Who Do We Think We Are?

Who do we think we are?

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 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.

Presented and produced by Michaela Benson and Nando Sigona

Additional research by Catherine Craven and Elena Zambelli

Cover Art by George Kalivis

Production, editing and post-production by Emma Houlton @ Brilliant Audio

All Episodes

S3 E10 Migration and the making of Global Britain

S3E9 (Not so) safe routes

S3 E8 Fortress Britain?

BtH2 E2 Beyond the headlines … Care Activism with Ethel Tungohan

S3 E7 Families at the borders

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

S3 E6 Migrant Rights 2.0

S3 E5 Migration, diaspora, diplomacy

S3 E4 A New Plan for Migration?

S3 E3 Bye, Bye Britain

BONUS Interview with Elspeth Guild

S3 E2 Free Movement, limited

S3 E1 Of Kings, Songs and Migrants

[SWAP] Uncommon Sense: Security, with Daria Krivonos

S2 BONUS Behind the Scenes

S2 E10 In dialogue

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

S2 E8 Who is a migrant?

BtH1 S8 Beyond the headlines … with Idil Akinci-Perez

S2 E7 European Identities from the Aliens Act 1905 to Brexit

BtH1 S7 Beyond the headlines … with Hannah Lewis

Imagining a new Britain, 20 years on

Beyond the headlines … with Cecilia Menjívar

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

Beyond the headlines … with Colin Yeo

S3 E4 What do family migration rules reveal about British citizenship today?

S3 E3 How do protest and resistance make citizens and citizenship?

Beyond the headlines … with Alison Phipps and Tawona Sithole

*EPISODE SWAP* Surviving Society E147 Aleema Gray: Notes on the Rastafari Movement in Britain

Beyond the Headlines ... with Zrinka Bralo

S2 E2 What does British citizenship have to do with Global Social Inequalities?

Beyond the headlines … with Aaron Winter

S2 E1 What does the Nationality and Borders Act mean for British citizenship?

Beyond the Headlines ... with Dr Yvonne Su

S1 E10 What can we learn about British citizenship from the Chagos Islanders?

S1 E9 What do the children denied the right to nationality through their British parents tell us about citizenship?

S1 E8 What do Clause 9 (Nationality and Borders Bill) and the history of citizenship deprivation in the UK tell us about Britishness today?

S1 E7 What can English-language testing for the purposes of immigration and citizenship tell us about who counts as British today?

S1 E6 What can the Hong Kong BN(O) visa tell us about borders and belonging in Britain today?

S1 E5 What can the UK’s citizenship test tell us about the shape of Britishness today?

S1 E4 How the British Nationality Act 1981 laid the foundations for a stateless population within Britain's borders

S1 E3 How the Commonwealth Immigration Acts laid the foundations for the Windrush Deportation Scandal

BONUS: Talking about citizenship in ‘Global Britain’

S1 E2 What can the development of immigration legislation tell us about citizenship in Britain?

S1 E1 Why we need to look at history to understand British citizenship today?

TRAILER: Who do we think we are?