Meaning nothing but good: ethics, history and asylum-seeker phobia in Britain

Kushner, Tony

doi:10.1080/00313220307593

Cited by 41 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…(Barnes,Article 3) The description of 'immigrant communities' marks them out straight away as separate, and this is worked up in a variety of ways. In line with Kushner's (2003) findings in his study on the rhetoric of anti-asylum-seeker campaigners, they are described as 'colonies filled with colonists' -a neat inversion and appropriation of minority and victim status from British colonial history; their cultural separateness is reinforced by describing them as 'alien islands' with 'their own laws and cultures'. Not only are they separate, but it is also their intention to be separate -they have come to recreate their own cultures in 'our' country.…”

Section: Extractmentioning

confidence: 61%

British National Party representations of Muslims in the month after the London bombings: Homogeneity, threat, and the conspiracy tradition

Wood

Finlay

2008

British J Social Psychol

102

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This study presents an analysis of articles written by prominent members of the British National Party. Each of these articles discussed Muslims and Islam in the aftermath of the 7 July 2005 London bombings. Two prominent discursive themes are discussed here. The first concerned the writers' constructions of the threat that Muslims and Islam pose to Britain. Central to this theme were constructions of Muslims as 'fascists', anti-white racists, and all potentially dangerous, although there was variability in this. Using the Koran as evidence, the articles present a vision of a faith which intends to take over the country; in this way, a homogenous, culturally essentialist version of Muslims is worked up. The second theme illustrates how the writers challenge those who believe that creating a British multicultural society is possible, and in doing so construct liberals and multiculturalists as also posing a threat to the country. The ways in which this represents a variety of conspiracy theory, and the implications of these constructions for social action, are discussed.

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Section: Extractmentioning

confidence: 61%

British National Party representations of Muslims in the month after the London bombings: Homogeneity, threat, and the conspiracy tradition

Wood

Finlay

2008

British J Social Psychol

102

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“…Since that time, both in terms of its quantity and presumed content it has become a key focus of concern. The rise in the numbers of asylum applications upon earlier decades has informed hostility (Kushner, 2003;Moore & Clifford 2007;Smart et al, 2007;Leudar et al, 2008;Eades, 2009). Asylum-seeker mobility is both perceived as being 'too much', and often of the 'wrong sort' (Sheller & Urry, 2006) with many applicants suspected of disguising their real reasons for mobility when and through seeking protective status.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Reconsidering the Problem of ‘Bogus’ Refugees with ‘Socio-economic Motivations’ for Seeking Asylum

Zimmermann

2011

Mobilities

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Bogus' asylum seekers are widely alleged to be 'abusing' the UK's system, whilst similar perceptions exist more widely among industrialized host states. This article examines physical mobility for the purpose of claiming asylum, and whether it is meaningful to claim that the UK asylum route is being misused or abused by 'bogus' refugees with 'socio-economic motivations'. It examines procedural and definitional challenges to existing framings of the 'right' and 'wrong' forms of asylum mobility, and tests assumptions behind what it means to be 'bogus' or 'genuine' with reference to original empirical data. This article asks how different asylum mobilities are contested and made meaningful at the 'gate', presenting a challenge to such framings to reconsider the nature of what 'problem' exists.

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“…strated the degree to which racial categories have informed debates around national belonging (see Gilroy 1987). However, while these issues are still discussed in terms of the threat that certain racialised groups pose to the nation (Kushner 2003), there has been a noticeable shift in the way the categories of British and, to a lesser extent, English have been opened up in recent times (McCrone 2002: 312). Devolution in Scotland and Wales has also contributed to these more reflexive discussions around belonging in Britain, notably by shifting attention to the status of the 'hitherto under-researched Anglo white majority' (Nayak 2003: 139).…”

Section: Nations and Nationalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘A sense of where you belong in the world’: national belonging, ontological security and the status of the ethnic majority in England

Skey

2010

Nations and Nationalism

109

121

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. The significance of national forms of imagination and organisation has been increasingly questioned in an era of rapid globalisation. While theoretically stimulating, those who stress the importance of global mobility and sociability sometimes overlook what well‐established, “thick” attachments to the nation offer to disparate individuals, notably in terms of anchoring subjectivity. This first part of this paper explores how debates around belonging in England continue to define certain “ethnic” groups as more or less national, because they embody certain traits, practices or norms. It is then suggested that those who claim, and are treated as if, they belong “without question” may be offered a key sense of material and ontological security that is underpinned through routine practices, symbolic forms and institutional arrangements. The second section looks to evidence this argument by exploring how challenges to this ontological order, which focus on the agency of “perceived” others in relation to everyday spaces, practices and material objects, are debated and resisted.

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Meaning nothing but good: ethics, history and asylum-seeker phobia in Britain

Cited by 41 publications

References 2 publications

British National Party representations of Muslims in the month after the London bombings: Homogeneity, threat, and the conspiracy tradition

British National Party representations of Muslims in the month after the London bombings: Homogeneity, threat, and the conspiracy tradition

Reconsidering the Problem of ‘Bogus’ Refugees with ‘Socio-economic Motivations’ for Seeking Asylum

‘A sense of where you belong in the world’: national belonging, ontological security and the status of the ethnic majority in England

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