Louise Waite
Biographic Data
| ID | 3584516 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Louise Waite |
| GIVEN NAMES | Louise |
| FAMILY NAME | Waite |
| SIGNATURE | WAITE L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Leeds |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8664-3426 |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 712 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
Faith, bordering and modern slavery: A UK case study
In this paper we consider the imbrication of UK immigration and border controls into support environments of the anti-modern slavery sphere. We draw on the findings of a 3.5 years ESRC-funded study to explore how the increasingly strident government anti-migrant agenda - broadly seen in the ‘hostile environment’, a culture of disbelief and an overarching preeminence of border controls over human rights protections - is percolating into care provi…
Raising concerns on the dangers of linking biological invasions to human migration
Unfreedom in labour relations: From a politics of rescue to a politics of solidarity
In this introduction to the Special Forum we seek to explore the possibilities for challenging labor unfreedoms through exercising solidarity. We critique the prevailing framings and dominant politics of ‘combatting modern-day slavery’ – or what we refer to here as contemporary abolitionism.We argue that questions of coercion, control, and confinement are nonetheless increasingly pertinent to the analysis of contemporary labor relations and labor…
The Need for Inter/Subdisciplinary Thinking in Critical Conceptualizations of Displacement
Displacement occupies an ambiguous position in contemporary geographical thought. Displacement through gentrification and regeneration has gained prominence in critical urban geography, even as critical migration, border, and citizenship studies have simultaneously produced a robust literature on transnational displacement and internally displaced persons. In response to emerging crises of global and urban order, this article adds to a considerat…
Fighting or fuelling forced labour? The Modern Slavery Act 2015, irregular migrants and the vulnerabilising role of the UK’s hostile environment
Abolishing ‘modern slavery’ has now achieved international policy consensus. The most recent UK initiative – the 2015 Modern Slavery Act (MSA) – includes amongst other aspects tougher prison sentencing for perpetrators and the creation of an independent anti-slavery commissioner to oversee its implementation. However, drawing on research into forced labour among people seeking asylum in England, this article argues that when considered alongside …
Distinctive or Professionalised? Understanding the Postsecular in Faith-Based Responses to Trafficking, Forced Labour and Slavery in the UK
This article examines the intersection of religious faith and the ‘fight against modern slavery’ in the UK, as yet unexplored in sociological literature. Analysis of faith-based organisations’ activities in this area challenges understandings of a postsecular rapprochement between faith and secular actors – where postsecular is used by some scholars to refer to the re-emergence of faith in the public sphere, and where we understand rapprochement …
The Modern Slavery Agenda: Policy, politics and practice in the UK
The Modern Slavery Agenda: Policy, Politics and Practice in the UK
Modern slavery, in the form of labour exploitation, domestic servitude, sexual trafficking, child labour and cannabis farming, is still growing in the UK and industrialised countries, despite the introduction of laws to try to stem it. This hugely topical book is the first to assess the legislation critically, using evidence from across the field, and to offer strategies for improvement in policy and practice. The book argues that, contrary to it…
New and enduring narratives of vulnerability: Rethinking Stories About the Figure of the Refugee
The role of vulnerability in relation to mechanisms of governance and social welfare practices has received growing interest, but how ‘vulnerability’ is operationalised in asylum policy is less well understood. This paper explores narratives of vulnerability in relation to the figure of the refugee. Taking a narrative approach to stories told about refugees across Europe, it puts forward the argument that access to asylum has gradually moved away…
Asylum Seekers and the Labour Market: Spaces of Discomfort and Hostility
This article examines the relationship in the UK between asylum-seeking and the labour market. Since 2002, asylum-seekers have not been allowed to work unless they have waited over twelve months for an initial decision on their asylum claim. This policy change occurred as employment was considered a ‘pull factor’ encouraging unfounded asylum claims. Despite not having the right to work, asylum-seekers – and especially those whose applications for…
Precarious Irregular Migrants and Their Sharing Economies: A Spectrum of Transactional Laboring Experiences
