Forced labour and migration to the UK

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Sex, slaves and citizens: the politics of anti-trafficking

“Bonded labourers”, “sex slaves”, “victims of organized crime”. Identified as victims of trafficking, these are the terms commonly used to describe migrant women and men in abusive labour relations/conditions in the UK. In this text we argue that the lack of definitional clarity and the constant slippage between “illegal immigration”, “forced prostitution”, and “trafficking” diverts attention from the role of the state in constructing poor work and vulnerable workers. In discussing trafficking in relation to the politics of sex, the politics of labour, and the politics of citizenship, we bring the state back into the analysis of trafficking, and show that the language of trafficking needs to be recognised as part of a more general attempt to depoliticise migration and struggles over citizenship

Connecting discontent with austerity and support for migrants

To what extent has there been a shift in attitudes toward asylum seekers in the UK during the refugee crisis? Bridget Anderson writes that in the wave of support for welcoming refugees there has been a surprising silence about the situation of asylum seekers already in the UK. She argues that if we are to avoid a competition between marginalised and impoverished groups it is necessary to make the case that better services for Syrian arrivals must mean better services for everybody

Mobilizing migrants, making citizens: migrant domestic workers as political agents

It is now more important than ever to consider migrant mobilizations and how political communities are constructed. This paper describes how Waling Waling, a migrant domestic workers' organization, and their support group, Kalayaan, forged citizenship 'from below' and waged a successful campaign to change the immigration status of domestic workers in part through turning constraints into opportunities. It also discusses how the logic of state sovereignty can recapture radical takings, and the opportunities and challenges that are faced in the new political climate of migrants as victims of trafficking

Capability, Care and Personal Assistance:making connections

The Capability Approach/Capability Theory (CA/T) makes the normative claim that freedom to achieve well-being is of primarymoral importance. It has made significant contributions in its original field of Development Studies and has also been used in other fields as a framework to assess the relation between well-being and socio-economic contexts, to inform policies for social change. CA/T’s move from a focus only on resources (redistribution) reveals how the relation between the elements of participation and freedom in the achievement of well-being becomes contested. This paper will use two examples from empirical research conducted with disabled people, their personal assistants and care workers to explore how attention to participation, connection, and affiliation can further develop CA/T

A Very Private Business

This article considers whether there is a specific demand for migrant domestic workers in the UK, or for workers with particular characteristics that in theory could be met by citizens. It discusses how immigration status can make it easier not only to recruit domestic workers, but also to retain them. `Foreignness' may also make the management of the employment relation easier with employers anxious to discover a coincidence of interest with the worker. Employers are not only looking for generic `foreignness' however, but typically also seek particular nationalities or ethnicities of worker, which can raise difficulties for agencies who are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of `race'

¿Quién los necesita? Trabajo de cuidados, Migración y Política Pública

This paper examines how immigration policies on migrant care workers are both pragmatic ‘policy solutions’ and also reflect and construct social ideas and relations about gender, labour and nation, with a particular focus on the UK.  It first considers the regimes that construct the supply and demand for low waged workers in social care to analyse how the creation of a migrant workforce results from the intersection of a wide range of policies and ‘systems effects’. The role of migrant labour in the care sector is however, not reflected in immigration policy, and the paper examines the crucial symbolic dimension which can be overlooked in policy literature. To look at this more closely it considers the two immigration categories that have been available for care work in private homes, au pairs and domestic worker visas, which reflect and construct assumptions about the doing of domestic work in the UK, about the relation between family and work, and ideas of equality, slavery and freedom.Este artículo examina cómo las políticas de inmigración sobre los trabajadores migrantes del sector de los cuidados son "soluciones políticas" pragmáticas, a la misma vez reflejando y construyendo ideas y relaciones sociales en torno al género, el trabajo y la nación. El texto se centra fundamentalmente en el caso del Reino Unido. En primer lugar, considera los regímenes que construyen la oferta y la demanda de trabajadores, con bajos salarios, del sector de los cuidados, analizando cómo la creación de una fuerza de trabajo migrante resulta de la intersección de una amplia gama de políticas y  “efectos de los sistemas". El papel de la mano de obra migrante en el sector de los cuidados no se refleja, sin embargo, en la política de inmigración. El artículo examina la dimensión simbólica crucial que se puede pasar por alto en la literatura política. Para ver esto más de cerca, el texto considera las dos categorías inmigratorias que han estado disponibles para el trabajo de cuidados en casas particulares, au pairs y visas de trabajadoras domésticas, que reflejan y construyen supuestos sobre el trabajo doméstico en el Reino Unido, sobre la relación entre la familia y el trabajo, así como ideas de igualdad, esclavitud y libertad

Appalachian Migrant Stances

The article explores the economic and industrial opportunities for Appalachian native speakers in the industrial Midwest countries after the World War I. Topics discussed include the characteristics of migration diaspora in Appalachian migrants, the Southern migrants metropolitan area lifestyle in Detroit, Michigan and the impacts of ethnographic factors to Appalachian migrants. Other topics include the social and identifiable factors for migrants