Monday Morning Meetings on Migration
by Darshan Vigneswaran
Over the course of the last 12 months, the demand for informed commentary on the politics of migration has expanded rapidly. In a period where migration scholars ought to be turning people away at the door, they are struggling to have their voices heard in a rapidly shifting debate. This podcast on migration and politics aims to generate theoretically and politically engaged discussion on the relationships between human mobility, space and power.
Episodes
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Solidarity and the City
Dipali Mukhopadhyay (Columbia University) describes her journey between New York City, Kabul and back to NYC again in the early weeks of the pandemic, what similarities she found between the two cities, and how the pandemic solidarity spilled over into the anti-racism protests in the summer.
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Presidents, Peace talks, and a Pandemic
Omar Sharifi, the director of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies in Kabul, describes how Kabul faced a constitutional crisis, a public health emergency, and delicate peace talks all at once in spring 2020. The pandemic also led to widespread economic hardship in the city, which was...
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Made You Look
While the world has its attention fixated on the prospects of a vaccine other health crises lie waiting in the wings. So, on this week’s show we dump the Political Scientists and go in search of Pharmacist Jason Bower. We find him holed up, Skywalker style, on his ranch in Shropshire. Jason tells...
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Crisis to Crisis
As the United States lurches its way through the pandemic, protests against racial injustice emerged to reshape the political landscape even further. Last week we spoke to Shana Gadarian and Tom Pepinsky, two scholars who live and breathe crisis. They tell us how party affiliation now determines...
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Dear Permanently Temporary Workers, Go Home!
25 May 2020 - What do Kangaroos and Sex buddies have in common? Almost nothing, but find the answer to that question that and a whole lot more about Australia's troubled COVID-19 response towards migrant workers on this week's episode. As Sanushka Mudaliar reveals, Australia may have flattened…
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Shining Light on the Hill
South Korea has been held up as the leading example of how to respond to COVID-19. Yet, recent flare-ups in night clubs have reminded us all that the virus is not going away any time soon. We check in with our former colleague, Sijeong Lim to hear about how the LGBTQ community is responding to…
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Its not the 30 pesos, its the 30 years
May 1 2020 - How do you enforce a lockdown when nobody trusts the government? That's the dilemma confronting the COVID-19 response in Chile, where the government entered the crisis with historically low approval ratings after introducing a 30 peso rate hike on public transport in the Spring.…
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Quaran 'Strongly Requests' Yout to Stay Home
April 24 2020 - In countries like the Netherlands, stereotypes of 'authoritarian' and 'obedient' Asian societies have been used to explain why Europeans need more 'liberal' responses to COVID-19. In this podcast Kyohei Yamada helps us untangle some of these ideas, detailing Japan's peculiarly...
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"Stay in Your Box": Migrant Workers and Social Discipline in Singapore
10 April 2020 - Jia Ye - Singapore has been hailed as a 'model' response to COVID-19, but in recent days its cramped and crowded migrant worker dormitories, were been the site of a surge of cases. In this podcast we ask Jia Ye - Geographer at Nanyang Technical University - tells us about the...
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Sunshine in the Abyss: COVID-19 Shakes International Politics
3 April 2020 - Francesca Grandi & Antonio Barroso - This week Abbey introduces us to two of her pals from London. Francesca has her fingers on the pulse of the UN response to COVID-19 and Antonio is a risk analyst guiding governments and businesses on how to address uncertainty in a time of...
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Stock Up on Hand Cream Before Lockdown
As country after country adopts stricter measures to combat the spread of COVID-19, we want to know more about what to expect in a lockdown. Abbey and Darshan speak to Oxford scholar, Andrea Ruggeri about his experiences, the impact on Italian democracy and daily life. And yes, Andrea advises...
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Winter is coming
As Europe shuts down in response to the spread of COVID-19, other African countries are just beginning to grapple with the early signs of the pandemic. In this show, we discuss the COVID-19 response in South Africa, where an impending winter, a long history of the HIV-AIDS pandemic, and…
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Much Ado About Le Pen?
April 24 2017 - Francois Bonnet. Emmanuel Macron has emerged as the frontrunner in the first round of elections for the French Presidency. Though, the leading story of the night was the success of Marine Le Pen of the National Front Party in securing second place and an opportunity to participate...
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Surviving at the Expense of…? A Rejoinder to Loren Landau
April 3 2017 – Michael Onyebuchi Eze. Three weeks ago, Loren Landau conversed with us on how poor, black South Africans use violence to demand the attention of political elites. In this week’s rejoinder Michael Onyebuchi Eze argues that it is more a symptom of a nation much too stuck in its…
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Are We Heading Towards More Populist or Pluralist Societies within Europe?
March 27 2017 – Sarah de Lange Whereas the international media has been mostly concentrating on the perceived electoral rivalry between Rutte and Wilders during the last Dutch elections, a more interesting note might be the rise of parties – along with new radical right-wing initiatives – that...
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Killing in the Name of....
13 March 2017 - Loren Landau South Africans have been rioting against, attacking and murdering foreign nationals since the end of Apartheid. The past month has seen another upsurge of this type of violence. While most have attributed this violence to a deep-seated South African nativism, in this...
