We have exciting plans for 2020 as MMB continues to develop its dynamic research remit and build an ever-stronger community of scholars. Our four research challenges are running a range of workshops, seminars and networking events in the coming months, which will showcase the breadth of approaches to migration and mobilities studies among our members. We will also be organising a public lecture by a prominent international activist and scholar – identity to be revealed soon.
New this year is the MMB film group, in motion, which will be screening films about migration and movement on the last Tuesday of each month. We are also starting a regular MMB research seminar for members to share their work and receive critical feedback from colleagues. And one of our PhD students is running a series of workshops on the logistical, ethical and intellectual challenges of fieldwork. Keep an eye on our website for details of these and other events coming up.
Don’t forget, the website is a place where you can showcase your research. Do contact us if you have any questions or would like help in developing your text and illustrations.
At the end of last year we published the MMB 2018-2019 Annual Report to show our progress in building an interdisciplinary network of scholars and supporting the wide range of migration-related research across the university and city of Bristol. The report outlines the focus of each of our research challenges, which bring people together from diverse disciplines to think about migration and mobility in new ways. The report features many of the research projects of these challenge members as well as highlighting some of the key events organised by MMB in the past year.
In 2019-2020 we will continue to consolidate and support our internal community while also developing closer partnerships with institutions and organisations outside the UK. These include The New School in New York, the European Public Law Office in Greece and the Universities of Linkoping and Malmo in Sweden. We are also delighted to be liaising with a network of University of Bristol scholars working in Latin America to support their research on movement and migration in the region.
Do get in touch if you have any news about relevant events, publications or research ideas. We also still have a small amount of funding for networking events and activities, so if you have an idea that will take place between now and the end of July 2020 please complete the application form. We will next review applications at the end of February.
Three years on from the negotiated peace agreement between the FARC-EP and the Colombian state, MMB co-hosted members of the Colombian Truth Commission (CTC) to participate in ‘Truth, Memory and Diaspora: The Seeds of Peace in Colombia’, a week of transnational dialogue and collaboration between UK and Colombian institutions.
The University of Bristol has been working with the CTC through a variety of different collaborative projects including ‘MEMPAZ: Bringing Memories in from the Margins’, funded by AHRC, Newton and Colciencias, which supports the creative memory practices of local organisations to bring memories from the margins into Colombia’s transitional justice processes; and ‘Transitional Justice as Education’, funded by AHRC, which works to support the gender and pedagogy work of the CTC by connecting it with feminist and educational expertise from around the world.
The week of events provided a unique opportunity to hear directly from the CTC about the achievements, innovations and challenges of truth-seeking both within and beyond the national border at this pivotal time in Colombia’s history. In this blog I highlight the key messages shared.
Conflict, exileand truth-telling of the ‘Colombia outside Colombia’
Commissioner Carlos Martín Beristain speaks about the critical importance of including the diaspora in the process of the CTC
Forced displacement has been recognised as a major consequence of the armed conflict in Colombia, sometimes forcing victims to leave the country and go into exile. According to the National Victims’ Registry, there are more than 8,500,000 victims of the armed conflict and 7,500,000 victims of forced displacement in Colombia. It is unknown exactly how many of them are living abroad but the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates it to be approximately 400,000 – it is likely to be even higher.
In an evening of talks on ‘The Truth Commission and the Colombian Diaspora,’ Commissioner Carlos Martín Beristain discussed the work being done to collect testimonies in the ‘Colombia outside of Colombia’ in order to investigate how the armed conflict has been experienced by the Colombian diaspora and uncover why so many people were forced to leave. The scale of this work is unprecedentedin international Transitional Justice experience.
Another fundamental aim of the CTC is to make theexperiences of the Colombian diaspora, which are relatively unknown within Colombia, visible within the country’s historical memory.
How can a diaspora be involved in a truth commission?
In its first year of operation, the CTC, led by Beristain, has been working with civil society and victims’ organisations across the world to help build trust, to educate people about the CTC’s mandate and process, and to learn more about the expectations, needs and concerns of the victims. More than 120 people have been trained so far, operating within country specific ‘nodes’, to interview Colombians living in exile.
Beristain was joined in Bristol by members of the UK Truth Commission hubto reflect on their efforts to encourage UK based Colombians to give their testimony. Five of these members, including a lawyer, an academic and a priest, gave deeply poignant accounts of the stories they have heard and the challenges they have faced in encouraging people to come forward. Andrei Gomez Suarez, one of thisUK based team, called on the audience to become the channel of communication between people who may want to give a testimony and the CTC. Through the discussions it was recognised that documenting so many traumatic accounts can take its toll on those carrying out the interviews.
The challenges of working in a polarised context
Beristain also outlined clearly the obstaclesfacing the truth-seeking processes in such a polarised context, where lies have been institutionalised, pain internalised and social fractures run deep in society. In another event that week, Gonzalo Sánchez, the former director of the Colombian National Centre for Historical Memory and a member of the Advisory Board of the Truth Commission, reflected on historical memory and peacebuilding in times of such polarisation.
