By Nicholas Bailey (@imnickbailey) and Nando Sigona (@nandosigona), University of Birmingham https://www.facebook.com/unibirmingham/videos/310858256686260/ BLM became something very different from its previous incarnation on the day George Floyd died. It transitioned from social organisation to symbolising a societal ideal. By any definition, 2020 has been a dramatic year. It was already the year of Australian bushfires, the... Continue Reading →
In this Zoom webinar (registration here) organised by the University of Birmingham's Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS) on 21 September, Professor Nasar Meer will explore the need to re-think two coterminous concerns: the rediscovery of the ‘local’ and the city in particular, and an understanding of the experience of displaced migration in Europe. Drawing... Continue Reading →
Laurence Lessard-Phillips talks to Maureen Lewis, Chief Officer of Walsall Black Sisters Collective and Advisory Board member of Walsall for All, which is how they met. In this episode, Maureen talks about WBSC, living in Walsall, the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the importance of learning from our collective history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7oioSWyaDU&feature=youtu.be
Early in June Sandra Pertek spoke to Pip McKnight of Refugee Women Connect and Hana Leshaj, asylum seeker based in Liverpool and member of Refugee Women Connect Advocacy Group, about the deteriorating reality post COVID-19 for migrants and asylum seekers in the UK, at the time of easing lockdown restrictions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12bNXVGpcIQ&t=140s The unprecedented COVID-19 crisis... Continue Reading →
Care work and domestic labour is the main theme of this episode of Conversations with IRiS. Our guests are two scholars who have investigated closely the intersection of gender and migration for many years. https://youtu.be/Hwr7eXmxqvU "Care workers, our heroes: a double edged sword", Episode 11 of Conversations with Iris Nina Sahraoui is a Post-doctoral Researcher... Continue Reading →
On Monday 6 July at 5pm, IRiS director Nando Sigona is chairing with Bahriye Kemal the second webinar of the Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment collective (SSAHE). The event is entitled: Racism, policing and the politics of surveillance in times of pandemic. Speakers include: Speakers at SSAHE webinar Racism, policing and the politics of... Continue Reading →
https://youtu.be/wVvA2QhT34M Registration for our MA programme on migration is still open. It is a research-intensive programme taught by researchers at the Institute for Research into Superdiversity. To find out more: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/postgraduate/courses/taught/social-policy/migration-studies.aspx
Giuseppe Pugliese is an activist at SOS Rosarno, a civil society organisation that fights against the exploitation of agricultural workers, mostly migrants, in Italy. https://youtu.be/jDjPNcX0Bcs Rosarno is a small town in Calabria, southern Italy, in an area where citrus agriculture is the main economic activity. Migrant workers are essential to keep this economic sector afloat,... Continue Reading →
Professor Jenny Phillimore talks to Ruth Forecast and Sharon Baker of Malvern Welcomes about the challenges for refugees and volunteers in the time of Covid-19. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TpWVI8emb4 To find out more on IRiS Community Sponsorship research: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/superdiversity-institute/community-sponsorship-evaluation/index.aspx
In 2017, the Iranian-Kurdish writer, Behrouz Boochani, published an extraordinary book, No Friend But the Mountains which documented his life imprisoned in the Australian-run immigration detention centre on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. Combining political theory, myth, poetry, memoir, the book rises to the challenge of resisting oppression by creating a new literary form of... Continue Reading →
Conversations with Iris: Podcast on migration, diversity and displacement
The Age of Superdiversity 