What’s the significance of migration for the making of ‘Global Britain’? And what are the theoretical and conceptual tools that can help to unpack this question? In this episode, we turn our attention to the value of racial capitalism for unde

S3 E9 (Not so) safe routes

Feb 15th, 2024 54m 56s

What are the UK Government’s ‘safe and legal routes’? How do these relate to ‘stop the boats’, the Rwanda Plan, and the curtailment of asylum as laid out in the 1951 Refugee Convention? What can we learn from listening to the Hong Kongers and

S3 E8 Fortress Britain?

Jan 18th, 2024 55m 1s

What’s Brexit got to do with the ‘small boats’ crisis? What does racialised border violence in the Channel tell us about 'Global Britain’? And what can we learn about the UK’s approach to its borders from the Hong Kong BN(O) and Ukrainian visa

BtH2 E2 Beyond the headlines … Care Activism with Ethel Tungohan

Dec 14th, 2023 37m 2s

Migrant laborers worldwide are engaged in care work, but who provides care for them? And where can they seek care? In this discussion with Ethel Tungohan, the author of 'Care Activism', we go beyond the headlines that portray migrant domestic w

S3 E7 Families at the borders

Nov 16th, 2023 51m 28s

What happens when borders cross families? How do families navigate these interruptions to their ability to live together? This episode considers what shifting perspective to families opens up to view in terms of thinking about the work of bord

BtH2 E1 Beyond the headlines … at Manchester Museum with Senna Yousef and Caitlin Nunn

Nov 10th, 2023 32m 44s

We’re out and about in this episode! Ala and Michaela have been on the road. And in this episode they visit Manchester Museum and a new project aimed at decolonising the museum collection. They are joined by members of the Ancient History, Cont

S3 E6 Migrant Rights 2.0

Oct 12th, 2023 44m 11s

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

S3 E5 Migration, diaspora, diplomacy

Sep 14th, 2023 54m 19s

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

S3 E4 A New Plan for Migration?

Aug 10th, 2023 49m 57s

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 govern

S3 E3 Bye, Bye Britain

Jul 7th, 2023 49m 19s

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 s

Bonus

BONUS Interview with Elspeth Guild

Jun 22nd, 2023 39m 40s

This bonus episode features the full length recording of Elspeth Guild, legal scholar and counsel and our guest in Season 3 Episode 2, offering deep insights into the development of the EU's free movement regime, from its early form as a struct

S3 E2 Free Movement, limited

Jun 2nd, 2023 46m 11s

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 Mo

Of Kings, Songs and Migrants

May 5th, 2023 45m 48s

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 scient

[SWAP] Uncommon Sense: Security, with Daria Krivonos

Apr 21st, 2023 47m 23s

Too often, talk about security seems to belong to politicians and psychologists; to discussions about terrorism and defence, individual anxiety and insecurity. But how do sociologists think about it? And why care? Daria Krivonos – who works

S2 BONUS Behind the Scenes

Mar 31st, 2023 24m 27s

Here’s a little season end bonus, where our presenter, Michaela Benson and podcast researcher, George Kalivis go behind the scenes at Who do we think we are? They reflect on the origins of the series, the role of the podcast in challenging tak

S2 E10 In dialogue

Mar 24th, 2023 33m 30s

For the final episode of Season 2, we bring you a set of conversations about what Who do we think we are? achieves through dialogues with archival and social science research around migration and citizenship in the UK and beyond. We’re joined

S2 E9 East-West inequalities and the remaking of unequal Europeans

Feb 17th, 2023 40m 43s

What does the characterisation of those from Europe’s east as migrants by politicians and in some corners of the media make visible about the politics of migration? What is distinctive about the ways in which they are migratised and racialised?

S2 E8 Who is a migrant?

Jan 20th, 2023 40m 55s

There is nothing politically neutral about classifying and categorising people as migrants. This is a process through which certain individuals and populations are defined as migrants, whether they have crossed borders or not. It has political

BtH1 S8 Beyond the headlines … with İdil Akıncı-Pérez

Dec 23rd, 2022 33m 56s

All eyes have been on Qatar because of the World Cup. And with it, attention to the poor working conditions and treatment of migrant construction workers. We go beyond the headlines with İdil Akıncı-Pérez (University of Edinburgh) to explore th

S2 E7 European Identities from the Aliens Act 1905 to Brexit

Dec 9th, 2022 40m 4s

Who is unquestionably European? From Brexit to the war in Ukraine, this question has come to the fore as people of colour have found themselves disproportionately questioned as they try to exercise their rights as European citizens. We’re joine

BtH1 S7 Beyond the headlines … with Hannah Lewis

Nov 25th, 2022 30m 16s

In July 2022 the news broke that Sir Mo Farah, four times Olympian for Team GB, had been trafficked to the UK as a child. The headlines enhanced public understandings of trafficking. They brought into the frame the children forced into domestic

S2 E6 Imagining a new Britain, 20 years on

Nov 11th, 2022 37m 39s

Who do we think we are? In the early 2000s, with the beginning of the New Labour government, journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown asked this question, calling for a radical reimagining of who was considered as British and outlining her hopes for a n

BtH1 E6 Beyond the headlines … with Cecilia Menjívar

Oct 28th, 2022 32m 7s

For many people, migration is about escaping persecution and state violence. But in the context increasingly criminalisation of migration, state violence may characterise the lives of immigrants. Hosts Ala Sirriyeh and Michaela Benson are joine

S2 E5 What can we learn about what British and EU citizenship from Brexit?

Oct 14th, 2022 44m 44s

As people find themselves queueing up at border controls in EU member states, as their passports are stamped, there have been questions about why these things are happening. It’s all because of Brexit, and more specifically, the end of free mov

BtH1 S5 Beyond the headlines … with Colin Yeo

Sep 30th, 2022 24m 59s

With a new UK cabinet comes a new Home Secretary, Suella Braverman MP former Attorney General. While there has been a lot of focus on her politics, what does this mean for the Home Office and in particular its approach to immigration? Hosts Ala