Mass shooting in the US have been headlines news over the past month. The pattern? White gunmen opening fire in supermarkets, schools and public spaces, killing and injuring black, brown and hispanic people going about their daily business. Journalists, commentators and politicians have rallied to try and explain these horrific incidents, identifying the role of the ‘Great Replacement’ theory in motivating the actions of lone shooters. But what do these explanations overlook and shield from view?  In this episode of Beyond the Headlines, Michaela Benson and Ala Sirriyeh are joined by Aaron Winter, who researches racism, hate crime, the far right and right-wing extremism and terrorism, to take a close up look at the headlines reporting on shootings in Buffalo, where a white man opened fire in a supermarket in a predominantly black neighbourhood murdering 10 people. We discuss the history of the ‘Great Replacement’ theory and related white supremacist conspiracy theories as they plays out in different historical and political contexts. The problems with the narrative of the ‘lone, white, gunman’. And we consider the relationship between these horrific incidents, structural and institutional racism, and the mainstreaming of illiberal approaches to migration in the US and UK, including thinking about Brexit and the Hostile Environment.  You can access the full transcripts for each episode over on the Rebordering Britain and Britons after Brexit website.   In this episode we cover … 1 Mass shootings as racist violence 2 The ‘Great Replacement Theory’ and white supremacy 3 Mainstreaming the far right and illiberal political approaches to migration   Quote Why do they never call it terrorism when white people do it? Well they do. They often do to remove it to compartmentalise it and to remove it from all the mainstream systemic and institutional white supremacy that needs to keep going. Aaron Winter   Where can you find out more about the topics in today’s episode? Find Aaron on Twitter or Google Scholar If you want to find out more about mainstreaming the far right, we recommend his book Reactionary Democracy co-authored with Aurelien Mondon Our headline Great Replacement: The Conspiracy Theory racist violence by Jillian Kestler-D’Amours was published in Al Jazeera 18 May 2022 You might also be interested in Michaela’s writing on Brexit focussed on the question what’s wrong with the narrative of the left behind And we also wanted to give some love to this excellent paper by Maria Cecilia Hwang and Rhacel Salazar Parreñas about the Atlanta shooting where eight people, predominantly Asian women, were murdered.   Call to action Follow the podcast on all major podcasting platforms or through our RSS Feed. To find out more about Who do we think we are?, including news, events and resources, follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

What is the UK’s Nationality and Borders Act? How does it relate to previous acts concerned with nationality and immigration legislation? What is the back story to some of the central changes that this act introduces? We cover all of this and more in this bumper episode to mark the start of Series 2 of Who do we think we are? Presenter Michaela Benson introduces the Nationality and Borders Act and how this sits in a longer history of Acts which considers changes to nationality and immigration legislation alongside one another. She also joins podcast researcher George Kalivis in the archive, where they discuss the behind closed doors responses of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher about what Britain should do in respect to the resettlement of refugees from Vietnam in the 1970s and 80s. We’re joined by Trent Lamont Miller and Dave Varney of the British Overseas Territories Citizenship campaign to discuss the impetus behind this campaign and the journey to get legislation changed to allow the children of British Overseas Territories citizens born outside of marriage abroad to be entitled for this citizenship status. But as our conversation with Fizza Qureshi (CEO of Migrants Rights Network) reveals, the success of this campaign for BOTCs is bittersweet in the context of the predominantly bleak consequences of this act. You can access the full transcripts for each episode over on the Rebordering Britain and Britons after Brexit website. In this episode we cover … Nationality and Borders Act Resettlement of Vietnamese Refugees British Overseas Territories Citizens Refugee and migrant rights Quote When you have no effective safe routes to come to the UK, or where you have those routes, and they're measly, in terms of the numbers that are available to people, or they're really narrow in their scope, I mean, what other ways are people going to have to resort to, apart from getting on a boat to entering the UK? —Fizza Qureshi, CEO Migrants Rights Network   This just makes no sense to me because my British BOTC father did not marry my foreign born mother ... every child has copies of both parents DNA, they have two sides of the family tree for the UK Government to take a pair of scissors and cut away one part of that DNA and family tree and then say you're not valid, you're not welcome, go away. It's deeply hurtful.— Trent Lamont Miller, BOTC Campaign   Find out more BOTC Campaign on Twitter and Online Migrants’ Rights Network Online, Twitter and Instagram   Read more Rieko Karatani, Britishness Reconsidered Margaret Thatcher reluctant to give boat people refuge in Britain   Call to action Follow the podcast on all major podcasting platforms or through our RSS Feed. To find out more about Who do we think we are?, including news, events and resources, follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

