Engaging with immigration policy on the ground: a study of Local Authorities in Scotland

This paper focuses on how policies and practices relating to immigration are developed at the local level. It explores how Local Authorities in Scotland plan for and respond to international migration. The Scottish Government has made it clear that it is keen to attract migrants to Scotland and that it would be more proactive in this if it had the relevant policy levers. However it is Local Authorities that need to respond to inflows of migrants in terms of issues such as service provision or community cohesion. This research was carried out as part of the ESRC Future of the UK and Scotland programme and focussed on 16 Local Authority areas, ranging from cities to remote regions. It raises questions about how the cogent arguments of local policy makers can be better represented in national debates about immigration policy

Scotland and Brexit : identity, belonging and citizenship in uncertain times

This article offers some reflections on the lessons readers might take from the papers in this special issue. These are framed through consideration of three key themes: Scottishness, nationhood and national identity; the search for belonging, not least in relation to migrants’ emotional responses to Brexit; and the practical questions that Brexit poses for citizenship(s) and ‘settled’ status. In considering these themes, attention is drawn towards three areas which are ripe for further study. Several of the articles bring into focus the notion of Scottish exceptionalism, provoking questions about what impacts this exceptionalism, or perhaps more importantly perceptions of it, may have at policy and attitudinal levels. Questions too, are posed about the heterogeneity of perception, experience and response to Brexit amongst ECE migrants in Scotland. Finally, it can be seen that Brexit has been a protracted process and a source of anxiety and anguish, not least for those who have made Scotland their home. Looking forward, there will be more Brexit related tension to come, a prospect hugely complicated by the impacts of Covid-19.PostprintPeer reviewe

Imaginaries of the ideal migrant worker : a Lacanian interpretation

The authors acknowledge the ESRC Centre for Population Change RES 62528001 for sponsoring this research.This paper explores the production of ‘ideal’ migrant workers by recruitment agencies in the context of Latvian labour migration to the UK. The fantasies of the ‘ideal’ worker created by recruiters have a particular hold on migrant subjectivity, but they often hide inconsistencies and slippages implicit within the fabric of recruitment discourse and practice. By drawing on the notions of fantasy and desire as developed by Jacques Lacan, this paper analyses the determination of subjectivity in a migration context and explores both unconscious and conscious processes of identification. On the basis of an analysis of drawings sketched by respondents during qualitative interviews conducted in Latvia, it challenges narrower assumptions about migrants’ search behaviour and stable expectations of labour migration, and exposes the split and contested nature of migrant selfhood.It concludes with conceptual observations about the complex process of identification and the unachievable figure of the ‘ideal’ worker.PostprintPeer reviewe

New mobilities across the lifecourse: a framework for analysing demographically-linked drivers of migration

Migration, along with fertility and mortality, is one of the fundamental drivers of population change. Taking the lifecourse as the central concern, the authors set out a theoretical framework and define some key research questions for a programme of research that explores how the linked lives of mobile people are situated in time-space within the economic, social and cultural structures of contemporary society. Drawing on methodologically innovative techniques, these perspectives can offer conceptually significant and policy relevant insights into the changing nature and meanings of migration across the lifecourse

Migrant subjectivities and temporal flexibility of East‐Central European labour migration to the United Kingdom

This paper seeks to broaden existing understandings of migrant worker flexibility drawing on the data from the two ethnographic studies of low-wage employers and Eastern European migrants in Scotland. It focuses on the temporal aspects of flexibility production in employment discourse and temporal expectations about flexible migrant workers. Our findings reveal double movement of interruption and re-making of temporal flexibility, which challenges directional expectations about time and unsettles the assumed connectivity between flexibility’s temporal elements. Uncertainty and instability of migration and employment frameworks undermine the attempts of employers and migrants to manage time, to develop continuous portfolio careers and coherent temporal horizons. Furthermore, contested temporal expectations about flexible migrant workers create fragmented and fractured ‘flexiworkers’ that do not fit within the existing temporal frameworks of signs, routines and rhythms. The paper suggests re-orientation of flexibility debates beyond temporal measurement, outside familiar temporal structures and towards re-definition of flexible worker identities

Accounting and estate management in North-East England c.1700-1770 with particular reference to the Bowes estates

Through the accounts, the thesis examines estate accounting and management practice in the north-east of England, with special reference to the Bowes, in order to ascertain whether estates were managed efficiently as productive investments, and whether accounting aided managerial activity at this early stage of industrial development. George Bowes was the estate proprietor for most of the period in question. His active involvement in the day-to day operations of his estates, coupled with the geographical spread of his activities and his distance from events, necessitated a centralised organisational structure, that was capable of delegating responsibility to stewards in key areas, whilst, at the same time, retaining control at the centre. This was achieved through a unified reporting network, which ensured that management and accounting practices were highly integrated over different activities. Generally, the accounts were based on the bilateral recording of cash receipts and payments, with adjustments for opening and closing debtors, creditors and stocks as appropriate. Charge and discharge accounts did not predominate. Most of the accounts were prepared by the stewards. The majority of the estate accounts were designed to keep track of rights and obligations. There was a close linkage between the form of the accounts and the mode of organisational control, and the accounting procedures were flexible enough to respond to organisational changes. Written agreements underpinned the contractual obligations of third parties, and accounts were used to monitor compliance. Internal audit checks increased their effectiveness as a control mechanism. The survival of cost analysis, profit statements and planning data indicates that profit maximisation was also an important issue - the estates were not treated simply as units of consumption - and that the accounts played an important facilitating role. Colliery viewers were instrumental here. There are indications that a knowledge-power mechanism also existed within the estates, casting doubt on both the mutual- exclusivity of particular explanations of accounting activities, and on the notion that a relevant distinction exists between 'modern' and 'pre-modern' business organisation

Property-based welfare and the search for generational equality

In many countries, the demographic shift towards an ageing population is occurring against a backdrop of welfare state restructuring. The paradigm of asset-based welfare may become increasingly central to these developments as individualised welfare is touted as part of the response to the challenge of funding the care of an ageing population. This article focuses on the framing of housing wealth as a form of asset-based welfare in the UK context. We consider the strengths and weaknesses of housing as a form of asset-based welfare, both in terms of equity between generations and equality within them. We argue that housing market gains have presented many homeowners with significant, and arguably unearned, wealth and that policy-makers could reasonably expect that some of these assets be utilised to meet welfare needs in later life. However, the suitability of asset-based welfare as a panacea to the fiscal costs of an ageing population and welfare state retraction is limited by a number of potential practical and ethical concerns