings of the research into how new migrants find ways to settle when they do not have existing support structures to ‘dock onto’. It first sets out the nature of the study and defines the notion of pioneer migrants, before moving on to introduce the research sites and methodology. The remainder of the report addresses the findings of the project, focussing on the most relevant issues around settlement such as legal status and integration into the labour market, but also including the role of social relations when settling in a new place
IRiS Working Paper 24 (2018) [PDF]
Welfare Bricolage in Portuguese Service Providers: from challenges to strategies 2017By Beatriz Padilla, Simone Castellani, Vera Rodrigues and Jessica Lopes
The Welfare Bricolage project (UPWEB) will reconceptualise welfare theory through responding to the question of how all residents living in superdiverse neighbourhoods put together their healthcare. Increasing population complexity, heterogeneity and pace of change under globalisation has provoked a need to rethink welfare design, alongside issues of engagement, approachability and effectiveness. This report focusses on the welfare bricolage of residents in Lisbon, Portugal, highlighting how they access healthcare and the barriers they face within the healthcare system.
2017
IRiS Working Paper 23 (2017) [PDF]
Logics of Welfare Bricolage among UK Service Providers
By Professor Simon Pemberton and Dr Lucy Doos
This working paper focuses on the challenges faced by health care providers in delivering services in two superdiverse neighbourhoods (Handsworth and Edgbaston) in Birmingham, UK. The paper explores the nature of the local population / clients living in such areas and the types of health problems that providers seek to address. The degree to which neighbourhood superdiversity has shaped the nature of provision is explored, as well as challenges to service delivery such as language, culture and traditions, transience and transnational health seeking. Through drawing on the concept of ‘bricolage’, the paper subsequently highlights the strategies that providers have developed to overcome service delivery challenges in rapidly changing and highly complex superdiverse environments.
IRiS Working Paper 22 (2017) [PDF]
Typologies and logics of welfare bricolage in Portugal: Lisbon case study (UPWEB)
By Beatriz Padilla, Vera Rodrigues and Tiago Chaves
This Working Paper forms part of the UPWEB research project, examining welfare theory through responding to the question of how residents in superdiverse areas put together their welfare. This process known as "bricolaging" is examined across two neighbourhoods in Lisbon (Portugal), identifying how residents bricolage and the barriers and opportuntities they face as a result.
IRiS Working Paper 21 (2017) [PDF]
Typologies and logics of welfare bricolage in Sweden: Uppsala case study (UPWEB)
By Sarah Hamed and Hannah Bradby
This Working Paper forms part of the UPWEB research project, examining welfare theory through responding to the question of how residents in superdiverse areas put together their welfare. This process known as "bricolaging" is examined across two towns in Uppsala (Sweden), identifying how residents bricolage and the barriers and opportuntites they face as a result.
IRiS Working Paper 20 (2017) [PDF]
European denizens: The political participation of UK based EU citizens at the EU referendum
By Monika Bozhinoska
In June 2016 the UK held a referendum on whether to stay or leave the EU. EU citizens living in the UK, irrespective of how long had they spent in the UK, were not eligible to vote. This study uses the referendum as a case to analyse the ethnic nationalism model of state membership in relation to EU citizenship. It focuses on how EU residents experienced the referendum campaign and the exclusion from referendum voting. Specifically, it investigates the EU citizens’ perception of their political integration in the state, their national identities and feeling of membership, as well as their political engagement in the EU referendum. The study draws on semi-structured in-depth interviews with EU citizens who lived in the UK for at least 5 years and do not have British citizenship.
IRiS Working Paper 19 (2017) [PDF]
Typologies and logics of welfare bricolage in the UK
By Simon Pemberton and Arshad Isakjee
This working paper focuses on identifying the different types and rationales for bricolage being undertaken by residents in two superdiverse neighbourhoods (Handsworth and Edgbaston) in Birmingham, UK. It explores how residents may bricolage to i) achieve health and well-being; and ii) to address a specific health concern. In particular, actions and resources that individuals used to address a health concern are discussed, as well as the reasons why individuals engaged in bricolage activities. These include a lack of confidence in formal (NHS) provision, to secure more culturally appropriate care, to seek reassurance and to supplement formal provision. A number of barriers / impediments to bricolage are also highlighted. The report concludes by setting out the different types of bricolage in evidence in the case study areas.
IRiS Working Paper 18 (2017) [PDF]
Welfare state regimes: a literature review
By Arshad Isakjee
This literature review seeks to position the UPWEB research project in relation to discourses on welfare regimes. The UPWEB project is exploring the workings of healthcare in four European states with different types of welfare governance. Any comparison between these case-studies depends on an analysis of welfare regimes themselves, their construction, their validity and applicability.
IRiS Working Paper 17 (2017) [PDF]
Super-diversity and the social production of space in a small Catalan town
By Martin Lundsteen
Taking its point of departure in the case of Salt, a small Catalan town located next to Girona, this paper analyses the everyday negotiation of the emerging ‘super-diverse’ reality outside the metropolis, yielding a specific focus to space. Employing the conceptual distinction developed by Setha Low between social production and social construction of space, recent historical developments in this rural-urban locality are analysed, accounting for the contested understandings of space and belonging.