Countries around the world have been quick to crow about the provisions they are putting in place to welcome those displaced by the war in Ukraine. Yet, all might not be what it seems. In this first episode of Beyond the Headlines, hosts Dr Ala Sirriyeh and Professor Michaela Benson are in conversation with Dr Yvonne Su, York University to examine what the headlines announcing a warm welcome to Ukrainian refugees in Poland and the UK shield from view. We explore how even among those displaced by the war, not everyone has equal access to leaving Ukraine. Race, gender and sexuality can all shape people’s fate at the border, leaving some with only unsafe routes out of the conflict-ridden country. And we consider the narrative that presents Ukrainians as ‘good refugees’, within the wider context of a politics of migration that otherwise casts many of those seeking new lives abroad as illegitimate and underserving, and within states that have readily deployed deterrents and push backs against migrants. You can access the full transcripts for each episode over on the Rebordering Britain and Britons after Brexit website. In this episode we cover … 1 Ukraine war and refugees 2 Borders and inequalities 3 ‘Good refugees’ Quote What everyone is hearing is just the numbers of refugees that Poland's accepting or Germany's accepting, or the UK is not accepting, in this case, but then we don't like you're saying we don't look behind the headlines and into what's happening on the ground. — Dr Yvonne Su Find out more Find Yvonne on Twitter or her website Read her writing on Poland’s border propaganda and anti-immigration sentiments; the ‘good, bad and ideal’ refugees; and how standard humanitarian responses lead to LGBTQ and trans refugees falling between the cracks. Our headline ‘How European response to Ukraine refugees differs from UK’ The Guardian, 11 March 2022 Ala’s thoughts on the politics of compassion and the channel crossings Michaela’s writing (with Professor Nando Sigona) about the UK’s response to and provisions for Ukrainian refugees. For something a bit different, we recommend this episode of Academic Aunties which features Yvonne in conversation with Dr. Ethel Tungohan about Turning Red. Call to action Follow the podcast on all major podcasting platforms or through our RSS Feed. To find out more about Who do we think we are?, including news, events and resources, follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

What rights to citizenship do those from Britain’s 14 remaining overseas territories? What about those who through no fault of their own found themselves displaced and exiled from the territories through which they could claim this right?  In Episode 10, we look indepth at the case of the Chagos Islanders and the consequences of their forced displacement from the British Indian Ocean Territories for their access to British citizenship. Michaela Benson explains the emergence of the British Overseas Territories Act 2002 and how this departed from previous transformations to the citizenship provisions for those in Britain’s overseas territories and who this excluded. George Kalivis heads into the archive to revisit how the BOTA 2002 was announced in the UK and the responses to this from the governments of these overseas territories. And we hear from Rosy Leveque and David Jerome Simon of British Indian Ocean Territories Citizens about the forced displacement of their ancestors and how this has led to unequal access to British citizenship, and their hopes for amendments to the Nationality and Borders Bill.   You can access the full transcripts for each episode over on the Rebordering Britain and Britons after Brexit website.   In this episode we cover …   1 The Chagos Islanders   2 The British Overseas Territories Act 2002  3 Nationality and Borders Bill    Quote   20 years ago, we had the British Overseas Territories act. And we thought that was a godsend. That was a really good solution. 20 years down the line, we realised that there were quite a few people were left out.  — David Jerome Simon, BIOTC  ... we can just only hope and that the House of Lords can do the right thing and grant these Chagossian descendants their British citizenship.  — Rosy Leveque, BIOTC  Find out more about the topics in today’s episode Follow BIOT Citizens on Twittter  Visit the BIOT Citizens website  Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens and Amnesty International Briefing on the British Nationality Rights of Chagossians    Chagos Islanders in Mauritius and the UK by Laura Jeffrey  Last colonial citizens given full UK rights  by Anthony Browne Call to action  Follow the podcast on all major podcasting platforms or through our RSS Feed.   To find out more about Who do we think we are? including news, events and resources, follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.  