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The Trump Presidency: The Real First 100 Days
November 14 2016 – Austin Kocher In this episode we come back to the conversation we had last March with Austin Kocher – PhD student at the Department of Geography of the Ohio State University – on how a possible Trump Presidency would affect US immigration policy. As we all know, against all…
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The Dismantlement of the ‘Jungle Camp’: Are We “Removing” the Problem?
November 7 2016 – Claudio Minca As the authorities have recently fulfilled their mission in clearing the infamous Calais Jungle Camp, once home to some seven thousand migrants and asylum seekers, we in this week’s talk speak with Claudio Minca – Professor and Head of the Cultural Geography chair...
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The Bratislava Declaration: "Never Again"
September 26 2016 - Sandrino Smeets European leaders recently met in Bratislava to sift through the ashes of Brexit and chart the organization's way forward. Migration and asylum dominated the agenda with their Declaration vowing "[n]ever to allow return to uncontrolled flows of last year". This...
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No More Mr. Nice Guy? Germany's New Anti-terror Laws
Responding to recent attacks in Ansbach and Wuerzburg, German CDU Minister for the Interior, Thomas de Maiziere recently tabled a proposal for wide ranging changes to Germany’s security and anti-terror policy. The 16 page proposal calls for increases in police numbers, changes to data protection...
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Better off in Turkey?
Will Syrian refugees be better off in Turkey? European leaders are banking on it, but have little idea about the quality of protection Turkey offer Syrian nationals. Can Mutlu, currently based at Bilkent University, is one of the few researchers who has been studying Turkish refugee reception...
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Independent not Unaccompanied, Ambitious not Afraid: A Rejoinder to Elaine Chase
May 30, 2016 – Stanford Mahati. Early this month, Elaine Chase told us how child migrants in Europe struggle to plan for their own future. In this week’s rejoinder, Stanford Mahati argues that we have underestimated the considerable capacity of child migrants to make their own migration plans and...
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The New Hope for Diversity?
London has a new Mayor: Sadiq Khan. His Muslim and immigrant background have been front and centre in the social media celebrations of his election. At the same time, Khan has sought to play down his background, asserting that he is a mayor of a major capital city, not a religious leader. In this...
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The Banality of Solidarity: A Rejoinder to Anja Karlsson Franck
Antonis Vradis & Anna Papoutsi. After delivering her verdict on Pope Francis' move to rescue asylum seekers on Lesbos, Anja Karlsson Franck asked us to seek out a rejoinder from Antonis Vradis and Anna Papoutsi at the Transcapes project in Durham. This week, they seek to answer Anja's question...
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The Papacy: Paternalistic as Ever: A Response to Anja Karlsson Franck
Last week Anja Karlsson Franck spoke to us about Pope Francis’ decision to rescue 12 migrants who were stranded on the Greek Island of Lesbos. Anja argued that we might the Pope’s gesture as a problematic but still politically progressive act. In today’s recording Polly Pallister Wilkins joins...
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Childhood Without a Future? Unaccompanied Youth Migrants in Europe
Large numbers of unaccompanied young migrants are seeking sanctuary in Europe. The plight of these migrants has been brought into focus by the conditions in Calais. The Guardian recently reported that over 150 unaccompanied children from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries are still...
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A Papal ‘Gesture': Can We Help Asylum Seekers without Exploiting Them?
On April 16th, Pope Francis made a 'gesture' on the Greek Island of Lesbos. Francis, the unlikely darling of the liberal left, returned to the Vatican with 12 Muslim Syrian asylum seekers, planning to offer them sanctuary. Was the Pope setting an example for European governments to follow, or is…
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Room for a Feminist Anti-racism after Cologne? A rejoinder to Francois Bonnet.
Last month, Francois Bonnet gave us his thoughts on the Cologne attacks. He argued that Cologne was a major blow to the Feminist left in Europe and encouraged us to see the police response to the violence as an act of performing non-racism. In this week's podcast, Kendra Briken of the University…
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EU-Turkey: Deal or no Deal
The EU and Turkey deal are seeking to close the 'Balkan route' to Europe. On March 7 2016, Turkey offered to take back any migrants entering the EU from Turkey who didn’t qualify for protection. For every migrant Turkey receives, the EU has offered to resettle one Syrian refugee currently…
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A Trump Presidency - Austin Kocher
After a series of large victories in the primaries, Donald Trump is being hailed as the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee. His election campaign has promised two major changes to immigration policy: build a wall on the US/Mexico border and increase efforts to deport unauthorised foreign...
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Guns at the Border? [beta]
On Saturday January 30th 2016, Frauke Petry, the leader of the Alternatives for Freedom party said that German police should use armed force if necessary to prevent illegal migrants from crossing the German border. In this podcast Polly Pallister-Wilkins chatted with our host Darshan Vigneswaran...
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Cologne and the Art of Not Being a Racist
On New Years Eve 2016 German police received hundreds of complaints of crimes including sexual assaults and robberies occurring in the vicinity of the Cologne Central Railway station. Many blamed recently arrived asylum seekers for the attacks. In this week’s podcast Francois Bonnet of the CNRS,...
About this show
Over the course of the last 12 months, the demand for informed commentary on the politics of migration has expanded rapidly. In a period where migration scholars ought to be turning people away at the door, they are struggling to have their voices heard in a rapidly shifting debate. This podcast on migration and politics aims to generate theoretically and politically engaged discussion on the relationships between human mobility, space and power.
Hosted by
Darshan Vigneswaran
Categories