Sánchezdiscussed the question of who produces memory work and for whom. He raised concerns that in Colombia today, memory and truth are being threatened by ‘toxic narratives’ made up of hatred, vengeance and fear, built up over years of conflict and driven by those who oppose the negotiated peace agreement. A key challenge for the CTC is to ensure that marginalised voices, which have historically been excluded and discriminated against, are heard and taken seriously by the Colombian state.
The opportunity for reconciliation
Poster for the campaign, Let’s Defend the Peace, showing one of Abad Colorado’s photographs: a member of the Bojayá community, Chocó, following the 2002 massacre
The final event of the week was a screening of ‘The Witness’ (El Testigo, 2019), a new documentary about the photographer Jesús Abad Colorado who has documented violence in Colombia for over 25 years. It tells the inspiring human stories of the people in Abad Colorado’s photographs, exploring the pertinent themes of resilience and forgiveness, and what they mean to those for whom so much is at stake. The film generates a strong emotional connection with the conflict, felt even by those who experienced the violence indirectly or from a distance.
Following the screening, Gonzalo Sánchez and Lina Malagón, a Colombian human rights lawyer teaching at the University of Bristol, reflected on whether Colombia is now ripe for reconciliation. It is time to know the truth, said Malagon, because we all have a story to tell and we need to move on.
Lessons learned
Bristol Colombia Week 2019 provided a valuable opportunity for many Colombians and friends of Colombia to learn more about the CTC and to connect with the country’s transitional justice process, and with one another, so we can support peacebuilding from afar. Truth-seeking in Colombia will not end with the culmination of the CTC’s three-year period. It is hoped that the final report produced by the Commission will create the conditions conducive to peace and will be accompanied by meaningful efforts to promote dialogue, reconciliation and coexistence on a local and national level, and beyond the national borders.
Mary Ryder (mr12859@bristol.ac.uk) is a PhD researcher in the School of Education, University of Bristol. Her research explores the conflict narratives of rural farmers in drug-producing regions of Colombia, within the country’s transitional justice processes.
‘Esther, can you see Amir. He’s been refused Section 95 support …’
‘Samira, I need you to do an urgent HC1 for this chap with kidney failure …’
‘Mariana, we’ve got a young boy off a lorry just turned up. He has nothing. He’s with Muna in the main hall just now getting a cup of tea and some warm clothes …’
Harriet, the Caseworker Coordinator, is allocating appointments. If the work sounds complicated, it is: Section 95, Schedule 10, Section 4, Pre-Action Protocol, HC1. Anyone could be forgiven for thinking that Harriet’s team were hot-shot lawyers, well-remunerated for their extensive knowledge and experience. But this is Bristol Refugee Rights (BRR), and Harriet’s team are all volunteers.
A young migrant shows his craft work at BRR
Some years ago, when I worked in the sector, there were specialist providers who received statutory funding to help asylum-seekers – who are not permitted to work – to apply for financial support and accommodation. But government policy put an end to that funding and now, in Bristol at least, those seeking access to the little to which they are entitled come in despair to the advice team at BRR. I’m an academic now and a trustee of BRR, and I’ve come to find out about the everyday impact of the Hostile Environment on its intended targets.
When she was Home Secretary, Theresa May enacted a policy aimed at creating an environment ‘so hostile’, that those seeking safety and security in the UK would abandon their quest, give up fighting for their rights and entitlements, and leave the country. This policy has not been successful: the number of those removed voluntarily and by force from the UK has fallen year by year, while recent research estimates that for every ‘authorised’ migrant in the UK, there is another ‘unauthorised’ one.
But the policy has caused untold harm to many. The national media has reported on some of the casualties. The plight, for example, of the highly-skilled, recruited with the hope that they would make the UK their home and then subsequently refused leave to remain after many years on the spurious basis of tax return discrepancies. The abrupt curtailment of the visas of tens of thousands of students following evidence that an unspecified number had cheated at an English test. And the terrible injustices and hardships suffered by many of the (often British) children of the Windrush generation.
These groups of ‘authorised’ migrants and/or their children are portrayed as being the innocent victims of the Hostile Environment Policy; collateral damage caused by confusing unlawful with undocumented. But what about the toll of this policy on its intended targets – asylum-seekers, failed asylum-seekers and the ‘unauthorised’? And what about the damage to British justice and reputation? Can we really still claim to be a welcoming society?