Did you know that until 2014 that some of those born overseas to unmarried British citizen fathers were not eligible for citizenship? Or that even when this was amended, the provisions were not extended to those born in similar circumstances to British Overseas Territories Citizens? How would you feel if you were denied the right to nationality because your parents weren’t married when you were born? And what does this tell us about who counts as British?    In this episode we look at the human face of so-called ‘nationality anomalies’ and the struggles of the children of unmarried parents born overseas to gain equal rights to citizenship and nationality. This is an area of nationality legislation where discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, and parentage come crashing together. We explore how these outdated understandings of parental relationships at the heart of these anomalies sit in a long history of gender discrimination within nationality legislation. Michaela considers the back story to proposals in Clause 1 of the Nationality and Borders Bill that seek to address these anomalies. George reports on a complicated case of a child not entitled to the citizenship of either of their lesbian parents nor of the country in which they were born.  And we’re joined by citizenship equality campaigner, Tabitha Sprague, who successfully fought for those born overseas to British citizens fathers to be entitled for British citizenship, to explain more about this struggle and her personal history that brought this about.      You can access the full transcripts for each episode over on the Rebordering Britain and Britons after Brexit website.       In this episode we cover …   The children of British parents denied the right to British nationality  Gender discrimination   Immigration Act 2014 and the Nationality and Borders Bill      Quote   My half sister was able to have citizenship through our dad because she was born in marriage. But I wasn’t. And I remember thinking why couldn’t I have citizenship because of the way I was born?    —Tabitha Sprague      Where can you find out more about the topics in today’s episode?  Tabitha tweets about these issues @ukcitequality    She also recommends the work of The Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens      Call to action    Follow the podcast on all major podcasting platforms or through our RSS Feed.     To find out more about Who do we think we are?, including news, events and resources, follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.    

Did you know that British citizenship can be cancelled or removed? And that when the Nationality and Borders Bill passes into legislation the UK Home Secretary will be able to remove citizenship from individuals without giving them prior notice? Certain conditions may accompany this, but the government’s past record on citizenship deprivation shows that these powers have disproportionately by exercised against those from Britain’s racially and religiously minoritized communities. In this episode we look in depth at how Clause 9 of the Nationality and Borders Bill sits in a longer history of citizenship deprivation . Over time, the UK government’s powers to strip people of their British citizenship have extended and expanded. The fallout from this has been uneven, impacting Britain’s racially minoritized communities disproportionately. Michaela introduces the case of Shamima Begum and explains the back story to Clause 9. George draws attention to the concerns raised about the extension of these powers. And we talk with Zainab Batul Naqvi, Senior Lecturer in Law at De Montfort University about how in recent years deprivation powers have been used disproportionately against Muslim citizens and how such discrimination echoes the tactics used by colonial administrators and governments. You can access the full transcripts for each episode over on the Rebordering Britain and Britons after Brexit website.   In this episode we cover … Citizenship deprivation The case of Shamima Begum Clause 9 of the Nationality and Borders Bill Quote There's been a really big expansion of the powers that the government has to strip people have their citizenship …[It’s] something that's being weaponized by the government against certain communities, more than others … It's a really big fear for many people who are minoritized and marginalised in the UK, and it's mostly people of colour. — Zainab Batul Naqvi   Where can you find out more about the topics in today’s episode? Zainab tweets about these issues and more @zb_naqvi Read her latest paper in Social and Legal Studies  Head over to the Free Movement blog for Colin Yeo’s analysis of the increase in the use of deprivation powers Over at The Conversation Devyani Prabhat explains Clause 9 Our recommended reading is Luke De Noronha’s Deporting Black Britons   Call to action Follow the podcast on all major podcasting platforms or through our RSS Feed. To find out more about Who do we think we are?, including news, events and resources, follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.  

