33 research outputs found
The Self and The System: Social Protection Experiences of Asylum Seekers and Refugees Living in Glasgow
Get PDFSocial connection, (im)material gains and experiences of inclusion of asylum seekers’ and refugees’ volunteering in Glasgow
Get PDFVolunteering is an activity based on a non-profit idea of engagement in productive transactions. This paper examines why and how asylum seekers’ and refugees’ (ASRs) partake in volunteering focusing particularly on the everyday, mundane experiences of volunteering and the role of the material and financial gains as part of it. Data is drawn from 30 interviews conducted with ASRs from 15 countries residing in Glasgow, 20 interviews with the third sector and state agency staff, and supplemented by participant observation conducted in third sector organisations involved in ASRs’ integration and settlement. Despite the individual and situational differences, volunteering appeals to ASRs as it enables them to gain familiarity with and social connectivity in their new environs as well as supplements subsistence needs, providing material and financial benefits. These mundane and seemingly secondary gains from volunteering consist of the flesh of the otherwise abstract processes of inclusion, due to the symbolic and logistic significance they have in the ASRs’ lives
Exploring Inclusive Cities for Migrants in the UK and Sweden: A Scoping Review
Get PDFIn recent years, social work with migrants and ethnic minorities has developed as a field of research and practice. Further, it is recognised in the literature that the increased processes of human mobility in today’s societies have driven a growing focus on inclusive cities, especially in larger urban areas where ethnic diversity and cultural heterogeneity can be found alongside newly arrived migrants seeking a better quality of life, safety, and sanctuary. There is a strong link between individuals’ well‐being and their relationship with spaces, institutions, and resources. Cities and their urban environment have been increasingly identified as key arenas where social, economic, and ecological societal challenges should be addressed. In the context of migration, municipalities have invested in dealing with both inclusive and sustainable policies. However, cities are not uniformly experienced by all. This scoping review seeks to answer how an inclusive city is conceptualised in the Swedish and the UK’s social work literature concerning migration. Using social exclusion and inclusion as the theoretical points of view, we conduct analysis using Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) six‐stage methodological framework. Despite social work playing a major role in the social inclusion of immigrant minorities in cities, through promoting participation, there is a lack of knowledge and research on social work engagement with social inclusion, both in the fields of social policy and practices. This article contributes to an enhanced understanding of what an inclusive city is, and the role of social work in defining and developing social policies and professional interventions for inclusive cities to support the integration of migrants with distinct needs. We offer a much‐needed review of the similarities and differences between the two geographies by analysing the social work perspectives from Sweden and the UK
Agency through strategy: a qualitative study of asylum seekers’ experiences of asylum accommodation in Glasgow
No full textAffordable and appropriate accommodation is a necessity for the integration of asylum seekers; however, the centralised asylum accommodation provision in the UK is exclusionary. It has been a mechanism to exclude asylum seekers from others within their new community, keep them under the state’s control, cast them as undeserving people, and force them to live in difficult circumstances. For asylum seekers, asylum accommodation has served as a daily reminder of temporariness and uncertainty that can hinder them in their quest to effectively settle and prosper. Using data drawn from interviews conducted with 16 asylum seekers and 14 refugees (the latter who have navigated the UK asylum process) living in Glasgow – a city that receives the largest number of asylum seekers and is also the largest dispersal location in the UK (Mulvey, 2015; Strang, Baillot and Mignard, 2017) – this paper explains how asylum accommodation creates spatial and social challenges to integration in asylum seekers’ everyday lives and how they negotiate these challenges. By examining their everyday practices, various strategies are identified that they use to enable them to exert agency within the asylum accommodation system. This research illustrates how asylum seekers living together within shared spaces in Glasgow create social connections and attach meanings to their asylum accommodation. They build strong social connections to exert agency to navigate through the hostile asylum accommodation in Glasgow. In exercising agency in this way, asylum seekers defy negative stereotyping of forced migrants as inactive and passive and offer a conduit to critiquing the asylum accommodation provision and processes in the UK
Moral double standards in the everyday lives of asylum seekers and refugees / Dobles estándares morales en la vida cotidiana de los solicitantes de asilo y los refugiados
