Welcome to a seminar where Ann Phoenix, Professor of Psychosocial Studies at University College London, presents and discusses her research. The event is part of the general seminar at the department and is organised together with the Swedish Research Council's Graduate School in Migration and Integration.
In the millions of words devoted to migration in the media, the word ‘migrants’ is frequently used in an undifferentiated way that maintains negative constructions of their aims and agency. In the UK such portrayals enable continued commitment to maintaining the ‘hostile environment’ that has long been a feature of UK politics, but was named as a policy by the then Home Secretary Teresa May in 2012.
This talk takes an intersectional perspective to show that the importance of recognising the plurality and agency of those who migrate. It builds on research on the sparse, but growing, body of work that aims to understand the perspectives of particular groups of migrants such as children, mothers, young men and, recently, those with disabilities. It first discusses current conceptualisations of intersectionality before drawing on different research projects to show the importance of understanding intersectional positioning if holistic approaches to migration are to be developed.
Recommended reading: chapter 2 in Davis, Kathy & Lutz, Helma (eds.) (2024) The Routledge International Handbook of Intersectionality Studies. 1sr Edition. Routledge: London and New York. Available as e-book at Gothenburg University Library.