Skip to content
Who do we think we are?

Who do we think we are?

Debunking taken for granted understandings of migration and citizenship to think differently about race, identity and belonging in Britain today.

  • Home
  • Episodes
    • Who do we think we are?
    • Beyond the Headlines
    • Bonus Episodes
  • Resources
    • Cite our Podcast
    • Beyond the Podcast Archive
    • Active Listening Questions
  • About
  • Contact
Apple PodcastsSpotifySoundcloudGoogle PodcastsAudible
Who do we think we are?
Who do we think we are?

Debunking taken for granted understandings of migration and citizenship to think differently about race, identity and belonging in Britain today.

  • Home
  • Episodes
    • Who do we think we are?
    • Beyond the Headlines
    • Bonus Episodes
  • Resources
    • Cite our Podcast
    • Beyond the Podcast Archive
    • Active Listening Questions
  • About
  • Contact

WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE? – LATEST EPISODES

Who is a migrant?

Listen

European Identities from the Aliens Act 1905 to Brexit

Listen

BEYOND THE HEADLINES – LATEST EPISODES

Beyond the headlines … with İdil Akıncı-Pérez

Listen

Beyond the headlines … with Hannah Lewis

Listen

ABOUT US

Find out more about us, meet the team and browse our hall of fame.

BEYOND THE PODCAST ARCHIVE

Browse our archive of recent blog posts, events, guest appearances and more.

CITE US

Read our guidance on why citing podcasts is important and how you can cite us.

CONTACT US

Contact us about collaborations, press or other general queries.

STAY UPDATED ON TWITTER

Tweets by AbtCitizenship

FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM

There is nothing politically neutral about classif 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 consequences and impacts for those who find themselves labelled as such. In this episode we turn to this always-political question to consider what this means for how we study and research migration. Researcher George Kalivis goes back to the 1970s to consider the Grunwick industrial dispute. Presenter Michaela Benson considers what the UK’s post-Brexit immigration system, makes visible about class and migration. And Bridget Anderson Professor of Migration, Mobilities and Citizenship at the University of Bristol joins us to talk about why we need to turn our attention to how the distinctions between citizens and migrants are made and to what ends, and what conceptual tools might be useful in excavating the connections between migrants and citizens as we consider the always-political question ‘Who is a migrant?’ 

———

Find out where to listen and access all our additional resources on our linktree

———

#WhoIsAMigrant #Migration #Borders #Belonging #Bordering #Racism #WordsMatter #Citizenship #Grunwick #Sociology #PublicSociology #Podcast #IndiePodcast #NewEpisode #NewEpisodeAlert #Season2 #Episode8 #MigrationStudies
CAPTIONS: It's important for us to always remembe CAPTIONS:  It's important for us to always remember that migrants and citizens are made, they're not born. And that actually, the making of migrants and citizens is a political process. So you know, when we talk about migrants, and we talk about citizens, and citizenship, are we talking about legal status only? I think very often we're not, we're also talking about social status about how migrants are imagined, which is typically as poor and low skills and how citizens are imagined, you know, the hardworking taxpayer. And I suppose also a kind of connection between those two things between the legal and social making of migrants and the legal and social making of citizens is also the question of how both are racialized.

———

That was Bridget Anderson, Professor of Migration, Mobilities and Displacement at the University of Bristol and our guest on Season 2 Episode 8. #TUNEIN wherever you get your podcasts from 20 January 2023. 

Listen and access episode notes and transcript via our website - link in linktree

———
#WhoIsAMigrant #Migration #Borders #Belonging #Bordering #Racism #Sociology #PublicSociology #MigrationStudies #WordsMatter #Citizenship #Podcast
Here's our guest in Beyond the Headlines, Episode Here's our guest in Beyond the Headlines, Episode 8, İdil Akıncı-Pérez (University of Edinburgh) explaining how precarious legal statuses are commonplace among those working in the Gulf States. As she describes, the region is home to many migrant workers who would elsewhere be considered as refugees - Syrians among them.  Ongoing political conflict makes them more precarious, more reliant on their temporary status being renewed. 

Listen to the episode to find out more
Link in LinkTree

#Migration #Podcast #IndiePodcast #NewEpisode #NewEpisodeAlert #Citizenship #Sociology #PublicSociology #Borders #GulfStates #MigrantLabour #WorldCup #Qatar
As the Western media turned critical attention to As the Western media turned critical attention to the conditions of migrant workers preparing for the Qatar world cup in December 2022, we ask what do we really know about migration and citizenship in the Gulf States? What is going on behind the headlines that call out or deny the mistreatment of migrant workers? 

We're joined by İdil Akıncı-Pérez (University of Edinburgh) to discuss what we can learn about migration and citizenship from looking to countries where citizenship is restricted to very small minority, where temporary legal statuses are the norm for the majority of the working population.