There is growing interest in the sharing economy as a different way of living in neoliberal capitalist societies, but this discussion is frequently heavily classed and the ethos generally rests on excess capacity of goods and services. This article intervenes in this emerging body of writing to argue that it is equally important to explore the types of sharing and exchange that are survival-compelled among those with precarious livelihoods. Preca…
Socio-legal status and experiences of forced labour among asylum seekers and refugees in the UK
Socio-legal status determines the differential rights to residence, work and social welfare that accrue to migrants depending on their particular immigration status. This paper presents analysis of original empirical data generated in qualitative interviews with migrants who had both made a claim for asylum and experienced conditions of forced labour in the UK. Following an outline of the divergent socio-legal statuses assigned to individual migr…
I think I'm more free with them'-Conflict, Negotiation and Change in Intergenerational Relations in African Families Living in Britain
While the family is increasingly being recognised as pivotal to migration, there remain too few studies examining how migration impacts on intergenerational relationships. Although traditional intergenerational gaps are intensified by migration, arguably there has been an over-emphasis on the divisions between ‘traditional’ parents and ‘modern’ children at the expense of examining the ways in which both generations adapt. As Foner and Dreby [2011…
Vulnerability, Exploitation and Migrants: Insecure Work in a Globalised Economy
Globalization, the economic crisis and related policies of austerity have led to a growth in extreme exploitation at work, with migrants particularly vulnerable. This book explores the lives of the gr
Asylum, Immigration Restrictions and Exploitation: Hyper-precarity as a lens for understanding and tackling forced labour
The topic of forced labour is receiving a growing amount of political and policy attention across the globe. This paper makes two clear contributions to emerging debates. First, we focus on a group who are seldom explicitly considered in forced labour debates: forced migrants who interact with the asylum system. We build an argument of the production of susceptibility to forced labour through the United Kingdom’s (UK) asylum system, discussing th…
Precarious Lives: Forced Labour, Exploitation and Asylum
Precarious Lives: Forced labour, exploitation and asylum
"This ground breaking book presents the first evidence of forced labour among displaced migrants who seek refuge in the UK. Through a critical engagement with contemporary debates about precarity, unfreedom and socio-legal status, the book explores how asylum and forced labour are linked, and enmeshed in a broader picture of modern slavery produced through globalised working conditions. Drawing on original evidence generated in fieldwork with ref…
Relationship Quality and Shared Activity in Marital and Cohabiting Dyads in the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project, Wave 2
The separate conceptualization of shared activity and relationship quality provides one way to examine the dynamic nature of marital quality in later life such as the extent to which shared activities among couples promote or detract from relationships' quality. Analyses for individuals and for dyads are discussed
Hyper-precarious lives: Migrants, work and forced labour in the Global North
This paper unpacks the contested inter-connections between neoliberal work and welfare regimes, asylum and immigration controls, and the exploitation of migrant workers. The concept of precarity is explored as a way of understanding intensifying and insecure post-Fordist work in late capitalism. Migrants are centrally implicated in highly precarious work experiences at the bottom end of labour markets in Global North countries, including becoming…
Multiply vulnerable populations: Mobilising a Politics of Compassion From the 'Capacity to Hurt
This paper reflects on the concept of insecurity defined as ‘the capacity to hurt’. It begins by considering asylum seekers and refugees as hyper-precarious groups that have experienced bodily, material and psychological ‘hurt’ in the UK. At the same time, the paper considers how these hyper-precarious groups are perceived to have the capacity to hurt (bodily, materially, psychologically and spatially) the majority population. Having drawn out tw…
Citizenship, Belonging and Intergenerational Relations in African Migration
This book explores migration experiences of African families across two generations in Britain, France and South Africa. Global processes of African migration are investigated, and the lived experienc
Negotiating Difference through Everyday Encounters: The Case of Sexual Orientation and Religion and Belief
This paper argues for geographers to be more attentive to the potentially competing values, interests, and rights of the equality strands (race, gender, disability, religion and belief, sexual orientation, age). We focus on two that are most commonly assumed to experience tensions: religion/belief and sexual orientation. Drawing on focus groups with heterosexual Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus and lesbian and gay people of faith we explore …
Accession 8 Migration and the Proactive and Defensive Engagement of Social Citizenship
