The C-MISE project Research Exchange Webinar Series is where invited researchers will share and discuss their findings with the C-MISE network.
Attendance is free, and all are welcome. To join via Zoom, you must register in advance for these webinars. The individual webinar links can be found below.
2 - 3 pm (BST)
Dr Raffaele Bazurli, Queen Mary University of London
Amid the growing popularity of far-right politics and restrictive border policies, many European cities have enacted “sanctuary policies” (SPs) to support the increasing number of residents with irregular migration status. Through SPs, local governments disrupt the monopoly of nation-states over immigration and citizenship, challenging conventional understandings of governance in liberal democracies. The core question of Sanctuary Policies for Irregular Migrants in European Cities (SPIMEC) is to explain the varieties, drivers, and impacts of SPs in Europe. Bridging insights from multiple disciplines, SPIMEC theorises that local governments are situated at the crossroads of political mobilisation from the bottom up and institutional restrictions from the top down. These different, often contradictory forces shape the opportunities and constraints for SPs. Drawing on fieldwork in four cities (Barcelona, London, Milan, and Rotterdam), SPIMEC offers a path-breaking contribution to governance theories and viable policy solutions to cities seeking to advance immigrant rights.
2 - 3 pm (BST)
Dr Janina Stürner-Siovitz, Institut für Politische Wissenschaft
The African continent is rapidly urbanizing. While this transformation has been well-documented, the focus of scholarship and policymakers has been predominantly on movements of refugees and migrants with (ir)regular status into major urban areas and capital cities. In contrast, intermediary cities have been largely absent in policy and academic debates between rural and metropolitan areas. Addressing this gap becomes all the more critical as African intermediary cities are increasingly impacted by mixed migration movements and (inter)national policies without necessarily having adequate legal mandates nor financial and human resources to accommodate and protect vulnerable refugees and migrants with irregular status. Some local authorities have begun to address such challenges by engaging in multi-stakeholder partnerships, bringing together local, national, and international actors. Based on research collaborations of the Equal Partnerships project with intermediary cities in Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Senegal, Tunisia and Uganda, this session explores central stakeholders, risks, and opportunities of such partnerships and presents policy recommendations for discussion.
2 - 3 pm (BST)
Dr Eva Papatzani, National Centre for Social Research, Athens
This presentation discusses the presence of migrants in Athens, Greece, particularly those with irregular status. It provides an overview of the interrelationships between the city and migration, focusing on how space and society interact to determine the trajectories and settlement paths of irregular migrants. Several specific aspects are discussed, in particular how migration policies have led to the 'irregularisation' of a significant number of migrants who have been living on Greek territory for decades; how recent asylum policies and the accommodation system reinforce such tendencies and leave people unprotected; the everyday lives of undocumented migrants on the margins of the city - even when they live in its very centre; urban practices and policies implemented in the Athens metropolitan area and how they have affected the relations between migration and urban space from a critical point of view. The presentation draws on several international research projects on migration, displacement, and returns recently conducted in the case of Athens, Greece.
2 - 3 pm (BST)
Lucy Leon, COMPAS, University of Oxford
Over two million people in the UK are impacted by the ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ (NRPF) policy, an immigration policy restricting access to the mainstream social security and welfare system. Many people impacted by this policy are long-term UK residents who have regularised their status and are locked out of the welfare safety net, with limited avenues for support. Whilst the NRPF policy excludes many migrants from the welfare safety net, local government have been described as providing a "parallel welfare system" (Price & Spencer, 2015) funded by local rather than central government for vulnerable destitute migrants, locked out of the mainstream welfare safety net in the UK. Drawing on a mixed methods study including fieldwork with local government, NGOs and people with lived experience of the NRPF policy, this paper will present findings on local government approaches to providing a “parallel welfare system” for vulnerable, destitute migrants, including supporting them to regularise their status, and will unpack how this system is justified, administered, and how it could be improved.