Listen to the latest episode of Beyond the Headlines to find out more about:
1 Kafala and labour conditions
2 History of citizenship and migration in the Gulf
3 Legal precarity across the life course

Link in LinkTree

#Migration #Podcast #IndiePodcast #NewEpisode #NewEpisodeAlert #Citizenship #Sociology #PublicSociology #Borders #GulfStates #MigrantLabour #WorldCup #Qatar
What percentage of the UK population do you think What percentage of the UK population do you think hold citizenship or nationality? And what percentage does that leave who are neither citizens nor nationals? 

Come up with percentages where citizens and nationals constitute the vast majority of the population? According to the latest census data, 76.7% hold a British passport.

Turn to the Gulf States and a very different picture emerges. Access to citizenship is extremely restricted. In Qatar, only 10% of the resident population are Qatari nationals. 

Listen to our conversation with İdil Akıncı-Pérez to hear more about what we can learn about the global migration and citizenship regime from looking to how the Gulf States have managed migration, past and present.

Link in LinkTree

#Migration #Podcast #IndiePodcast #NewEpisode #NewEpisodeAlert #Citizenship #Sociology #PublicSociology #Borders #GulfStates #MigrantLabour #WorldCup #Qatar
All eyes have been on Qatar because of the World C 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 the back story to these issues. We look in depth at how the Gulf States approach migration and citizenship, from the Kafala sponsorship system to restrictions on citizenship which mean that only 10% of the resident population have citizenship. We move beyond the suggestion of the Gulf States as exceptional to consider instead how their approach converges and diverges from migration-citizenship regimes closer to home, and what this makes visible about global migration and citizenship regimes.

Listen 🎧 to Beyond the Headline Season 1 Episode 8 to learn more!

Link in LinkTree
CAPTIONS: Gulf States provide us with a case study CAPTIONS: Gulf States provide us with a case study that is literally unfolding in real time to understand the generative and productive force of immigration and citizenship regimes. And with that, I mean, how they give a shape and a form to legal categories of migrant versus 'the citizen'. So while the circumstances and interests of classifying populations in this way through the binary of citizens and migrant differ across time, space and in the national context, what is similar is that they really naturalise our understanding of who a national is, and determining who can be considered as deserving citizenship and who is rendered as forever arriving.

———

İdil Akıncı-Pérez joins Ala Sirriyeh and Michaela Benson to go Beyond the Headlines about migrant labour, Qatar and the FIFA World Cup. She explains how the context of migration and citizenship in the Gulf is obscured by these headlines, the histories of these and their relationship to British colonialism in the regime and the oil boom, and what this means for those who are ‘forever arriving’, who have no option but to live long-term on temporary visas in the region

Access Season 2 Episode 8 via our website. Link in Link Tree.
What do you know about the origins of Britain's im What do you know about the origins of Britain's immigration system? Have you heard of the Aliens Act? In Season 2 Episode 8, we were joined by Marius Turda to talk about the relationship between eugenics, race science and emerging immigration controls at the start of the 20th century. Take a listen to hear more.
When you think about who is European, what comes t When you think about who is European, what comes to mind? At the heart of contemporary European identities is an assumption of whiteness. Yet, this excludes European people of colour from a sense of automatic belonging. Take a listen to Season 2 Episode 8 where we were joined by Bolaji Balogun, to discuss all of this and more.
Who is unquestionably European? From Brexit to the 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 joined by Bolaji Balogun (University of Sheffield) and Marius Turda (Oxford Brookes) to discuss the longer history of migration between Europe the UK, how this history interplays with the development of immigration controls in the UK (and elsewhere), and the development of European identities from the early twentieth century to the present-day. 

@geo_kalivis and @profmbenson consider the disproportionate challenges that European people of colour have faced securing EU settled status. In our explainer, Michaela explores the social and political context that led to the development of the 1905 Aliens Act. And in conversation, Bolaji and Marius introduce us to the role of eugenics and race science in the development of early immigration controls in the UK and how this set the stage for the racialised exclusions at the heart of contemporary immigration controls and governance practices across Europe. Link in LinkTree
CAPTIONS: We attach so much importance to you know CAPTIONS: We attach so much importance to you know, historical myths of origin. And those continue to fuel both positively and regrettably, now you see across the world, often negatively fantasies of belonging. And white supremacy and whiteness is based on the fantasy of belonging. These ideas have never gone away.

------
That was our guest Marius Turda highlighting the fantasies at the heart of myths of belonging and identity. 

#TUNEIN wherever you get your podcasts from 9 December 2022
CAPTIONS: The ways that which migration and citize CAPTIONS: The ways that which migration and citizenship as a process of inclusion and exclusion, at the same time - because otherwise, as a citizen, you'll think you're actually free to move around - but the same process of citizenship has been used to actually exclude and to reduce also, what you can have access to and what you cannot. And Eugenics provided tools for that to actually happen.

-----

That was Bolaji Balogun, our guest in S2 E7 talking about the relationship between eugenics and the question of who is an is not a citizen

#TUNEIN wherever you get your podcasts from 9 December 2022
Follow on Instagram

Hosted and produced by Michaela Benson | Cover Art: George Kalivis | Production and post-production: Brilliant Sound

© 2022 By Who do we think we are? website designed by Evelyn Miller | All rights reserved. London, UK