Following the expansion of the European Union in 2004 unprecedented numbers of Accession 8 migrants from Central and Eastern Europe entered the UK. These migrants are often concentrated in particular urban neighbourhoods, which are already routinely home to diverse communities and/or characterised by high levels of social deprivation. Using original data from a study in a northern English city, this paper explores the ways in which established co…
Mistreatment and Psychological Well-being Among Older Adults: Exploring the Role of Psychosocial Resources and Deficits
Older adults with fewer psychosocial resources or more psychosocial deficits seem to be more vulnerable to mistreatment, and mistreatment seems particularly detrimental to psychological well-being for these people
Creating a space for young women's voices: Using ‘participatory video drama’ in Uganda
This article draws upon research that explored the experiences of young women in relation to sexual health in Uganda with a view to enhancing gender-sensitive strategies. We have coined the phrase ‘participatory video drama’ to describe the exploratory methodology that the young women participants in our research used to present stories about their lives. The aim of this article is to suggest that ‘participatory video’ (PV) and ‘participatory vid…
Hyper-precarious lives: Migrants, work and forced labour in the Global North
This paper unpacks the contested inter-connections between neoliberal work and welfare regimes, asylum and immigration controls, and the exploitation of migrant workers. The concept of precarity is explored as a way of understanding intensifying and insecure post-Fordist work in late capitalism. Migrants are centrally implicated in highly precarious work experiences at the bottom end of labour markets in Global North countries, including becoming…
A Place and Space for a Critical Geography of Precarity
This article explores growing interest in the term 'precarity' within the social sciences and asks whether there is a place for a 'critical geography of precarity' amid this emerging field. Referring to life worlds characterised by uncertainty and insecurity, the term precarity is double-edged as it implies both a condition and a possible rallying point for resistance. Such areas should be of concern and interest to human geography yet engagement…
The Experiences of Accession 8 Migrants in England: Motivations, Work and Agency
Drawing on a recently completed qualitative study in a northern English city, this paper explores motivations and experiences of Accession 8 (A8) migrants who have entered the United Kingdom following the expansion of the European Union in 2004. The paper considers commonalities and differences among the group of migrants routinely referred to as A8 migrant workers/labourers. Diversity is apparent in three particular respects: first, the motivati…
Measuring Social Isolation Among Older Adults Using Multiple Indicators From the NSHAP Study
We find that 17 indicators combine into two reliable scales. The social disconnectedness scale has a two-factor structure, including the restricted social network dimension and the social inactivity dimension. The perceived isolation scale also comprises two dimensions: lack of support and loneliness. We find that social disconnectedness does not vary across age groups, but the oldest old feel more isolated than the young old. Social disconnected…
Negotiating Difference through Everyday Encounters: The Case of Sexual Orientation and Religion and Belief
This paper argues for geographers to be more attentive to the potentially competing values, interests, and rights of the equality strands (race, gender, disability, religion and belief, sexual orientation, age). We focus on two that are most commonly assumed to experience tensions: religion/belief and sexual orientation. Drawing on focus groups with heterosexual Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus and lesbian and gay people of faith we explore …
Multiply vulnerable populations: Mobilising a Politics of Compassion From the 'Capacity to Hurt
This paper reflects on the concept of insecurity defined as ‘the capacity to hurt’. It begins by considering asylum seekers and refugees as hyper-precarious groups that have experienced bodily, material and psychological ‘hurt’ in the UK. At the same time, the paper considers how these hyper-precarious groups are perceived to have the capacity to hurt (bodily, materially, psychologically and spatially) the majority population. Having drawn out tw…
Good relations’ among neighbours and workmates? The everyday encounters of Accession 8 migrants and established communities in Urban England
Drawing on data generated in a recently completed qualitative study in a northern, English city, this paper explores the everyday social encounters of Accession 8 (A8) migrants who entered the UK following the expansion of the European Union in 2004. A number of options from permanent residence in another Member State on the one hand, to more fleeting circulatory and multiple short‐term moves on the other, now exist for these new European citizen…
New and enduring narratives of vulnerability: Rethinking Stories About the Figure of the Refugee
