The discourse of Olympic security 2012 : London 2012

This paper uses a combination of CDA and CL to investigate the discursive realization of the security operation for the 2012 London Olympic Games. Drawing on Didier Bigo’s (2008) conceptualisation of the ‘banopticon’, it address two questions: what distinctive linguistic features are used in documents relating to security for London 2012; and, how is Olympic security realized as a discursive practice in these documents? Findings suggest that the documents indeed realized key banoptic features of the banopticon: exceptionalism, exclusion and prediction, as well as what we call ‘pedagogisation’. Claims were made for the exceptional scale of the Olympic events; predictive technologies were proposed to assess the threat from terrorism; and documentary evidence suggests that access to Olympic venues was being constituted to resemble transit through national boundarie

Doing research in immigration removal centres: ethics, emotions and impact

Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs) are deeply contested institutions that rarely open their doors to independent research. In this article we discuss some of the complications we faced in conducting the first national study of everyday life in them. As we will set out, research relationships were difficult to forge due to low levels of trust, and unfamiliarity with academic research. At the same time, many participants had unrealistic expectations about our capacity to assist while most exhibited high levels of distress. We were not immune from the emotional burden of the field sites. Such matters were compounded by the limited amount of published information about life in IRCs and a lack of ethical guidelines addressing such places. Drawing on related literature from prison sociology, we use our experiences in IRCs to set out a methodological account of understanding, ethics, and impact within these complex sites

Migration from China to the EU: the challenge within Europe

At the beginning of the 21st Century, we have witnessed a rapid growth in Chinese immigration to the European Union (EU), which has had a profound impact on local Chinese communities in various ways. This chapter aims to reveal the latest developments in Chinese immigration in the EU, as well as the new dynamics, features and impacts on local Chinese communities. The above questions are addressed by a combination of secondary data analysis and our own observation in Italy and the UK in recent years. Some challenging issues facing Chinese communities are highlighted

Making the case for Temporary Migrant Worker Programmes: Evidence from the UK's rural guestworker (‘SAWS’) scheme

The UK has had a Temporary Migrant Worker Programme (TMWP) for agricultural ‘guestworkers’ since 1943. Most recently referred to as the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS), SAWS accommodated 25,000 workers per annum by its 2004 peak. However, the UK government then announced the scheme’s closure (initially for 2011, but then delayed until 2014). This paper examines employers’ response to this closure and, specifically, juxtaposes the academic critiques of TMWPs with the very strong employer preference for them. This preference, the paper concludes, is about the way in which TMWPs allow labour to be more readily and more extensively controlled, and, also allow employers access to ‘better quality’ workers. Considering these benefits of quality and control, alongside the academic critiques, the paper concludes that SAWS should be retained, but with major changes

NILAI PENTING DAN STRATEGI PENGELOLAAN KAWASAN BENTENG WUNA

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui dan menjelaskan unsur nilai penting dan untuk merumuskan sebuah strategi pengolaan yang baik pada situs Benteng Wuna. Metode penelitian yang dipakai dalam penelitian ini adalah deskriptif-analitif dan memiliki jenis penelitian kualitatif. Dalam penelitian ini melibatkan unsur stakeholder atau pemangku kepentingan untuk mengetahui pihak yang berkepentingan terhadap upaya pengelolaan. Dari hasil penelitian yang dilakukan Benteng Wuna diketahui memiliki unsur nilai penting, yaitu nilai penting sejarah, nilai penting ilmu pengetahuan, nilai penting kebudayaan, dan nilai penting ekonomi. Sementara untuk strategi pengelolaan yang dapat diterapkan yakni strategi berbasis partisipatif masyarakat dan berbagi tanggung jawab.&nbsp

Researching mobility barriers: the European visa database

This research note introduces a new European Visa Database of relevance to analysts interested in exploring and explaining causes and consequences of contemporary policy barriers to mobility. It outlines the existing research, positions the empirics in this context and sets out how the database was constructed. Selected statistics on the EU and the USA are also presented. The dataset measures three key dimensions of mobility regimes: visa requirements, consular coverage abroad and issuing practices. It contains data on the EU-Schengen states in the period 2005-2012 for all third countries abroad, and similar but less extensive information on the UK and the USA. Hitherto, this material has not been available in a format easily amenable for research. The database collects and presents the public government data in a systematised and readily viewable form, thereby reducing entry barriers for future studies of migration control. It also contains a Mobility Barriers Index providing restrictiveness scores taking all three dimensions into account. The database thus seeks to facilitate and encourage further quantitative inquiry into mobility barriers, and provides a tool for qualitative researchers to contextualise their findings in a wider case universe