Who do we think we are‪?‬ Professor Michaela Benson

What does Eurovision have to do with the Coronation? We’re talking about what we learn about ‘Global Britain’ and its imagined community from looking at how migrants understand major cultural events.
Elena Zambelli explains what social scientists mean when they talk about the imagined community. Laura Clancy, sociologist of the royal family, joins us to talk about the missing voices in conversations about the future of the British monarchy. Co-hosts Nando Sigona and Michaela Benson reflect on what British citizens living abroad, EU citizens and others who have made the UK their homes told them about how they understand Britain and their place within it following Brexit. And consider what hearing from them about the monarchy, the Commonwealth Games and Eurovision makes visible about the new borders of political membership and symbolic boundaries of belonging. 
You can access the full transcripts for each episode over on our website Who do we think we are?
 
In this episode we cover …
1               The imagined community
2               The monarchy and the myth of the British nation
3               Eurovision, the Commonwealth Games and Royal Events
 
Active listening questions
What imagined community, or imagined communities, do you feel that you belong to?   Are there public events during which you do or could celebrate your belonging to this or these communities? Which ones?  Who do you think is excluded from this imagined community and how? And what does this tell us about the symbolic boundaries of this community?  
Find more about … 
What EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in the EU think about the monarchy in Elena and Catherine’s article in the Sociological Review Magazine
 
The concept of imagined community in Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities and the critique offered by Partha Chatterjee’s The Nation and its Fragments
 
Laura’s sociology of the royal family in her book Running the family firm and the Surviving Society podcast miniseries The Global Power of the British Monarchy
 
Our podcast picks for this episode are:
 
Academic Aunties on ‘Harry and Meghan’
The Allusionist on Eurovision
Coversations with IRiS on Political Demography
 
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 We’re talking Freedom of Movement, its role in the formation of an EU–wide imagined community, and the experiences of people who have lost their FOM rights due to Brexit. Catherine Craven explains what we mean when we talk about Freedom of Movement within the EU, its institutional underpinnings and social implications. Elspeth Guild, legal scholar and counsel, joins us to talk about the history and evolution of Free Movement rights within the EU, what Freedom of Movement does for Europeans and the meaning of EU citizenship, as well as the significance of the external EU border and the politicisation of asylum in the story of EU Free Movement. Nando and Michaela reflect on changes to who moves within Europe, how mobility within the EU relates to feelings of identity and belonging, as well as the inequalities that exist amongst EU citizens when they exercise Free Movement rights, and the impact of Brexit on those people who have lost their rights to FOM since Brexit.
You can access the full transcripts for each episode over on our website  Who do we think we are?
In this episode we cover …
1               Freedom of Movement
2               EU citizenship, identity and belonging
3               What Brexit and the loss of FOM has meant for British citizens in the EU and EU citizens in the UK
Active listening questions
How would you describe Freedom of Movement? What factors might shape people’s experience of moving within the EU? And relatedly, what challenges or opportunities might people face when they move within the EU? What role does migration play in creating and maintaining a ‘community of Europeans’? In what ways has Brexit changed how you - your family & friends - can move to or within the EU? Find more about … 
How migration and asylum relate to the “European way of life” from Elspeth’s article in the European Law Journal
 
How British People of Colour experience Brexit in Michaela Benson and Chantelle Lewis’ article in Ethnic and Racial Studies.
 
What Brexit means for British citizens in the EU-27 in this short animation
 
What place has got to do with identifying as European in this piece on Brexit, emotions and belonging by Nando Sigona and Marie Godin
 
And why is London the (best) place to be for Roma? Watch this short video
 
MIGZEN research  on European belongings and political participation beyond Brexit.
 
Our podcast picks ...
Brexit Brits Abroad: Social mobility, free movement and the impermanance of citizenship rights
Borders & Belonging – How has Brexit changed the UK for Migrants?
Free Movement on  EU Settled Status
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Understandings of migration are invariably reduced to immigration, framed by the policy agenda of receiving states. But what about the people who leave? And why does it matter that we remember, as French-Algerian sociologist Abdelmalek Sayad stressed, that ‘every immigrant is also an emigrant’?  

From the role of emigration in the making of the British empire and other European colonial powers to its neglect in public and political conversations about migration today, this episode explores what is opened up when we turn the spotlight onto those leaving the sovereign territory of a nation. Elena Zambelli explains what we mean when we talk about emigration. Mukti Jain Campion, founder of the independent production company Culture Wise, reminds us of the relationship between emigration and the making of the British Empire. Nando and Michaela reflect on why we need to talk about emigration today. We look into how states engage with emigration from its role in net migration figures through to policies and concerns over brain drains. And we turn to consider who is leaving Britain today, drawing on what British citizens and EU nationals taking part in our research told us about the significance of Brexit to their emigration decisions.  

You can access the full transcripts for each episode over on our website Who do we think we are?  

In this episode we cover …   

Emigration and colonisation 
Leaving Britain today 
Brexit and Brits Abroad 


Active listening questions  

Do you have any family members who have emigrated from their country of origin? What do you know about their reasons for leaving?  What do you think understanding emigration can add to our understandings of migration?   What is the relationship between British emigration and British colonialism? And how does this shape the experiences of British citizens emigrating today? What relationship does your country have with its citizens who have moved abroad?  
Hear more from Michaela and Mukti about British emigrants today  

Learn about The Migration Museum’s Departures exhibition  

Explore the Brexit testimonies of British citizens living in the EU 

Our podcast picks ... 