The role of vulnerability in relation to mechanisms of governance and social welfare practices has received growing interest, but how ‘vulnerability’ is operationalised in asylum policy is less well understood. This paper explores narratives of vulnerability in relation to the figure of the refugee. Taking a narrative approach to stories told about refugees across Europe, it puts forward the argument that access to asylum has gradually moved away…
Socio-legal status and experiences of forced labour among asylum seekers and refugees in the UK
Socio-legal status determines the differential rights to residence, work and social welfare that accrue to migrants depending on their particular immigration status. This paper presents analysis of original empirical data generated in qualitative interviews with migrants who had both made a claim for asylum and experienced conditions of forced labour in the UK. Following an outline of the divergent socio-legal statuses assigned to individual migr…
I think I'm more free with them'-Conflict, Negotiation and Change in Intergenerational Relations in African Families Living in Britain
While the family is increasingly being recognised as pivotal to migration, there remain too few studies examining how migration impacts on intergenerational relationships. Although traditional intergenerational gaps are intensified by migration, arguably there has been an over-emphasis on the divisions between ‘traditional’ parents and ‘modern’ children at the expense of examining the ways in which both generations adapt. As Foner and Dreby [2011…
Creating a space for young women's voices: Using ‘participatory video drama’ in Uganda
This article draws upon research that explored the experiences of young women in relation to sexual health in Uganda with a view to enhancing gender-sensitive strategies. We have coined the phrase ‘participatory video drama’ to describe the exploratory methodology that the young women participants in our research used to present stories about their lives. The aim of this article is to suggest that ‘participatory video’ (PV) and ‘participatory vid…
Precarious Irregular Migrants and Their Sharing Economies: A Spectrum of Transactional Laboring Experiences
There is growing interest in the sharing economy as a different way of living in neoliberal capitalist societies, but this discussion is frequently heavily classed and the ethos generally rests on excess capacity of goods and services. This article intervenes in this emerging body of writing to argue that it is equally important to explore the types of sharing and exchange that are survival-compelled among those with precarious livelihoods. Preca…
The Need for Inter/Subdisciplinary Thinking in Critical Conceptualizations of Displacement
Displacement occupies an ambiguous position in contemporary geographical thought. Displacement through gentrification and regeneration has gained prominence in critical urban geography, even as critical migration, border, and citizenship studies have simultaneously produced a robust literature on transnational displacement and internally displaced persons. In response to emerging crises of global and urban order, this article adds to a considerat…
Relationship Quality and Shared Activity in Marital and Cohabiting Dyads in the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project, Wave 2
The separate conceptualization of shared activity and relationship quality provides one way to examine the dynamic nature of marital quality in later life such as the extent to which shared activities among couples promote or detract from relationships' quality. Analyses for individuals and for dyads are discussed
Neo-assimilationist citizenship and belonging policies in Britain: Meanings for transnational migrants in northern England
Asylum Seekers and the Labour Market: Spaces of Discomfort and Hostility
This article examines the relationship in the UK between asylum-seeking and the labour market. Since 2002, asylum-seekers have not been allowed to work unless they have waited over twelve months for an initial decision on their asylum claim. This policy change occurred as employment was considered a ‘pull factor’ encouraging unfounded asylum claims. Despite not having the right to work, asylum-seekers – and especially those whose applications for…
Accession 8 Migration and the Proactive and Defensive Engagement of Social Citizenship
Following the expansion of the European Union in 2004 unprecedented numbers of Accession 8 migrants from Central and Eastern Europe entered the UK. These migrants are often concentrated in particular urban neighbourhoods, which are already routinely home to diverse communities and/or characterised by high levels of social deprivation. Using original data from a study in a northern English city, this paper explores the ways in which established co…
Fighting or fuelling forced labour? The Modern Slavery Act 2015, irregular migrants and the vulnerabilising role of the UK’s hostile environment