Should the ability to speak English be a precondition for access to rights and belonging in Britain today? What is really tested for in English-language testing for the purposes of migration and naturalisation? How is this connected to the global dominance of English as a ‘world language’? And what links this to the increasing hostility experienced by those speaking languages other than English in public space in Britain today? It might seem common sense that to live in a country you should be able to speak the language. But looking at the relatively short history of language testing into the UK’s citizenship testing regime reveals that not all is as it seems.   In this episode, we discuss how language testing was introduced into the naturalisation process alongside the Life in the UK test in 2002. What can the back story to its introduction tell us about Britishness and belonging? Presenter Michaela Benson outlines how the stage was set for English language ability to be part of the criteria for becoming British through the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. We hear from George about his experiences of language testing for the purposes of coming to the UK for postgraduate study and heads back into the archives to uncover how these new provisions related to anti-terrorism legislation. And we’re joined by sociolinguistics scholar Kamran Khan to explore how testing potential citizens for linguistic proficiency emerged against the backdrop of domestic concerns about integration and community cohesion and the global rise of Islamophobia in the wake of 9/11, and what this meant for Britishness and belonging.    You can access the full transcripts for each episode over on the Rebordering Britain and Britons after Brexit website.  In this episode we cover …    Nationality Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 and 9/11 Islamophobia and Britishness The relationship between language and nation-building   Quote   What that comes down to in the end is do you think language is a precondition for access to rights nd all those things that go with citizenship? And that comes with how you see the nation. Monolingualism and English is, is really tied up with the kind of idea of nation building.   Kamran Khan Where can you find out more about the topics in today’s episode? Kamran tweets about his work (and other things) @securityling   His book Becoming a citizen explores many of the themes we address in the episode brought to life through the experiences of W, a Yemeni migrant in the UK, going through this process. But we also recommend his recent piece in Ethnicities that explores his ideas about the racial politics of language proficiency in the UK’s citizenship regime.    And we are recommending Nisha Kapoor’s fantastic book Deport, Deprive Extradite.   Call to action   Follow the podcast on all major podcasting platforms or through our RSS Feed.    To find out more about Who do we think we are?, including news, events and resources, follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.   

  When National Security Law was imposed in Hong Kong SAR in 2020, the UK government responded by opening up a bespoke visa scheme to facilitate the migration and settlement of Hong Kongers in the UK. Upheld by the UK’s Home Office as evidence of the UK’s ‘fair and generous’ approach to immigration, on the surface it seems like an exception to the Hostile Environment. But what if all was not as it seems?   In this episode, we explore the back story to this new visa, to ask the question what can the Hong Kong BN(O) visa tell us about Britain’s borders past and present? Presenter Michaela Benson uncovers how Britain’s present-day relationship to the people of Hong Kong sits in a longer history through which the Hong Kongers had their rights eroded. George Kalivis heads into the archives to uncover how the British government responded to earlier political uprisings in Hong Kong, the 1989 protests about the Tiananmen Square massacres. And they are joined by John Vassiliou, an immigration and nationality lawyer at Shepherd and Wedderburn, who explains more about the bespoke HK BN(O) visa scheme and why it means that this is pegged to a so-called ‘useless citizenship’ status.   You can access the full transcripts for each episode over on the Rebordering Britain and Britons after Brexit website.     In this episode we cover …   Britain’s relationship to people of Hong Kong from the 1960s onwards  The Hong Kong BN(O) visa   Useless citizenships  Quote  When we think of a typical citizen of a country they usually have certain benefits like I described—and the main one is the right to live there—and a BN(O) citizen does not.  They are not on their own, there are another four types of British citizenship status that are in a similar category to this and they’ve generally been described by courts as useless citizenship statuses in the past.    — John Vassiliou   Where can you find out more about the topics in today’s episode?  You can find out more about John and his work here. He tweets @john_vassiliou1.  Read his informative pieces on the Free Movement Blog about the HK BN(O) visa including this overview of the scheme and this comment on Hong Kongers applying for political asylum in the UK.  Read Michaela’s thoughts about what the case of the Hong Kongers in British nationality legislation can tell us about the racialised politics of belonging in Britain. Here’s the full piece and a blogpost with the key points if you are short on time …   We also want to give some love to this fantastic piece by Jun Pang about how the Hong Kongers in the UK are positioned as ‘good migrants’ and why this matters in the context of the new immigration plan.    Call to action  Follow the podcast on all major podcasting platforms or through our RSS Feed.   To find out more about Who do we think we are?, including news, events and resources, follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.  