Once Harriet has finished allocations, she asks the team if there are any issues that need to be discussed. Esther relates that she gave up after spending two and a half hours waiting in a telephone queue last week on a routine call to Migrant Help, the charity awarded the Home Office contract as the ‘point of call’ for migrants who have questions about their applications or need to inform the Home Office about a change in circumstances. I’m aghast. Two and a half hours! But Esther is not complaining about the length of the wait. Kafkaesque-style government bureaucracy has become so normalised for this team that waiting – the very condition of being an asylum-seeker – is no longer noticeable as an outrage. She is complaining instead about Migrant Help’s recent decision to remove the indication regarding the position you are in the queue and therefore the potential length of the wait.
Later, Advice Team Manager Elinor explains to me that before the introduction of the Hostile Environment Policy, asylum-seekers and caseworkers could contact the Home Office directly about their applications for the basic support to which they are entitled: £37.75 per week and accommodation. The whole process of applying usually took a few weeks, and if further evidence was required, the Home Office would call and request it. Now, applications typically take twice as long, and then have to be chased and actively pursued by BRR volunteers. For a new claimant that usually means 6-8 weeks of living on the streets or sofa-surfing. Migrant Help is the only point of contact for everything support-related, including numerous housing problems such as broken boilers, rat infestations, major damp problems, no locks on the door. One BRR member spent six months with no running water.
‘They would be better called “Migrant Barrier”,’ says one volunteer. ‘They do not help.’
Volunteers recount experiences of waiting for hours, only to be cut off when they get through; of staff who seem to have little to no understanding about the process and who mis-advise. Complaints about the atrocious service fall on deaf ears: this is after all one aspect of how an environment is made hostile. Meanwhile the process of claiming financial support has become more complex and more bureaucratic. The volunteers give me examples where the Home Office has sent out a request for a different document week after week, or even the same document, repeatedly causing delay to applications. Or worse, refusing applications outright over failure to tick a box, meaning that they need to be appealed which takes more time.
I ask them to describe the system to me:
‘So far from justice.’
‘Insanely complicated.’
‘Chaotic but also cruel.’
‘Hostile. Deliberately hostile.’
A young migrant at BRR draws about his experience as a refugee
These are applications made not just for the welfare of the migrant who will be destitute without this basic entitlement, but also for the welfare of our communities and the streets where we live. Street homelessness takes a terrible toll on the mental and physical health of the individual involved, but it also has a financial and social toll on all of us.
After the meeting I am given the opportunity to observe Esther as she talks with Amir, the BRR member who has been refused ‘Section 95’. He had applied for just the financial element because he was staying with a local family. They themselves were on a very low income and struggled to feed an extra person. The decision to refuse Amir has led the family to decide that they can no longer offer him accommodation. They have written a letter explaining their circumstances: feeding Amir on their very tight budget means they have had to scrimp on heating and clothing. They add that Amir often wakes up screaming, which disturbs them and their children.
Amir must now apply for both the financial element and accommodation. He has nowhere else to go. He is softly spoken, apologetic and deeply sad. He tells Esther that he has not seen his own family for ten years. Esther takes him through the application patiently and slowly. She says everything of importance at least three times. She tells him right at the outset that he is unlikely to be housed in Bristol. He tells Esther that he has friends here and a support network, and his mental health is bad and it would be too difficult to move somewhere else. Esther explains that she understands all this but if he applies for accommodation, he will be housed somewhere else, possibly far, far away.
While the asylum support system has justifiably been described as ‘disabling’, Esther is consistently enabling. She and fellow advice volunteers are just one part of BRR’s aptly named ‘Welcome Team’, a 30-strong group of volunteers who do all they can to provide hospitality and warmth to counter the overt government hostility.
‘Sometimes there’s not much we can practically do,’ explains Mariana, ‘but just listening to the person and treating them like a fellow human being goes such a long way.’
By the time I leave, the line of silent, crushed and despairing faces that waited outside the hall on my arrival has gone. In its place, the hall reverberates with the noise of chatter, games, crafts, cooking and laughter.
If you would like to help Amir and others affected by the Hostile Environment Policy any money you donate to Bristol Refugee Rights between 3rd and 10th December will be doubled as part of #ChristmasChallenge19 as part of The Big Give: https://www.bristolrefugeerights.org/news-and-events/urgent-appeal/.
Note: The names of the BRR volunteers and members have been changed in order to protect identities.
Natasha Carver is a Research Associate at Cardiff School of Law and Politics. She is currently researching criminal prosecutions involving migrants.
At FUTURES, an evening held recently at the SS Great Britain in Bristol as part of a Europe-wide series of events celebrating academic research, I spoke to families about the experience of being at sea. What is it like, we pondered, to spend days – or even weeks –without sight of land? What might happen, in such circumstances, to your sense of personal or national identity? How would you pass the time, and how might you interact with others – often from very different backgrounds – in the same enclosed environment?