Abolishing ‘modern slavery’ has now achieved international policy consensus. The most recent UK initiative – the 2015 Modern Slavery Act (MSA) – includes amongst other aspects tougher prison sentencing for perpetrators and the creation of an independent anti-slavery commissioner to oversee its implementation. However, drawing on research into forced labour among people seeking asylum in England, this article argues that when considered alongside …
Asylum, Immigration Restrictions and Exploitation: Hyper-precarity as a lens for understanding and tackling forced labour
The topic of forced labour is receiving a growing amount of political and policy attention across the globe. This paper makes two clear contributions to emerging debates. First, we focus on a group who are seldom explicitly considered in forced labour debates: forced migrants who interact with the asylum system. We build an argument of the production of susceptibility to forced labour through the United Kingdom’s (UK) asylum system, discussing th…
Mistreatment and Psychological Well-being Among Older Adults: Exploring the Role of Psychosocial Resources and Deficits
Older adults with fewer psychosocial resources or more psychosocial deficits seem to be more vulnerable to mistreatment, and mistreatment seems particularly detrimental to psychological well-being for these people
Faith, bordering and modern slavery: A UK case study
In this paper we consider the imbrication of UK immigration and border controls into support environments of the anti-modern slavery sphere. We draw on the findings of a 3.5 years ESRC-funded study to explore how the increasingly strident government anti-migrant agenda - broadly seen in the ‘hostile environment’, a culture of disbelief and an overarching preeminence of border controls over human rights protections - is percolating into care provi…
Unfreedom in labour relations: From a politics of rescue to a politics of solidarity
In this introduction to the Special Forum we seek to explore the possibilities for challenging labor unfreedoms through exercising solidarity. We critique the prevailing framings and dominant politics of ‘combatting modern-day slavery’ – or what we refer to here as contemporary abolitionism.We argue that questions of coercion, control, and confinement are nonetheless increasingly pertinent to the analysis of contemporary labor relations and labor…
Distinctive or Professionalised? Understanding the Postsecular in Faith-Based Responses to Trafficking, Forced Labour and Slavery in the UK
This article examines the intersection of religious faith and the ‘fight against modern slavery’ in the UK, as yet unexplored in sociological literature. Analysis of faith-based organisations’ activities in this area challenges understandings of a postsecular rapprochement between faith and secular actors – where postsecular is used by some scholars to refer to the re-emergence of faith in the public sphere, and where we understand rapprochement …
Some People Drink as the Body Should Feel a Little Ease’: Understanding Body Management amongst Manual Labourers in Western India
Despite development studies’ core concern with vulnerable bodies, the discipline has been somewhat sluggish in embracing the expansive and fruitful literature around embodiment. One aspect of this terrain is ‘body management’; a topic often discussed in contexts of Western consumerism where the body is perceived as a malleable entity subject to transformation. This article discusses a group of manual labourers in India who are not reflexively rec…
How is labouring enabled through the body? A case study of manual workers in rural India
Manual labour has become less prevalent in western contexts, but livelihoods based on physical work remain pervasive in many developing countries. It is such a world of seasonally migrating manual labourers in India that this paper explores. It focuses on how seemingly vulnerable and malnourished bodies in this rural context are enabled to labour. The necessity of mobilising bodies to perform crucial labouring implies that bodies are primary reso…
How Is Household Vulnerability Gendered? Female-headed Households in the Collectives of Suleimaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan
This research tries to reach an understanding of the well-being of female-headed household members through a comparison to male-headed household members in the collectives of the Suleimaniyah governorate in Iraqi Kurdistan. Research was undertaken in five collectives in Suleimaniyah during the summer of 1998. The research contributes to the current gender and development debates which are concerned with improving the understanding of the specific…
How is labouring enabled through the body? A case study of manual workers in rural India
Manual labour has become less prevalent in western contexts, but livelihoods based on physical work remain pervasive in many developing countries. It is such a world of seasonally migrating manual labourers in India that this paper explores. It focuses on how seemingly vulnerable and malnourished bodies in this rural context are enabled to labour. The necessity of mobilising bodies to perform crucial labouring implies that bodies are primary reso…
Some People Drink as the Body Should Feel a Little Ease’: Understanding Body Management amongst Manual Labourers in Western India
