Most social scientists in Australian universities are left-leaning in their politics and so they highlight the inequalities and oppressions of Australian society. When they came to study migrants in modern…
Like football, globalisation creates winners and losers. For now, the England football team is one of the back markers. By globalisation we mean free movement: it is the increase in mobility across national…
Mediterranean societies have been described as communities of honour and shame. The fundamental currency of their social order is respect. When the Lebanese civil war drove thousands of its citizens to…
Monarch butterflies are known for their striking flame-orange and black appearance, and especially for their mass migration in their millions to spend winters in the mountain forests of Mexico. But despite…
The most recent IPCC report included a chapter on security – the first time this has happened. The report pointed to a range of security threats associated with climate change, including ill-health, food…
Over the past few years, policy-makers, academics and practitioners have paid more and more attention to children who are trafficked into and within the UK. But while children are trafficked for various…
Mass migration is a huge issue in China’s fast-growing cities, deepening existing anxieties about urban sprawl, the overheated real estate markets, overcrowding, land disputes, and social unrest. On a…
The incursion into Ukraine by Russian forces, ostensibly in the name of “protecting” the Russian population of Crimea from harassment and violence at the hands of ethnic Ukrainians, is a classic case of…
Downing Street has withheld the publication of a cross-governmental report on immigration impact. Home Secretary Theresa May has repeatedly cited research by the Migration Advisory Committee that found…
Zimbabwean migrants to Britain are often referred to by those at home as being the BBC – British bottom cleaners – fit only for the most menial roles in the former colonial “mother country”. But our research…
New research reveals most Romanians and Bulgarians working in the UK were unaffected by the “transitional controls” in place until the start of this year. According to much of the media, these controls…
Salmon use Earth’s magnetic field to create a large-scale mental map which they follow to find suitable feeding grounds, a study published today in Current Biology has found. The salmon are born in rivers…
How does a young animal find its way to an unfamiliar location hundreds or thousands of kilometres from where it was born? A reasonable idea might be to find an older, experienced migrant and follow. This…
In a recent interview with the Financial Times, veteran Conservative minister Ken Clarke argued that immigration has contributed positively and significantly to the economy, and that EU free movement is…
This Australia Day, thousands of migrants and refugees will stand proudly and pledge their loyalty to Australia and its people at citizenship ceremonies around the nation. The citizenship pledge is considered…
For all of the changes to the UK over the last century, the ideal of “fair play” still seems to be a pretty fundamental part of Britain’s national self-image. The concept that anyone – especially anyone…
Immigration is seldom out of the news, but the past month has seen attention spike to new highs as the removal of transitional controls on migration from Romania and Bulgaria has sparked furious debate…
Why do people migrate? At first glance it seems reasonable to assume that most people move hoping to find better conditions or opportunities elsewhere, such as jobs, higher wages, safety or freedom of…
Singapore, an affluent city-state, is known for being orderly and conformist. So the riots that took place on the night of the 8 December in the Little India district came as a shock to authorities and…
The immigration debate isn’t a great place to look for rational or factual arguments at the best of times, and new rules concerning Romania and Bulgaria have spurred a new round of evidence-free speculation…
Professor of International Migration and Forced Displacement and Director of the Institute for Research into International Migration and Superdiversity, University of Birmingham
Leader of Research Group “The Production of Knowledge on Migration” at the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies, Osnabrück University, Osnabrück University