More Than a Hostile Environment

Exploring the Impact of the Right to Rent Part of the Immigration Act 2016

Bibliographic Data

ID2392060
AuthorsJoe Crawford (0000-0003-4721-4308, The University of Sheffield, UK, corresponding author), Kim Mckee (0000-0002-3611-569X, University of St Andrews), Sharon Leahy (0000-0001-6840-371X, University of St Andrews)
Year2020
Volume25
Issue2
Pages236-253
Publication date2020-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Research Online (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1360-7804 • E-ISSN: 1360-7804
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1360780419867708
OpenAlexW2956493842
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited28

This article is based on original data from a qualitative study on the impact of the Right to Rent part of the Immigration Act 2016 in Scotland. Our findings show that in addition to being an integral part of the government's project of creating a 'hostile environment for immigrants', the process of extending the state's 'law and order' functions to organisations responsible for providing welfare services and distributing public goods is of wider political importance. Here, we argue that this process, what Bourdieu calls the rightward tilting of the bureaucratic field, results in widespread discrimination as it entails a shift in focus of its criminalising gaze from 'conduct' to 'status'. The effects of this rightward shift altered the categories through which welfare services were both conceived and delivered more widely. We found that the almost universal opposition of the housing sector to the unwanted imposition of duties previously confined to border control agencies shows the extent to which the state is not a unitary monolith but is, rather, a site of perpetual struggle and contestation. By locating the perspective of housing professionals in relation to the government's attempts to redraw the boundaries of the state's own responsibility, we can gain a valuable insight into the processes of state crafting, which have wider implications beyond merely the creation of a hostile environment for immigrants

Bureaucracy · Immigration · Law and economics · Legislature · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Welfare state · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Public Administration · Social Policy and Reform Studies