Presenting at London Met conference Global Diversities and Inequalities Research Centre

On Tuesday, 4 July, Dr Maria López and PhD student Alessia Dalceggio presented a talk titled Encountering the Hostile Environment: recently arrived Afghan migrants in London at London Met’s fourth Student and Staff Research Conference 2023: Small Steps Matter – Research Towards a Better World.

In representation of the core team, which includes Professor Louise Ryan, Maria and Alessia drew on the narratives and experiences of recently arrived Afghans participants, as well as on insights of key stakeholders from Afghan organisations and local authorities, collected during the research project Afghan migrants in London: Accessing support in hostile times. The project, funded by a University Transformation Fund in 2022, aimed at understanding the needs of diverse Afghan communities in London and to explore the particular needs of those who arrived in the UK following the evacuation from Kabul airport in August 2021. More information on this project are published in this report.

During the presentation, Maria and Alessia argued that, despite the government’s public commitment to a ‘warm welcome’ for Afghans, the wider context of the hostile environment continues to complicate and, in some ways, undermine the objectives of Afghan resettlement policies. Evidenced by the experiences of the research participants, whose treatment and access to services and resources was differential based on the pathway they undertook to reach safety in the UK, the research shows that the government’s ad-hoc response to the situation in Afghanistan has created ‘false distinctions’ among the same group of people, ie, displaced Afghans. This artificial division reinforces categories of ‘deserving’ versus ‘underserving’ migrants, and allows the government to present itself as humanitarian, ‘rescuing’ people from Afghanistan, while simultaneously maintaining its commitment to the hostile immigration environment.

Building on the findings of this research project, Louise, Maria and Alessia are currently working with the London borough of Islington to undertake an 18-month evaluation of the council’s resettlement plan for Afghan and Syrian refugee families. This study hears Syrian refugees’ views and experiences of resettlement in Islington and the support provided by agencies during the last five years, as well as those of recently resettled Afghans in the borough. This project allows the research team to track the progress and changes that Afghans are making over the life of the project, with a clear potential of impacting the resettlement strategy of migrant organisations, local authorities and potentially higher policy levels.