Departures – 400 Years of Emigration from Britain  
BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking, Emigration  
Bad Bridgets Podcast 

 Call to action   


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What’s changed in the UK’s approach to migration since Brexit? How has this impacted on migration flows? Who is and isn’t migrating to the UK ?
In A New Plan for Migration? we consider the shape and structure of the UK’s regulation and governance of migration since leaving the European Union. Catherine Craven explains what we mean when we talk about Migration Regimes, and shows how this works in practice. Barrister, author and Founder of Free Movement Law Colin Yeo, shares his thoughts on what has and hasn’t changed in terms of laws and policies on UK immigration since Brexit. And our presenters Michaela Benson and Nando Sigona consider the politicisation of migration, and how this is reflected in rhetoric and the framing of new legislation, policy and guidelines, and what EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in the EU have to say about it. And they ask the question is the post Brexit regime just?

You can access the full transcripts for each episode over on our website Who do we think we are? 

In this episode we cover … 

Migration regimes 

New plan for migration 


Post-Brexit borders and immigration controls

Active listening questions: 

How would you define a migration regime? 

What do migration regimes do for states? 

In what ways has the UK’s migration regime changed since Brexit, if at all?  


Find out more about … 

Why some migrants are deemed more deserving than others in Global Britain in Michaela and Nando’s piece for Open Democracy  
The injustices inherent in the UK’s current immigration system from Colin’s book Welcome to Britain: Fixing Our Broken Immigration System 
An early call for the institution of a fair global migration regime in this article by Stephen Castles  

Podcast recommendations: 


Colin on the Politico podcast: Westminster Insider: Can Rishi Sunak ‘Stop the boats’?  
Listen to the Free Movement podcast for regular updates and commentaries on UK immigration law 
Check this episode of WDWTWA Beyond the Headlines where Colin joined Michaela and Ala Sirriyeh to discuss Suella Braverman 

Call to action  

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Get all the latest updates from the MIGZEN research project  on Twitter and Instagram 
Follow Who do we think we are? on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. 

 

What role do diplomacy and the power play between states play in the development of migration policy? And how can turning our attention to the significance of foreign policy within migration governance help us in understanding the post-Brexit migration regime in the UK?  

In this jam-packed episode, we consider how foreign policy and geopolitics shapes migration and mobility regimes. Catherine Craven explains what we mean when we talk about migration diplomacy. Fiona Adamson, Professor of International Relations at SOAS, invites us to think about how migration and diaspora feature in inter-state relations, with a particular focus on the EU. Through the discussion of the UK’s new humanitarian visas and the citizens’ negotiations, Nando and Michaela reflect on the relationship between migration diplomacy and the UK’s shifting position on the world stage after Brexit.  

You can access the full transcripts for each episode over on our website Who do we think we are?  

 

In this episode we cover …   

Migration diplomacy and the geopolitics of migration 
Hong Kong BN(O) and Ukraine Visa schemes 
Brexit and the citizens’ rights negotiations 

 

Active listening questions  


What does ‘migration diplomacy’ mean? 
What actors do and can engage in migration diplomacy? 
What diplomatic instruments can states use to govern international migration? 
Which new visa routes and trade and mobility agreements has Britain negotiated and/or implemented since Brexit?  


 

Find more about …   

The uses of Migration Diplomacy in World Politics  

Why migration deals such as the Rwanda plan are here to stay 

How the UK’s exit from the EU turned the Mediterranean ‘refugee crisis’ into a British ‘border crisis’ 

 

 

Our podcast picks ...  

Explore background debates and concepts in International Relations theory more generally at Whiskey and International Relations Theory  
Hong Kong BN(O) visa scheme 
NPR’s Throughline on Hong Kong  

 

Call to action  


Follow the podcast on all major podcasting platforms or through our RSS Feed.  
Get all the latest updates from the MIGZEN research project  on Twitter and Instagram 
Follow Who do we think we are? on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. 

Borders around the world are becoming increasingly digitised. But who does the digitisation of borders serve? How are these technologies related to state-led projects of securitisation and surveillance? And what do digital bordering practices mean for migrants, migrant rights and advocacy?   

In this episode we lift the lid on digital bordering. We debunk political rhetoric about how these make border control more efficient to consider what the increasing use of such technologies of border control makes visible about bordering as a practice and process around the world today. Elena Zambelli considers what we mean when we talk about digital borders and shows it is linked to the increasing precarity of legal status among migrants. Kuba Jablonowski, Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Bristol joins us with a case study that brings all of this to life: the digital and online only roll out of the EU Settled Status Scheme (EUSS) in the UK, how this was framed by the priorities of the Home Office, the consequences for EU nationals, including the racial discrimination produced through its implementation. And Nando and Michaela turn their attention to how those taking part on our research experienced such statuses, how this links to Hostile Environment, and the challenges that this presents for migrant rights and advocacy.  

You can access the full transcripts for the episode, further resources and active listening questions over on our website: Who do we think we are?