Get PDFThis article examines how moral double standards exist within migrant communities as socially embedded responses to structural asymmetries. Interviews conducted with thirty Glasgow-based asylum seekers and refugees saw four participants describe what can be interpreted as moral double standards. Rather than passively endure exclusion, migrants develop moral distinctions to understand the disparities they observe. These moral double standards arise when similar experiences are judged differently depending on who is involved, reflecting internalised hierarchies based on nationality, legal status, visibility, and perceived vulnerability. These judgments function as interpretive strategies shaped by policy signals, bureaucratic procedures, and dominant narratives of deservingness, rather than being evidence of interpersonal hostility or individual failure. Migrants engage in competitive victimhood and express deprived group entitlement not to discredit others, but to assert their own moral legitimacy in systems that distribute care and recognition unevenly. Foregrounding the moral logic behind comparisons, idealised accounts of migrant solidarity are challenged, and moral double standards as structurally induced responses to the selective allocation of value, legitimacy, and care are reframed
The enforced destitution of asylum seekers in the UK
Get PDFAsylum seekers are often destitute upon their arrival in the UK and, thus, they depend primarily on the UK government to support them. Yet, the UK government has been enforcing the destitution of asylum seekers through socio-political and economic mechanisms. Socio-political mechanisms of destitution relate to repressive asylum policies inhibiting asylum seekers’ access to mainstream benefits, employment and their ability to do meaningful activities, while economic mechanisms of destitution relate to an insufficient asylum allowance that leaves asylum seekers destitute. This article uses 50 interviews conducted with asylum seekers, refugees and staff from various organisations to explore asylum seekers' experiences of enforced destitution in Glasgow. Findings indicate that socio-political mechanisms of destitution underpin experiences of destitution and are the precursor to the economic mechanism of destitution. Findings also show that economic mechanisms of destitution challenge asylum seekers’ ability to meet their subsistence needs. Furthermore, the UK government’s enforced destitution of asylum seekers has caused asylum seekers to depend upon the third sector to fill the gaps in meeting their basic needs
Asylum seekers and refugees’ perspectives and experiences of what makes Glasgow welcoming
No full textThis article explores how asylum seekers and refugees experience “welcome” in Glasgow, a city recognised for its proactive approach to migration amid the UK's polarised discourse. Through semi-structured interviews, the study examines three key aspects: encounters with institutional support, the role of community spaces in fostering a sense of welcome, and the impact of interpersonal interactions on evolving experiences of welcome. The findings reveal that personal histories, daily interactions, and the broader socio-political context shape perceptions of welcome, highlighting its complex and dynamic nature
Living in Permanent Temporariness: A Qualitative Study of Asylum Seekers’ Experiences of Asylum Housing in Glasgow
No full textThe term ‘permanent temporariness’ is used to refer to a ‘static experience of being temporary’ and the ‘acquired knowledge that such temporariness is permanent’ (Bailey et al., 2002: 139). In the UK, a centralised National Asylum Support Service system provides support to asylum seekers. Asylum housing, in particular, has been a mechanism to exclude asylum seekers from others within their new community, keep them under the state control, cast them as undeserving people and force them to live in difficult circumstances. Although asylum housing is supposed to be temporary – a place where one lives pending a decision on one’s asylum application – asylum seekers often spend years in a period of waiting. Their circumstances as individuals awaiting an outcome on their asylum application highlights the different degrees of state control over asylum seekers through housing and settlement process (Phillips, 2006). Using qualitative data drawn from interviews with 16 asylum seekers living in Glasgow – a city that receives the largest number of asylum seekers and is also the largest dispersal location in the UK (Mulvey, 2015; Strang, Baillot and Mignard, 2017) – this paper explains how housing creates a state of permanent temporariness in asylum seekers’ everyday lives and how they negotiate living in such circumstances. Findings show that there is variability in terms of time spent in accommodation and vulnerabilities linked to relocation, with asylum seekers experiencing a high logistic and emotional burden. For these individuals, asylum (temporary) housing has served as a daily reminder of temporariness and uncertainty that leads to their inability to effectively settle and prosper
Asylum seekers and refugees’ perspectives on what makes Glasgow welcoming
No full text‘Welcome’ is ‘a form of social oil and is at the heart of making societies function in a healthy and effective fashion’ (Lynch, 2017, p. 182). With the growing political and public rhetoric of ‘unwelcome’ and ‘underserving’ migrants in the UK, Glasgow is one city that has openly welcomed asylum seekers and refugees. Over the past decade, there has been growing solidarity with asylum seekers and refugees in the Glasgow community. Based on semi-structured interviews conducted with 30 asylum seekers and refugees living in Glasgow, this paper explores their feelings of ‘welcome’ in Glasgow. Foregrounding ‘welcome’ as a socially constructed sensation, and welcome as something one can experience, this paper discusses asylum seekers and refugees’ feelings of welcome, trust, security and home, combined to produce a sense of belonging