Drawing on my research on shipboard cultures and the cultural practices that help define and redefine them, I set up three activitiesto help visitors think about what it might mean to enter on a nautical existence. First, I asked them to match up maritime terms to their definitions. Illuminating the extent to which British culture has developed through oceanic ventures, many English terms and expressions (‘fathom’, ‘the bitter end’, ‘aloof’, ‘clean bill of health’) have maritime origins. Over the centuries, and often by borrowing terms from other maritime cultures (Dutch, Indian, Portuguese), a distinct ‘language of the sea’ has developed, informing and informed by ‘landlubber’ language. My activity asked participants to match up three sets of words and definitions, ranging from ‘Apprentice’ level (‘capsize’, ‘convoy’), to‘Midshipman’ level (‘ballast’, ‘bowsprit’), to ‘Skipper’ level (‘futtocks’, ‘cats’ paws’).
Matching up maritime terms at the SS Great Britain
Taking advantage of my surroundings, my second activity asked children to compose diary entries in which they imagined themselves on board the SS Great Britain in the nineteenth century, bound for Australia on a two-month voyage. To help them think themselves into this scenario, I provided excerpts from three diaries composed by passengers who had travelled on the ship: one an Irish nun heading to Australia to teach in a Catholic school; the other two men on the same voyage, but experiencing it very differently from their steerage- and cabin-class accommodation. The children were, for the most part, horrified by the idea that modern entertainment systems would be unavailable. After a look of despondency and resignation, one finally wrote: ‘Day 1: I had food and read for an hour!’ A second, apparently (like me) impressed and unnerved by the warren-like design of the SSGreat Britain, wrote: ‘Day 3: I played hide and seek and I got lost. I had to sleep under the coffee table.’ Perhaps sensitive to the tedium and frustration that can easily build up over a long voyage – tedium and frustration,whichcultural activities, including diary-writing,were designed to alleviate – a third participant wrote: ‘Day 50: I threw my homework in the sea.’ (An environmentalistaside: this child also seemedto sense that dangerous predilection humans have to treat the sea as a giant toilet bowl: a repository for all the things we do not want, whether nuclear waste, by-catch,sin, or corpses we would rather did not become pilgrimage sites.)
The first and second activities overlapped. As my research has indicated, inexperienced seafarers are often struck – and often disoriented – by the ‘salty’ language spoken bysailors, and one indication that they are beginning to ‘get their sea legs’ is their attempt to try out this language in diary entries. One of my participants was obliging enough to do the same, test-driving two terms he had only just taken on board: ‘Day 7: We went into a convoy with other ships and I pretended to be the skipper.’
The SS Great Britain, Bristol City Docks
The third activity was knot-tying: a practice that is nautical, but not exclusively so. It is often argued by scholars in oceanic studies that we live in a ‘sea-blind’ culture, neglecting the oceans on which we still rely for our day-to-day existence – with the vast majority of international trade carried by ships, and communications cables tracing the seafloor – yet which, due to the mechanisation of shipping and the advent of air travel, no longer feel part of our everyday world. If this is so, then what has happened to this specific skill, knot-tying? The answer appears to be that it has passed on to amateur climbers; there were several of them at the SS Great Britain, and they were able to tie far more knots than me.
It was this question of the place of the sea in our culture – and our capacity to remain blind to the oceans – that I was tryingto draw out during my conversations across the evening. The stall across from me was, rather wonderfully, asking children to think about what was inside their mobile phones, and so I asked those who came over to me afterwards how long they thought their phones might have spent at sea, and who might have been working on the ship that carried them over the oceans. We don’t tend to think of our phones, or clothes, or appliances, as ‘maritime’ objects; it is – to me at least – strange to think of them in mid-ocean, thousands of miles from shore. The strangeness of this thought is an indication of how easy it is to imagine the sea – as it has so often been imagined, in most cultures – as ‘alien’, beyond the human realm, even when our everyday lives – the very words we speak – are in so many ways structured through human relations with the oceans. My aim, in the helpful surroundings of the SS Great Britain, was to ask participants to reflect on some of the implications of sea-blindness. What might it mean, for example, for climate change? How often do we reflect on the labour conditions not only of those who make the objects we consume, but who transport them? If we are going to continue to exploit the ocean (the seabed, the fish, the manganese nodules), then who should get to decide how we do so? And if we fail to look directly at the sea, what does that mean for the migrants trying, in far less secure and well-appointed surroundings than the SS Great Britain, to cross it?
By Bridget Anderson, Emma Newcombe and Emily Walmsley
In the run up to our second MMB AGM we thought we’d take the chance to showcase migration related research in Bristol, reflect on our past year’s work as a Specialist Research Institute and discuss plans for future development by writing an annual report. At this stage it is just a draft so we are happy to take suggestions for changes and additions. If you would like your work profiled in this report please do get in touch – mmb-sri@bristol.ac.uk.
In 2018/19 MMB focused on how we could organise ourselves, in intellectual and practical terms. We discussed the range of research interests across different faculties and as a result set up four cross-faculty teams to develop our ‘Research Challenges’. Our four co-ordinators have done an excellent job in getting these research challenges going, including organising four great kick-off events that brought together a wide range of participants. We are very grateful to Pier, Nariman, Manoj, and Angelo for all their hard work.