Despite development studies’ core concern with vulnerable bodies, the discipline has been somewhat sluggish in embracing the expansive and fruitful literature around embodiment. One aspect of this terrain is ‘body management’; a topic often discussed in contexts of Western consumerism where the body is perceived as a malleable entity subject to transformation. This article discusses a group of manual labourers in India who are not reflexively rec…
Measuring Social Isolation Among Older Adults Using Multiple Indicators From the NSHAP Study
We find that 17 indicators combine into two reliable scales. The social disconnectedness scale has a two-factor structure, including the restricted social network dimension and the social inactivity dimension. The perceived isolation scale also comprises two dimensions: lack of support and loneliness. We find that social disconnectedness does not vary across age groups, but the oldest old feel more isolated than the young old. Social disconnected…
A Place and Space for a Critical Geography of Precarity
This article explores growing interest in the term 'precarity' within the social sciences and asks whether there is a place for a 'critical geography of precarity' amid this emerging field. Referring to life worlds characterised by uncertainty and insecurity, the term precarity is double-edged as it implies both a condition and a possible rallying point for resistance. Such areas should be of concern and interest to human geography yet engagement…
Good relations’ among neighbours and workmates? The everyday encounters of Accession 8 migrants and established communities in Urban England
Drawing on data generated in a recently completed qualitative study in a northern, English city, this paper explores the everyday social encounters of Accession 8 (A8) migrants who entered the UK following the expansion of the European Union in 2004. A number of options from permanent residence in another Member State on the one hand, to more fleeting circulatory and multiple short‐term moves on the other, now exist for these new European citizen…
The Experiences of Accession 8 Migrants in England: Motivations, Work and Agency
Drawing on a recently completed qualitative study in a northern English city, this paper explores motivations and experiences of Accession 8 (A8) migrants who have entered the United Kingdom following the expansion of the European Union in 2004. The paper considers commonalities and differences among the group of migrants routinely referred to as A8 migrant workers/labourers. Diversity is apparent in three particular respects: first, the motivati…
Mistreatment and Psychological Well-being Among Older Adults: Exploring the Role of Psychosocial Resources and Deficits
Older adults with fewer psychosocial resources or more psychosocial deficits seem to be more vulnerable to mistreatment, and mistreatment seems particularly detrimental to psychological well-being for these people
Creating a space for young women's voices: Using ‘participatory video drama’ in Uganda
This article draws upon research that explored the experiences of young women in relation to sexual health in Uganda with a view to enhancing gender-sensitive strategies. We have coined the phrase ‘participatory video drama’ to describe the exploratory methodology that the young women participants in our research used to present stories about their lives. The aim of this article is to suggest that ‘participatory video’ (PV) and ‘participatory vid…
Neo-assimilationist citizenship and belonging policies in Britain: Meanings for transnational migrants in northern England
Citizenship, Belonging and Intergenerational Relations in African Migration
This book explores migration experiences of African families across two generations in Britain, France and South Africa. Global processes of African migration are investigated, and the lived experienc
Negotiating Difference through Everyday Encounters: The Case of Sexual Orientation and Religion and Belief
This paper argues for geographers to be more attentive to the potentially competing values, interests, and rights of the equality strands (race, gender, disability, religion and belief, sexual orientation, age). We focus on two that are most commonly assumed to experience tensions: religion/belief and sexual orientation. Drawing on focus groups with heterosexual Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus and lesbian and gay people of faith we explore …
Accession 8 Migration and the Proactive and Defensive Engagement of Social Citizenship
Following the expansion of the European Union in 2004 unprecedented numbers of Accession 8 migrants from Central and Eastern Europe entered the UK. These migrants are often concentrated in particular urban neighbourhoods, which are already routinely home to diverse communities and/or characterised by high levels of social deprivation. Using original data from a study in a northern English city, this paper explores the ways in which established co…
Precarious Lives: Forced Labour, Exploitation and Asylum
Precarious Lives: Forced labour, exploitation and asylum