What do you know about the UK’s citizenship test? What do you think it tests for and how? What do you think it can tell us about the shape Britishness today? In this episode, we look in-depth at the developing UK’s citizenship testing regime from its introduction in 2002 to its current form. Presenter Michaela Benson explores how in 2002 the then Labour Government introduced the Life in the UK test, language testing and compulsory citizenship ceremonies for those seeking to naturalise as British citizens. She highlights in particularly how these changes took place against the backdrop of 9/11, government policies on multiculturalism, integration and community cohesion. George Kalivis uncovers the story of the first person to take the citizenship test in Welsh. They are joined by Anne-Marie Fortier, Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University, who talks about how the citizenship test is best understood as part of an ongoing process through which people are moulded into desirable and deserving citizens. As she describes, this is a deeply unsettling process that reveals uncertainty lies at the heart of the process, revealing that citizenship may not be as secure as it is so often imagined. You can access the full transcripts for each episode over on the Rebordering Britain and Britons after Brexit website. In this episode we cover … The 2002 introduction of the UK’s citizenship testing regime What looking at the citizenship test can tell us about Britishness and belonging How the process of becoming a British citizen further consolidates the relationship between the English language and being British. Quote … citizenisation starts from the premise that migrants have a citizenship deficit, in the sense that they have to be made into citizens in order to be given then the formal status of citizenship through these different tests and other forms … in doing that it also uncitizenises them, it assumes that they are not citizens from another country, or it disregards the citizenship of another country but it also disregards the fact that these individuals might be active citizens informally, without the status; they might be active citizens, working in the country where they are residing, paying taxes in the country where they are residing, voting in the country where they are residing.   Anne-Marie Fortier Where can you find out more about the topics in today’s episode? You can find out more about Anne-Marie and her work here. She is occasionally on Twitter @AMFortierLancs. We were discussing her book Uncertain Citizenship, published this year by Manchester University Press. If you are interested in her work on language and citizenship testing, we recommend her 2018 journal article On (not) speaking English: colonial legacies in language requirements for British citizenship. Our recommended reading for this week is John Clarke, Kathleen Coll, Evelina Dagnino and Catherine Neveu’s Disputing Citizenship.   Call to action You can follow the podcast on all major podcasting platforms or through our RSS Feed. To find out more about Who do we think we are?, including news, events and resources, follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

What do we think citizenship is? When you think of citizenship you probably think of it as progressive, as giving rights to people. But what if it wasn’t? In this episode, we look at the darker side of British citizenship where, over time, who has access to the rights of citizens has become increasingly restricted. Host Michaela Benson explores the British Nationality Act 1981 (BNA1981) in a little bit more detail, which set the stage for British citizenship as we know it today. She highlights some of the headlines of this act from the how this mapped citizenship onto the territorial borders of the United Kingdom and stratification of citizens to how this removed some of the gender discrimination within nationality law by permitting women to pass on their citizenship to their children. George Kalivis goes back into the archives to explore the concerns raised about the proposed removal of birthright citizenship. They are joined by Imogen Tyler, Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University who talks about how the changes to nationality legislation through BNA 1981 set the stage for people to be born stateless within the UK’s borders and explores how nationality legislation is designed to exclude Britain’s postcolonial and migrant populations from the rights of citizenship.    Access the full episode transcript In this episode we cover …   The British Nationality Act 1981  The removal of the right to citizenship for those born in the UK and its racialised consequences  How citizenship is caught up in the global migration industry  Quote  When we think about citizenship, our normative way of thinking about it would be as something that is quite progressive, something that gives in a way or something within a liberal framework that gives rights to people, and that people have these fundamental rights that are protected in law and protected in a constitution.  I suppose when I was thinking about the relationship to Britain is because we don’t have that written constitution, that founding constitution, then when citizenship starts to appear in law, or in legal and parliamentary statutes, and in debates about those statutes, it really appears not in a progressive context; it starts to appear in relationship to borders and migration.  Imogen Tyler   Where can you find out more about the topics in today’s episode?  You can find out more about Imogen and her work here. She is on Twitter @profimogentyler.   The article we discuss in the episode is Designed to Fail, published in the journal Citizenship Studies. We also recommend her books Revolting subjects and Stigma.  If you are interested in understanding birthright citizenship and what this means in terms of global inequalities, our recommende book of this week is Ayelet Shachar’s The birthright lottery   Call to action  You can subscribe to the podcast on all major podcasting platforms or through our RSS Feed.   To find out more about Who do we think we are?, including news, events and resources, visit our blog and follow us on Twitter and Instagram.