We set up a cross-faculty management group to help us fulfil our objectives and are grateful to them too for the ways in which they have engaged and thought through how we can develop our work. We also found funding for a part-time administrator and Emily joined us in November 2018.
In January we launched our website and the new MMB ‘look’ (we even have MMB pens!). The website is a great place for showcasing your research and bringing it to a wider, cross-disciplinary audience. Do let us know if you want to have a listing or contribute a blog.
It’s been an event-full year for MMB. We’ve concentrated on building our internal community and as such have held or supported 25 events – in May we had four running in one week! One particular highlight was having the privilege of hosting the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants for an event that brought together UoB researchers with activists and community workers from Bristol. A big thanks to Diego Acosta from Law for arranging this. We hope that you’ve found the events stimulating and that you’ve taken the chance to engage with people from across the University.
Finally, remember that MMB is here to support you. In the coming year we will be trialling some ‘drop-in sessions’. If you have an idea you want to think through, a question about impact or are in search of contacts, do come along (details will be on our website). Also, we are keen to promote the wide range of research and publication projects going on in Bristol on migration and mobilities, many of which are described further in this report.
If you would like to add your work to this report and our website, please do get in touch – mmb-sri@bristol.ac.uk.
The first event of MMB’s Imagination, Belonging, Futures Research Challenge took place on Tuesday 2 July at the Department of Film and Television, University of Bristol.
Focusing on the topic of ‘image-making in migration research and campaigns’, the aim of the workshop was to consider the uses of photographic images of refugees and asylum seekers in migration research and campaigning work, exploring problems and challenges as well as alternative approaches (photographic or otherwise) to the visual representation of migration and displacement.
Around 30 people participated in the workshop including migration researchers and academics, representatives from campaigns and NGOs, filmmakers, photographers, artists and activists. The workshop was split into three sessions and the event was chaired by Bridget Anderson, MMB Director and Professor of Migration, Mobilities and Citizenship.
Camilla Morelli speaks about her collaborative film-making with Matses youth
The first session consisted of panel presentations and discussion focusing particularly on ethical responsibilities, informed consent, collaborative and participatory practices and the processes involved in producing images. Camilla Morelli (Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Bristol) presented her fascinating animated film about the imagination of marginalised Matses youth and their desires to live in the city. This film was part of her British Academy funded collaborative project Indigenous Animations, which brings together indigenous artists, animators and Amazonian children and youth to co-produce animated films. Through their participation in the research and visualisation processes, the participants’ consent and agency in their own representation was embedded into the outcomes.
Often the ‘people in the pictures’ – those whose images are used in campaigning material – are not consulted in how they are represented or what their opinions are on the subject. This was an issue passionately taken up by Jess Crombie, a humanitarian communications consultant and Lecturer in documentary image making and ethics at London College of Communication. Jess presented on research she conducted on the image-making of Save the Children and other NGOs. She stressed the importance of involving often unheard voices and views of those photographed in the image-making process (one of the recommendations of her report) alongside adopting creative and collaborative practices and sensitive communication that respect human dignity.
But collaborative practices can also become an additional source of stress and responsibility for those already dealing with the mental and physical trauma of fleeing persecution, being displaced and coping with hostile and restrictive asylum systems and policies, as Vicky Canning pointed out in her presentation on activism and resistance in refugee rights research. Canning called for a more direct, less ambiguous language in migration research and the system violence experienced by refugees, especially women. Vicky displayed her Asylum Navigation Board, which aims to help people understand the multiple barriers and restrictions facing those navigating the asylum system.
The second session turned towards presentations from the local community, beginning with a moving photo story by Bnar Sardar, an Iraqi Kurdish photojournalist living and studying Bristol. Titled Two Religions, One Roof, the photographic series offered an intimate portrait of belonging and co-habitation between two displaced families (one Christian and one Sunni) in Kirkurk. Bnar fled Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991 and is one of the only women to have documented the violence and displacement in the region.
Ruth Jacobs shows images taken by refugees and asylum seekers in Bristol
Bnar recently took part in a community project in St. Pauls Darkrooms for refugee and asylum seekers – a short black and white photographic film course run by Ruth Jacobs from the Real Photography Company. Participants had the opportunity to take, develop and print photographs of Bristol. Ruth discussed the process involved and presented some of the images produced by the participants, which were exhibited at the Vestibules on College Green in June. The images presented a unique vision of the city through the poetic perspective of refugees.
St. Pauls Darkrooms is in the same building as Bristol Refugee Rights, a local asylum seeker and refugee support group. Ruth Soandro-Jones, Fundraising and Communications Manager for the organisation, followed with some important and candid reflections on the challenges of obtaining and using images of people seeking asylum while they are accessing support at BRR, especially in relation to fundraising requirements.