"This ground breaking book presents the first evidence of forced labour among displaced migrants who seek refuge in the UK. Through a critical engagement with contemporary debates about precarity, unfreedom and socio-legal status, the book explores how asylum and forced labour are linked, and enmeshed in a broader picture of modern slavery produced through globalised working conditions. Drawing on original evidence generated in fieldwork with ref…
Relationship Quality and Shared Activity in Marital and Cohabiting Dyads in the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project, Wave 2
The separate conceptualization of shared activity and relationship quality provides one way to examine the dynamic nature of marital quality in later life such as the extent to which shared activities among couples promote or detract from relationships' quality. Analyses for individuals and for dyads are discussed
Hyper-precarious lives: Migrants, work and forced labour in the Global North
This paper unpacks the contested inter-connections between neoliberal work and welfare regimes, asylum and immigration controls, and the exploitation of migrant workers. The concept of precarity is explored as a way of understanding intensifying and insecure post-Fordist work in late capitalism. Migrants are centrally implicated in highly precarious work experiences at the bottom end of labour markets in Global North countries, including becoming…
Multiply vulnerable populations: Mobilising a Politics of Compassion From the 'Capacity to Hurt
This paper reflects on the concept of insecurity defined as ‘the capacity to hurt’. It begins by considering asylum seekers and refugees as hyper-precarious groups that have experienced bodily, material and psychological ‘hurt’ in the UK. At the same time, the paper considers how these hyper-precarious groups are perceived to have the capacity to hurt (bodily, materially, psychologically and spatially) the majority population. Having drawn out tw…
Vulnerability, Exploitation and Migrants: Insecure Work in a Globalised Economy
Globalization, the economic crisis and related policies of austerity have led to a growth in extreme exploitation at work, with migrants particularly vulnerable. This book explores the lives of the gr
Asylum, Immigration Restrictions and Exploitation: Hyper-precarity as a lens for understanding and tackling forced labour
The topic of forced labour is receiving a growing amount of political and policy attention across the globe. This paper makes two clear contributions to emerging debates. First, we focus on a group who are seldom explicitly considered in forced labour debates: forced migrants who interact with the asylum system. We build an argument of the production of susceptibility to forced labour through the United Kingdom’s (UK) asylum system, discussing th…
Socio-legal status and experiences of forced labour among asylum seekers and refugees in the UK
Socio-legal status determines the differential rights to residence, work and social welfare that accrue to migrants depending on their particular immigration status. This paper presents analysis of original empirical data generated in qualitative interviews with migrants who had both made a claim for asylum and experienced conditions of forced labour in the UK. Following an outline of the divergent socio-legal statuses assigned to individual migr…
I think I'm more free with them'-Conflict, Negotiation and Change in Intergenerational Relations in African Families Living in Britain
While the family is increasingly being recognised as pivotal to migration, there remain too few studies examining how migration impacts on intergenerational relationships. Although traditional intergenerational gaps are intensified by migration, arguably there has been an over-emphasis on the divisions between ‘traditional’ parents and ‘modern’ children at the expense of examining the ways in which both generations adapt. As Foner and Dreby [2011…
Asylum Seekers and the Labour Market: Spaces of Discomfort and Hostility
This article examines the relationship in the UK between asylum-seeking and the labour market. Since 2002, asylum-seekers have not been allowed to work unless they have waited over twelve months for an initial decision on their asylum claim. This policy change occurred as employment was considered a ‘pull factor’ encouraging unfounded asylum claims. Despite not having the right to work, asylum-seekers – and especially those whose applications for…
Precarious Irregular Migrants and Their Sharing Economies: A Spectrum of Transactional Laboring Experiences
There is growing interest in the sharing economy as a different way of living in neoliberal capitalist societies, but this discussion is frequently heavily classed and the ethos generally rests on excess capacity of goods and services. This article intervenes in this emerging body of writing to argue that it is equally important to explore the types of sharing and exchange that are survival-compelled among those with precarious livelihoods. Preca…
The Modern Slavery Agenda: Policy, politics and practice in the UK
Sociology (27 works) · Political science (25 works) · Law (18 works) · Gender Studies (15 works) · Law (13 works) · Gender Studies (12 works) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (12 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (12 works) · Economics (11 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (10 works)