The Podcast

From Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, to the Windrush deportation scandal citizenship and the responsibilities of the UK government to the people of Hong Kong, it seems that citizenship and migration in Britain are never far from the headlines. Who do we think we are? explores all of this and more. Join Professor Michaela Benson and her guests as they explore the story of how British citizenship developed and why this matters for questions of race, migration and belonging in 'Global Britain'.

Who do we think we are? Beyond the Headlines dissects the major global news stories about migration today. It is produced and presented by Ala Sirriyeh and Michaela Benson, sociologists at Lancaster University. The series offers expert analysis of how migration is reported, what might be going on beyond the headlines, and how this might offer alternative understandings to those circulating most prominently. Each episode is worked up in interview form, and brings Ala and Michaela into conversation with scholars; policy researchers; campaigners and representatives of CSOs.

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Here's where it all started! From Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, to the Windrush deportation scandal citizenship and the responsibilities of the UK government to the people of Hong Kong, it seems that citizenship and migration in Britain are never far from the headlines. Who do we think we are? explores all of this and more. Join Professor Michaela Benson and her guests as they debunk taken-for-granted understandings of who is a citizen and who is a migrant in Britain today.

Season 2 of WDWTWA continued with the themes introduced in the first season and took them to a global scale!

Join Michaela Benson and Nando Sigona for Season 3 (from 5 May 2023), as Who do we think we are? foregrounds a new understanding of Britain’s migration story focussed on the significance of migration and citizenship to the making of ‘Global Britain’. Considering Brexit as a pivotal moment, the 10-episode arc will consider what the Brexit has meant for mobile citizens, migrants, but also migration flows and governance. In this way, it reveals an ongoing process of redrawing the boundaries of the imagined community and the role of the migration-citizenship regime within this. But it also looks beyond the borders to consider how immigration controls, policies and legislation articulate with the British state’s present-day struggle for legitimacy and leadership on the world stage after Brexit.