IRiS WP 16-2017 [PDF]
Messaging in the Midlands: Exploring digital literacy repertoires in a superdiverse region
By Caroline Tagg and Esther Asprey
This paper explores how individuals and communities living or working in the West Midlands exploit practices of ‘translanguaging’ in the maintenance of intimate relationships – that is, how they draw on features from various local (and far-flung) dialects, languages, styles, scripts and registers as expressive resources.
2016
IRiS WP 15-2016 [PDF]
Adaptation of Health Services to Diversity: An overview of approaches
By Jenny Phillimore with Franziska Klaas, Beatriz Padilla, Sonia Hernández-Plaza and Vera Rodrigues
This review focuses upon the literature that describes or examines the ways in which health services
have been reconfigured (or not) in light of changing demographics, namely the emergence of
superdiversity.
IRiS WP 14-2016 [PDF]
Bricolage: potential as a conceptual tool for understanding access to welfare in superdiverse neighbourhoods
By Jenny Phillimore, Rachel Humphries, Franziska Klaas and Michi Knecht
The scientific and policy challenges emerging from the complexity associated with delivering welfare in an era of superdiversity have been noted... as providers struggle to communicate with, understand and meet the needs of service users.
IRiS WP 13-2016 [PDF]
Locality, neighbourhood and health: a literature review
By Simon Pemberton and Rachel Humphris
Traditionally, the study of place in public health, epidemiology, medical geography and medical sociology has been neglected. However, over time there has been increasing recognition of the importance of place in shaping health.
IRiS WP 12-2016 [PDF]
Dimensions of Diversity: Terminology in health research
by Hannah Bradby and Tilman Brand
This short review considers how ‘ethnicity’ and ‘superdiversity’ are used alongside ‘diversity’ in health research in a sample of recent journal articles.
2015
IRiS WP 11-2015 [PDF]
Challenging the destitution policy: Civil society organisations supporting destitute migrants
by Adrian Randall
This IRiS Working Paper reviews changes in the law on immigration and asylum affecting the support available to asylum seekers. In particular, the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 and successor legislation has made refused asylum seekers destitute by terminating support.
IRiS WP 10-2015 [PDF]
Call for consistent incorporation of superdiversity considerations in the European Court of Human Rights' (non-discrimination) jurisprudence
by Kristin Henrard
Super-diversity may not yet be a term of art in the field of fundamental rights, courts are undoubtedly confronted with cases that de facto concern super-diversity, understood here as referring to various layers of ethnic population diversity and the related differential rights of the distinctive groups.
IRiS WP 9-2015 [PDF]
'All the people speak bad English’: Coping with language differences in a super-diverse context
by Susanne Wessendorf
In recent years, there has been a surge in studies on immigration-related diversity and, more specifically, super-diversity. This paper gives an overview of recent academic debates on encounters in super-diverse urban contexts, drawing on theories which have focused on interactional principles in such urban spaces.
IRiS WP 8-2015 [PDF]
Superdiverse Britain and new migrant enterprises
by Trevor Jones, Monder Ram, Yaojun Li, Paul Edwards and Maria Villares
Diversity has been framed either as positive for economic dynamism and prosperity in British urban spaces, contributing to greater competitiveness, attractiveness of cosmopolitan lifestyle as well as the growth of a variety of migrant enterprises, or as having a negative impact on average wages, job availability and welfare provision.
IRiS WP 7-2015 [PDF]
Migration and integration, A local and experiential perspective
by Gary Craig
This working paper was originally produced for the KING programme, an interdisciplinary and international programme of research funded by the EU, exploring the factors facilitating or impeding the integration of migrants.
IRiS WP 6-2015 [PDF]
Social networks, social capital and migrant integration at local level - European literature review
by Marta Kindler with Vasselina Ratcheva and Maria Piechowska
This Working Paper examines the state of knowledge concerning the relationships between social networks, social capital and migrant integration at local level.
IRiS WP 5-2015 [PDF]
The challenges of superdiversity for social housing
by Gail Walters
The changing nature of many urban communities in the UK is providing challenges to traditional models of managing social housing.
2014
IRiS WP 4-2014 [PDF]
Causes and experiences of poverty among economic migrants in the UK
by Simon Pemberton, Jenny Phillimore and David Robinson
Poverty is an important driver of migration. Many people migrate to escape poverty.
IRiS WP 3-2014 [PDF]
Integration practice in the European Union. Initiatives and innovations by institutions and civil society
by Rachel Humphris
This paper reviews integration practices undertaken by civil society and local institutions across European Member States that have been identified as...
IRiS WP 2-2014 [PDF]
Researching social relations in super-diverse neighbourhoods. Mapping the field by Susanne Wessendorf
There has been a surge in studies on immigration-related diversity and, more specifically, superdiversity...
IRiS WP 1-2014 [PDF]
Poverty among refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. An evidence and policy review
by Jennifer Allsopp, Nando Sigona and Jenny Phillimore
This WP review focuses on the experiences of poverty among refugees, asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers, including women.