Race, Nation and Migration

This blog series, launched in February 2021, reframes thinking on the relationship between (im)mobilites, race and the national. Curated by Julia O’Connell Davidson and Bridget Anderson it brings together eight key scholars whose work examines the connections between these three areas. The series highlights the need to understand these connections in order to redress historic and contemporary injustice, tackle racism and affect systemic change in immigration and citizenship regimes.

• Britain as the spoils of empireJune 15, 2021
  Race, nation and migration – the blog series reframing thinking on movement and racism. By Nadine El-Enany. My parents travelled from Egypt to Britain in 1977, moving from London to Exeter, a city in the South West of England, in 1978. For my parents, Exeter was a place they felt fortunate to have found, an idyll… Read more: Britain as the spoils of empire
• Race and the making of migration regimesMay 27, 2021
  Race, nation and migration – the blog series reframing thinking on movement and racism. By Radhika Mongia. Indian Migration and Empire: A Colonial Genealogy of the Modern State (2018) is an investigation into the history of state control over migration. At the heart of the book are two main questions: first, what histories can we chart… Read more: Race and the making of migration regimes
• Intimate state encounters: Brexit, European Roma and contested home-landsMay 18, 2021
  Race, nation and migration – the blog series reframing thinking on movement and racism. By Rachel Humphris. Brexit and the UK’s relationship with the European Union foregrounds questions of identity, nationhood and who is included or excluded. For those identified as ‘Roma’ these are perennial questions as purported ‘European citizenship’ made little difference to their position… Read more: Intimate state encounters: Brexit, European Roma and contested home-lands
• Racism and the UK’s immigration systemMay 11, 2021
  Race, nation and migration – the blog series reframing thinking on movement and racism. By Maya Goodfellow. ‘Hard Brexit,’ Labour’s Andy Burnham warned a few months after the EU referendum result in 2016, would ‘turn Britain into a place it has never been: divided, hostile, narrow-minded.’ This is a theme that has persisted since the initial… Read more: Racism and the UK’s immigration system
• The permanent ‘crisis’ of the borders of ‘Europe’April 20, 2021
  Race, nation and migration – the blog series reframing thinking on movement and racism. By Nicholas De Genova The borders of Europe seem to be the site of a protracted crisis. The fires that devastated the scandalously overcrowded Moria detention camp on 9 September 2020 on the Greek island of Lesvos, which summarily displaced upwards of… Read more: The permanent ‘crisis’ of the borders of ‘Europe’
• Deporting Black Britons: mobility and race-making in the life stories of criminalised ‘deportees’March 23, 2021
  Race, nation and migration – the blog series reframing thinking on movement and racism. By Luke de Noronha. My recently published book, Deporting Black Britons: Portraits of Deportation to Jamaica (2020, Manchester University Press), traces the life stories of people who have been exiled from their homes in Britain. The four men who feature most… Read more: Deporting Black Britons: mobility and race-making in the life stories of criminalised ‘deportees’
• Moving difference: Brazilians in LondonMarch 16, 2021
  Race, nation and migration – the blog series reframing thinking on movement and racism. By Angelo Martins Junior. Portuguese version here. The freedom to move from place to place is a privilege in today’s world, and so ideas about human mobility and human difference are necessarily interwoven. When white people from the global north move… Read more: Moving difference: Brazilians in London
• National sovereignty and postcolonial racismMarch 2, 2021
  Race, nation and migration – the blog series reframing thinking on movement and racism. By Nandita Sharma. A focus on migration, mobility and ideas of ‘race’ are crucial aspects of nationalist thought and practice. Indeed, today, racism operates through nationalism. Yet, while racism has been largely delegitimised, nationalism has not. The delegitimisation of racism does… Read more: National sovereignty and postcolonial racism
• MMB good reads on race, nation and migrationFebruary 23, 2021
  A new blog series reframing thinking on movement and racism. Introduced by Julia O’Connell Davidson and Bridget Anderson. Not so long ago, many liberal thinkers in countries of the global north were comfortable narrating the story of liberal societies as a romance in which enlightened heroes gradually overcame the forces of barbarism. It was a… Read more: MMB good reads on race, nation and migration