A gift exchange relationship?: reflections on doing qualitative research with vulnerable migrants

Recent reflections on the study of forced migration stress the importance of constructing ethically sound research relationships that both respect research participants as autonomous agents and protect them from all forms of harm in the research process. Although this is important, very little research in this area has focused directly on the production of intimacy in the research process and how intimate research relationships that are produced can subsequently become the basis on which disclosures are shared and how this can contribute to both the quality of the research process and output. In this article I reflect on my intimate research relationship with Zimbabwean migrant parents who I interviewed in the United Kingdom. I argue that there is an element of (gift) exchange to intimate qualitative research encounters that yields benefits to both the researcher and the researched. In so doing, I also highlight some of the ethical dilemmas I encountered and how they were overcom

Transnational parenthood and forced migration: the case of asylum-seeking parents who are forcibly separated from their families by immigration laws

Within transnational studies literature, there is a tendency to assume that migrant parents have ready access to paid work once they arrive in countries of destination, which subsequently enables them to maintain transnational ties with children and kin left behind. In this article I argue that more attention needs to be paid to the ways in which immigration regimes and policies construct certain groups of migrants, such as asylum-seekers, as underserving of the rights to sell their labour and the adverse consequences these often have on parents’ identities and transnational capabilities. The argument builds on the case study of a group of Zimbabwean asylum-seeking parents. Like many asylum-seekers escaping politically repressive regimes, they had not managed to bring their children with them when they escaped to the UK, but had imagined that, once in a ‘safe haven’, they would be able to arrange for their children to join them. On arrival, they discovered that the UK immigration system treats parents as asylum-seekers first and parents later (if ever). This article furthers understanding of transnational parenting from the perspectives of a migrant group for whom labour market demand is not the sole objective for its mobility

Bordering Through Religion: A Case Study of Christians from the Muslim Majority World Seeking Asylum in the UK

The current global 'crisis' of the refugee movement has drawn to the forefront longstanding public worries about welcoming and accommodating refugees, especially in liberal democratic States. While religion is central to refuge, very little is known about the experiences of individuals seeking refugee protection on religious grounds and even the racialisation of religious identities within the asylum adjudication system. Drawing on ethnographic research with Christians from Pakistan, who are seeking asylum in the United Kingdom (UK), this paper explores the religious discrimination that this group faces within the context of the UK's current hostile environment. Findings reveal a complex issue of misdirected Islamophobia, along with other multi-layered forms of stereotyping. By exploring and engaging with these issues, the paper aims to highlight the complex 'borders' that those seeking protection on religious grounds have to negotiate as they move through the asylum adjudication system

“Your name does not tick the box”: the intertwining of names, bodies, religion and nationality in the construction of identity within the UK asylum system

This article draws on research with Pakistani Christians seeking asylum in the UK, focusing on those with English/biblical names, exploring, firstly the relationship between names and religious persecution in the country of origin, and secondly the complex interaction between names, bodies, religion and nationality within the UK asylum system. It argues that in responding to the perceived threats of immigration and terrorism, British immigration officials tend to use Pakistani as a proxy for Islam, with those Christians who possess English/biblical names often perceived to be a more suspicious group. It concludes by highlighting the need to take religious identities seriously in immigration policies and practices, especially in the context of the current refugee crisis

Childhood and Children's Migration in the era of COVID-19: A case study of Zimbabwean Children/young people's migration to South Africa

This paper draws on research with a group of Zimbabwean orphaned young people. It explores their experiences of migrating to SA during the COVID-19 period when official borders were closed. It draws attention to the complexities of south-south migration in the era of COVID-19 in a way that situates the orphaned child migrants as having contradictory, fluid identities that are simultaneously victimised, agentic and infinitely more complex than the dominant binary representation of adult/child

A living death: Zimbabwean migrants in the UK who are forced apart from their children

This thesis is concerned with the lived experience of nineteen Zimbabwean migrants I interviewed in the UK who were forced apart from their children for a lengthy period of time by the UK immigration system. It explores the processes through which these migrants were rendered rightless in their country of birth where their government directly threatened their physical lives and how they were forced to migrate to the UK without their children in search of human rights and protection. However, upon arrival in the UK, these migrants' rightlessness was reinforced as the UK immigration and asylum law affords only the most minimal of rights to asylum seekers and other categories of forced migrants. The thesis attempts to uncover the extent to which the Zimbabwean migrants were denied full access to human rights, especially the rights to legally remain, work and to be reunited with their children in the UK. It also seeks to show how, over a period of time, these migrant parents' selves fell apart; they lost total control of their own lives in the UK and witnessed the disintegration of the connections they had to their children, partners, parents, friends and other kin left behind. The thesis argues that to be afforded partial rights, that is, the right to continue to live and breathe (bare life) but not the right to legally belong and/or to exercise personal autonomy is to be condemned to a living death. By exploring the sufferings and dehumanization processes of the Zimbabwean migrants, the thesis seeks to reveal the gap between the UK's rhetorical commitments with regards to promoting and protecting human rights, and the actual practice of its immigration regime

Provision of quality education in the context of Syrian refugee children in the UK: opportunities and challenges

While existing research has shown the importance of the three interrelated domains of the wider policy, the school and home/community environments in the development of quality education for learners, this literature does not fully capture the experiences of the refugee population. In this article we focus on a group of Syrian refugees that came as part of the first large cohort that was welcomed in the UK in December 2015. We adapt Tikly’s quality education frameworks and develop a model that highlights not only the importance of the three intersecting environments, but also the specific inputs/processes that are critical to achieving quality education for refugees. In so doing, we stress the critical role of English as a tool for refugee children’s inclusion and integration in schools. Consequently, the contribution of the paper is an understanding of the inputs/processes that are key to the development of quality education for migrant/refugee children