Contesting The Hostile Environment

Social Scientists Against The Hostile Environment (SSAHE) is a project of the Special Interest Group (SIG) on Refugees, Migration and Settlement established by some Fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS). We work as social scientists on issues of racism and migration in the UK and globally. We also believe in our duty as social scientists to use our research to inform political debates and to challenge the ‘Hostile Environment’ for migrants produced by current government policy.Read our new reporthere. Find out about our upcoming eventhere. Read about our past eventshere.

Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment

Social Scientists Against The Hostile Environment conference

Birkbeck, University of London

Social Scientists Against The Hostile Environment (SSAHE) work on issues of racism and migration in the UK and globally. We also believe in our duty as social scientists to use our research to inform political debates and to challenge the Hostile Environment produced by current government policy for migrants and all racialised groupings.We held our first public event<a href="https://ssahe.net/2018/02/15/bordering-everyday-racism-and-the-hostile-environment-february-2018/" title="https://ssahe.net/2018/02/15/bordering-everyday-racism-and-the-hostile-environment-february-2018/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer"> in February 2018</a>, published a <a href="https://ssahe.net/report/" title="https://ssahe.net/report/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">major report </a>in January 2020, and have been holding regular webinars since 2020, which bring together academic and activist voices on a range of pressing topics relating to migration and racism.Our June 2024 conference - our first major face to face event since lockdown - will reflect on our work to date, and chart a path forward as the Hostile Environment continues to deepen and extend. We will focus on how the lives of migrants and racialised groupings are being made increasingly unlivable, both in the UK and globally, how universities and academic social sciences are made complicit in this process, and how we can contest and resist this reality. Speakers and chairs:Floya Anthias is Professor Emerita of Sociology and Social Justice at Roehampton University, London. She has written extensively on race, class, gender and migration.Zoe Bantleman is Legal Director of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA), a barrister, and an editor of the Journal of Immigration, Asylum &amp; Nationality Law.Umut Erel is a Professor of Sociology at the Open University. Her research focuses on migrant families, paid and unpaid work, and citizenship.Don Flynn is a migrant rights activist, former director of Migrants' Rights Network, and editor of Chartist magazine.Ben Gidley is a Reader in Sociology and Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck University of London, and previously a Senior Researcher at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at Oxford University.Bahriye Kemal is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent. Her research interests are in border/broader crossing geographic and disciplinary boundaries.Eleonore Kofman is Professor of Social Policy in the School of Law at Middlesex University. She is co-Director of the UKRI’s Migration and Displacement stream, co-Investigator of the project Gendered Dynamics of Labour Migrations, and an IMISCOE board member.Gwyneth Lonergen is a Lecturer in the Department: Social Sciences at Northumbria University. She has written extensively on the politics of migration, including on issues around reproductive justice, deservingness and detention.Gertjan Lucas is an Assistant Professor in Strategy and Leadership at the Nottingham University Business School, University of Nottingham, and serves on the University and Colleges Union (UCU) Migrant Members Standing Committee and as Equality Officer at the University of Nottingham UCU branch.Angelo Martins is Professor in Sociology at the University of Birmingham and affiliated to the Institute for Research into International Migration and Superdiversity (IRiS). He undertakes ethnographic research in the areas of difference, intersectionality, social inequalities and decolonial sociological approaches to contribute to debates on Migration, as well as on ‘Modern Slavery’.Rebecca Murray is a Lecturer in Sociological Studies in the Department of Sociological Studies at the University of Sheffleld. She is a member of the Sanctuary advisory group and the Migration Research Group at the University of Sheffield. Rebecca’s extensive practice and research in relation to bordering and post compulsory education developed from young migrant-led grassroots campaigning and advocacy initiatives.Pragna Patel is the former director and founding member of Southall Black Sisters’ and Women Against Fundamentalisms. She is also a member of Feminist Dissent and has written extensively on race, gender and religion.Ann Phoenix is Professor of Psychosocial Studies at University College London’s Institute of Education and Social Research Institute. Her recent research and publications have been topics including: boys and masculinities, young people and consumption, serial migration, visibly ethnically mixed households, and language brokering in transnational families.Rachel Rosen is Professor of Sociology at UCL Institute of Education and Social Research Institute. Her research focuses on marginalised children and families, especially those with precarious immigration status; the intersection of neoliberal welfare and border regimes which shape their lives; and their practices of sustenance, care, social reproduction, and solidarity.Nando Sigona is Chair of International Migration and Forced Displacement in the Department of Social Policy, Sociology and Criminology at the University of Birmingham, and Director of IRiS. He research, commentary and writing focuses on irregular migration; statelessness; youth and family migration; Romani politics and anti-Gypsyism; asylum in Europe and the Mediterranean region; intra-EU mobility and the making of EU citizenship.Corinne Squire is Chair in Global Inequalities in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol. She is known for her research on activism and resistant citizenship and expertise in narrative research.Nira Yuval-Davis is Professor Emeritus, Honorary Director of the Research Centre on Migration, Refugees and Belonging (CMRB) at the University of East London. She has written widely on intersected gendered nationalisms, racisms, fundamentalisms, citizenships, identities, belonging/and everyday bordering as well as on situated intersectionality and dialogical epistemology.

Agenda

27 June: Registration 5:30 pm, outside B33 Birkbeck main building

Welcome: Nira Yuval-Davis. 
Speakers: Ben Gidley, Eleonore Kofman, Don Flynn. Chair: Umut Erel.
Room B33, Birkbeck main building


Panel 1: Looking back, looking forwards, 6pm - 8pm 

28 June: 10 am registration outside B35, Birkbeck main building

Speakers: Nira Yuval-Davis, Angelo Martins Jr, Zoe Bantleman. Chair: Rachel Rosen.


Panel 2: Dehumanisation, criminalisation, contestation

Speakers: Gertjan Lucas (UCU Migrant Standing Committee), Rebecca Murray, Gwyneth Lonergen. Chair: Corinne Squire/Bahriye Kemal.


Panel 3: The Hostile Environment and Higher Education: Complicity, resistance

Workshops 3-5 pm

Speakers: Ann Phoenix, Nando Sigona, Pragna Patel. Chair: Floya Anthias.

Contesting The Hostile Environment

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Contesting The Hostile Environment

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