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 →
Understanding migration and diversity in the age of ‘crises’: join our MA programme
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
The systemic exploitation of migrant agriculture workers in southern Italy: new episode of Conversations with Iris
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 →
Community Sponsorship under lockdown
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
Manus Island is the soul of the system: Lyndsey Stonebridge talks to Omid Tofighian
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 →
Community sponsorship Photo Exhibition 2020
In early 2020 the University of Birmingham ran a photo competition for all volunteers and refugees involved in Community Sponsorship in the UK. A number of entries were received, with a winner announced for each group. This online exhibition is a showcase of all of the photos that were entered into the competition. Volunteer group... Continue Reading →
The end of the “age of migration”? Nando Sigona in conversation with Alan Gamlen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3bZPf7cBb8 In this episode of Conversations with Iris, IRiS Director Professor Nando Sigona talks to Dr Alan Gamlen, Associate Professor of Geography at Monash University, Australia, founding editor-in-chief of the journal Migration Studies (OUP) and co-editor of the "Global Migration and Social Change" book series for Bristol University Press. Inspired by Alan Gamlen's recent COMPAS... Continue Reading →
The impact of Covid-19 on migrant women in the UK
In this episode of Conversations with Iris, Dawn River, academic at the Institute of Research into Superdiversity talks to Dr Rubina Jasani, Programme Director for Global Health at The Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute in Manchester (https://www.hcri.manchester.ac.uk/). As an anthropologist, Rubina has been interested in exploring people’s lived experience of violence, displacement and identities; gender... Continue Reading →
My escape from COVID-19: Turkey’s emergency return programme for Turkish citizens abroad
By Bircan Ciytak (PhD student, University of Birmingham) On April 15, 2020, the Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu stated that, as part of the Covid-19 return program, around 25 thousand Turkish citizens from 70 countries, the majority of whom are students, were flown back to Turkey and kept in quarantine upon arrival for 14 days... Continue Reading →
The banality (and lethality) of racism
Black lives matter and we stand united against racism. We understand that racism is systemic and structural in our society and works because so many are complicit with it. And we all have a part to play in ending it. We understand that undoing that complicity means listening, respecting, learning, mobilising and making space. And... Continue Reading →