In the final session participants broke into groups to discuss a set of questions posed by organisers and raised by participants themselves in advance, and the issues discussed were brought together and categorised into key themes by Jacqueline Maingard (Reader in Film) in a short summary at the end.
The workshop had a dynamic, buzzing energy and a sense of urgency. A whole host of problems and challenges in the use of images in migration were brought forward and discussed. It appeared many participants were grappling with similar questions and challenges, despite coming from different sectors, perspectives and practices.
There was a desire amongst attendees to continue the discussion and consider the workshop as a launch for further activity and action. Watch this space!
On 3 July 2019, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, Professor Felipe González, visited the University of Bristol. The event was organized by Migration Mobilities Bristol (MMB) with funding from PolicyBristol. Here we outline the scope of his work and focus of his visit.
During the event, the Rapporteur presented the work of his office and his latest activities. He then heard from the City Council, civil society, NGOs, business representatives and academics about the challenges migrants and refugees face in the UK. This included discussions about the situation of EU citizens after a possible Brexit, the Windrush scandal and the effects of the so-called hostile environment policy.
MMB provided a dossier of notes to accompany his visit. This outlined the breadth of interests of MMB researchers, and salient issues about the rights of migrants in Bristol. As this was not an official visit, the Rapporteur will not be producing a final report with his observations. However, he took good notice of all the issues raised, and we are pleased to have been able to facilitate connections between the Rapporteur, the University and the city of Bristol.
The Special Rapporteur’s role
The Special Rapporteur’s role was created in 1999 by the Commission of Human Rights. Professor González, a Chilean, is the fourth person, and third Latin American, to hold the mandate, which covers all countries regardless of whether a state has ratified the 1990 United Nations Migrant Workers Convention (the UK has not). He can request and receive information from various sources, including migrants themselves, about individual cases of alleged violations of human rights, or about general situations of concern in a particular country. The Rapporteur is not the ‘last resort’, meaning that complainants can approach him at any time; they do not have to exhaust domestic remedies first.
The Rapporteur has three main tools to carry out his work:
Country visits (also called fact-finding missions) allow the Rapporteur, following an invitation by the relevant government, to examine first-hand the situation of human rights protection in a particular state. Following such a visit, a report is submitted to the Human Rights Council with his findings, conclusions and recommendations.
‘Communications’ allow the Rapporteur to bring to the attention of a particular government alleged violations of the human rights of migrants, without the need to visit that particular country. This was, for example, the case with his
The Rapporteur produces an annual report to the Human Rights Council about the global state of protection of migrants’ human rights but can also produce thematic reports on issues of interest, such as the one on bilateral and multilateral trade agreements and their impact on the human rights of migrants. The Special Rapporteur also reports to the General Assembly.
We were honoured to host Professor González and hope to continue our exchanges in the coming years.
Further information
Further information about the mandate of the Special Rapporteur is available here.
Please email mmb-sri@bristol.ac.uk if you’d like to be involved in MMB’s ongoing communication with the Special Rapporteur.
LGBTQI+ Muslims seeking asylum are more successful if they speak, dress and act in accordance with Western notions of homosexuality. My work recently published in the Journal Ethnic and Racial Studies, has found that LGBTQI+ asylum applicants reported they were often expected to be “flamboyant” and “outspoken” in their asylum interview, and that overall, asylum seekers were more successful if they could prove their ‘gayness’ by being involved in gay/queer activism in their country of origin, visiting gay bars, being members of lesbian and gay groups and attending gay pride marches.
As part of my EU-funded research project on queer asylum in Germany, I interviewed 15 lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex (LGBTQI+) refugees and asylum seekers from Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Pakistan, as well as asylum lawyers and judges from Berlin and Cologne, and representatives of LGBTQI+ refugee counselling centers in Cologne, Munich, Heidelberg and Mannheim – project website.
The majority of successful applicants were from middle to upper-class backgrounds, were assigned male at birth and had been actively involved in gay/queer activism in their country of origin. Along with class and educational background, membership of LGBTQI+ organisations and access to local queer and gay refugee organisations in Germany were the most important factors in securing a successful asylum claim. In order to gain asylum, asylum seekers must convince officials of their permanent identity as ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’, trans’, ‘bi’, and/or ‘intersex’, and they also need to demonstrate that their sexual and gender identity has led to them being persecuted in their home country.
The most successful applicants were very well informed about what is expected from them at the asylum interview – which was for their asylum story to align with Western notions of queer/gay lifestyles, i.e frequent visits to gay discos and parties, public display of love and affection, wearing rainbow-coded clothing etc.
In addition, and despite efforts to render the asylum process safer for LGBTQI+ individuals, it was reported there were still incidences where asylum seekers were expected to answer questions about their sex life during their asylum interview – despite this being against EU law – and some interviewees stated they felt judged on their clothing, or how they acted in the interview.
