Call for submissions, autumn 2021

As we enter the 2021-22 academic year, we are considering ways in which RefugeeHistory.org can respond usefully to what has been a summer peppered with sensationalist media headlines about refugee movement.

With this in mind, we are particularly interested in submissions on the theme of criminality and criminalisation, for which we have identified two main branches: the criminalisation of asylum seeking itself, and the criminalisation of non-state actors who assist people seeking asylum.

The publication of the Nationality and Borders Bill in July 2021 confirmed the British government’s ambitions to criminalise the act of seeking asylum in the UK. While the bill has been hailed as—and in some ways is—a dramatic overhaul of the asylum system, parts of it are strangely familiar, as they rehash or reiterate relics of asylum law. We invite pieces from any discipline that aim to contextualise and offer historical perspectives on the Nationality and Borders Bill: the specific content or language of the bill; the political rhetoric surrounding the process; the response from organisations and NGOs; the historical nuances behind the bill’s aims and intentions. These submissions will accompany and expand on our timeline of UK immigration policy (1905-2018) [PDF].

From 2017 onwards, academic reflections on the criminalisation of non-state actors who assist people seeking asylum in the pan-European forced migration context have been particularly prominent on RefugeeHistory.org and elsewhere. In response to the suggestion that the forthcoming Nationality and Borders Bill may criminalise RNLI volunteers, we recently republished a selection of blogs that considered the topic of sea rescue over the past half-century. We wish to build upon this by inviting historical perspectives on the role of non-state actors in refugee reception, including but not confined to the criminalisation of refugee aid. Contributions might also address: the extent to which the NGO and grassroots response to the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’ may (or may not) be considered ‘unprecedented’; the evolution of scholarship on non-state and grassroots activism in the context of refugee history; the relationship between non-state actors and refugees, national institutions, state actors or intergovernmental organisations.

We impose no geographical limitations and authors are free to engage with better-known refugee histories, and ones which are, as yet, more obscure.

And, of course, we are continuing to accept submissions in any area of refugee history—please do get in touch at info@refugeehistory.org.

Guidelines for contributors:

• