From Refugee to Citizen: 'Standing On My Own Two Feet'
Article
'Britishness' among political leaders and the media in the UK, part of a larger debate about social cohesioni. As this book was being drafted, government ministers published a proposal for a Britain Day, and the Commission on Integration and Cohesion presented its final report. However, relatively little attention has been paid to how migrants and refugees themselves feel about integration, or about becoming and being British. In the little research that exists about refugee integration, refugees are presented as rather passive recipients of advice, vocational education and other interventions designed to integrate 'them'. Indeed most research on refugee integration focuses on the institutions of integration and seldom analyses the voices of refugees.
This book presents some of these missing voices. It is published to mark the 50th anniversary of Refugee Support, a non-governmental organisation whose remit includes the provision of services to promote refugees' integration. The book documents the life stories of 30 refugees who came to the UK during the last 50 years. We use a life history research methodology to collate and analyse refugees' experiences: pre-migration, during flight and after their arrival in the UK. We examine what integration and Britishness meant to refugees and what factors aided or hindered their integration.
Related items
Facing the future: Progressives in a changing world
Progressive parties need a new set of defining and guiding ideas to challenge the populist radical right.Singapore on the Clyde?
Sir Tom Hunter is not happy.Scotland, he laments, is in “managed decline”. The UK and Scottish governments are “punishing the entrepreneurial community with more tax” and, inevitably, “no country has ever taxed its way to growth”. Change…Fixing the foundations: The case for investing in children's health
For decades, governments of all stripes have promised to give children a better, healthier start to life. But despite this – and some notable policy successes – the UK continues to fall short on childhood health outcomes.