People who were more open about their sexuality and gender identity in their country of origin as well as the country of arrival were much more likely to be granted asylum, in part because they were more likely to seek out LGBTQI+ refugee organisations in Germany and receive support for the preparation of their asylum interview. However, people who were not ‘out’ at the time of their interview, or who found it difficult to speak about their sexuality due to fear of persecution, stigma or shame felt marginalised.
“LGBTQI+ asylum seekers who felt forced to hide their sexuality and/or gender identity, and who felt uncomfortable talking about it were usually rejected, as were those who were married or had children in their countries of origin. This was either because they were not recognised or believed as being LGBTQI+, or because they were told to hide in their country of origin since they had not come out yet.
Quite a few of my interviewees also mentioned that they felt that their translator held a homo-/transphobic attitude or did not translate properly due to their lack of knowledge of gay/queer/trans issues. For example, one Somalian man said that his fear and shame of coming out as gay – coupled with his translator’s known negative attitudes toward homosexuals – stopped him from being able to talk openly about his sexuality, leading to the rejection of his asylum claim.
Asylum applicants who portrayed Germany as a liberal, tolerant country free of discrimination, while portraying their Muslim countries of origin as homophobic and morally ‘backwards’ were more likely to receive refugee protection. While Germany, and Europe more generally are traditionally seen as a safe havens for LGBTQI+ refugees compared to many majority Muslim countries – where homosexuality is illegal – there is a concern that the narratives and stereotypes perpetuated by the German asylum system may serve right-wing discourses on immigration in Germany.
More needs to be done to ensure that all Muslim LGBTQI individuals enjoy the same right to asylum. We need to train decision makers, judges and translators around the topic of LGBTQI+ so that they are more knowledgeable about LGBTQI+ identities and sexualities, and so as not to reproduce Islamophobic tendencies in the current immigration practices and debates in Germany. Access to legal resources and support for LGBTQI+ also needs to be streamlined, as LGBTQI+ asylum seekers who had access to information on the asylum process in Germany were much more successful.
Dr Mengia Tschalaer is Marie Curie Research Fellow at the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol.
The content for this blog was previously posted by Taylor and Francis as a press release.
Site of the destroyed memorial at Thermi, looking towards Turkey Photo: Martin Preston
Since 2014, the deaths of more than 32,000 migrants have been recorded globally (IOM, 2019). The true number is certainly far higher. A lack of documentation, other means of identification or the willingness or ability to do so means that many of those recovered may remain nameless. With so many deaths being unknown or unrecorded, the fate of those lost is often uncertain for those they leave behind.
Memorials form one way in which public memory is created and reproduced (Dickinson, et al, 2010). The shores of Lesvos and the water around it serve as the final resting place for many of those lost. Initiated by ‘Welcome to Europe’ a purpose-made physical recognition of the dead and missing of the ongoing migration ‘crisis’, a monument at the shores at Thermi on the East of the island was destroyed by unknown perpetrators. However the spot remains a focal point to remember those who have died, as happens annually since October 2013. In contrast, monuments to refugees of the Asia Minor Catastrophe a century ago, are prominent and plentiful on the island. Elsewhere memorials to recently deceased migrants, such as communally created quilts in the USA and The Counter of Shame in Barcelona do exist. However, the general absence of memorials to missing migrants, given the scale of recent loss, is perhaps one indication of the marginalisation of the living.
At the end of April 2019 I was fortunate enough to be selected to receive a grant from the MMB to join a multidisciplinary group of scholars, civil society leaders, international organisation representatives and professionals, working in the area of migration and migration policy. Gathered at the University of Aegean on the island of Lesvos, Greece, our purpose was to deliver a workshop to consider how memorials for dead and missing migrants may be internationally recognised.
This workshop was the first event of a Worldwide Universities Network funded research initiative convened by Ann Singleton. This research platform had the initial purpose of developing guidelines and a proposal for UNESCO accreditation of heritage sites for memorials to dead and missing migrants. In the longer term the project aims to support the establishment and formal recognition of a global network of memorials.
The workshop ran over two days and was hosted by Professor Stratos Georgoulas critical criminologist and long-term activist for refugee rights. Day one included important contributions from Julia Black, from the International Organisation for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project, on the reality and difficulties of collecting accurate data for the dead and missing. The journalist and author John Max Smith provided an inspirational account of his journey with his father, the political commentator and veteran, Harry Lesley Smith. Harry, who witnessed the human cost of World War Two, became a leading voice in Canada and the UK, fighting for the rights of migrants, up until his death in 2018 at the age of 95. Syd Bolton and Catriona Jarvis of the Last Rights Project gave insights on the role of memory in preserving dignity, the opportunities for learning and the importance of community participation in such projects.
Day two of the workshop provided the opportunity for Tony Bunyan, Director of Statewatch, to give an analysis of the wider European Union approach to migration, the externalisation of its borders and the context for the hazardous way in which migrants are compelled to make such journeys. The workshop was concluded with a design phase for the project led by Professor Elizabeth Brabec, of the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), in which the time frame, core goals and ways to achieve them were agreed upon.
The workshop also provided the opportunity to find out first-hand some of the crucial work being delivered by larger international NGOs, as well as that of local NGOs, for the migrants living on Lesvos. Firstly, the group were able to visit Moria Detention Centre. The conditions within the centre were consistent with those condemned as ‘inhumane’ by 19 local and international NGOs in September 2018. A mixture of hyper securitisation, overcrowding and inadequate access to provisions of services such as education, highlighted the consequences of the intensive internment through the EU’s ‘hotspot’ policy. This visit also facilitated a visit to Médicins Sans Frontières whose work outside of the perimeter of Moria provided crucial healthcare support, as well as educational and therapeutic services within a starkly more humane and dignified environment.
My own interest in the project draws on scholars working in peace education and transitional justice in conflict affected contexts, as well as that of memory studies. Such an approach generates some key question as to the purpose of such memorials. Who, for instance, are such memorials for? What, if any, are the value of memorials beyond that of enshrining memory for those who have lost loved ones? Viewed from an educationalist perspective, what might the pedagogical value of such memorials be? What role might such memorials have in creating discourse between different and disparate communities represented through the creation and destruction of the memorial at Thermi? How might such discourse about the recent events on Lesvos inform understandings of the wider migration ‘crisis’? What challenges do such disparate views present for the such a project? By developing guidelines for memorials sites, this project will inevitably widen the audience of memorials beyond that of just Lesvos or Greece. What opportunities and challenges does such an international dimension present?
The second workshop will take place in Accra, Ghana in October 2019 at the University of Ghana and will be hosted by Dr Delali Badasu.
Martin Preston is a PhD researcher at the School of Education, University of Bristol. His current research focuses on the education of adolescent refugees within Addis Ababa in the context of the actuation of the Global Compact for Refugees.
References
Dickinson, G., Blair, C., & Ott, B. L. (2010). Places of public memory: The rhetoric of museums and memorials. University of Alabama Press.
The new Conservative leader, Boris Johnson, during the July hustings in Darlington complained that, ‘There are too many too often there are parts of our country and parts of London still and other cities as well where English is not spoken by some people as their first language, and that needs to be changed and people need to be allowed to take part in the economy and in society in the way that that shared experience would allow.’ ‘Integration’ continues to be a hot topic. We are looking forward to making an important contribution to these debates with evidence from the research project ‘Everyday Integration’ funded by ESRC that we’ll be starting in October. The project, led by Jon Fox (SPAIS) and also involving Bridget Anderson,Therese O’Toole (SPAIS) and David Manley (Geography) proposes a radically new approach that develops theory and learns from and contributes to the city of Bristol. We are particularly excited to be working with Bristol City Council and 25 community partners in the research design and implementation, and in the co-production of an Integration Strategy for Bristol, and an Integration Toolkit for other UK urban contexts.
In Bristol as in other cities, lives are very different. Histories, cultures, and structures of feeling that in the past were separated by enormous distances can now, as Gilroy puts it ‘be found in the same place, the same time: school, bus, café, cell, waiting room, or traffic jam’ (Gilroy 2004: 70), and here they shape our institutions and our relationships, including racisms and other social divisions. We take as our starting point that integration is about the everyday rather than abstract ‘national values’, and that it must be embedded in very local contexts – in our case, Bristol. We also recognise that the debates about integration must themselves be ‘integrated’ into our understandings of class, racism, and disability for example.
There are many ways in which our local communities are stratified and people are stereotyped and marginalised, and moving within and into the city can be as important as moving across national borders. Mainstream conversations about integration too often float free of these crucial considerations. An integrated city is not without its differences, disputes, or competing interests, but these differences don’t lead to exclusion, segregation, or marginalisation. We are interested in the ways that residents of Bristol experience and practice integration (recognising they may not use the term ‘integration’) and what we can learn from this, not to make everyone come together but so that everyone can come together. Rather than starting with mobility as the ‘integration problem’ and seeing ‘community’ as sedentary, we approach mobility (spatial, social, economic, and civic) as necessary to sustain and develop our relationships. We have developed some really exciting methods that, as you would expect from MMB, engage with the opportunities for mobility: Uber rides for urban snapshots, flash focus groups on Bristol buses, GPS logs to see how people manage mobility within the city. Keep an eye out too for our ‘Integration Roadshows’, four town hall meetings in different parts of Bristol to help build an integration strategy for our city.
We have just advertised for two research assistants on the project – . Further details onthe project can be found on the MMB project page and we will have a website later this year so do check in and see how we’re doing. It is going to be a very productive two years, and we hope you’ll hear more about us in Bristol and beyond.
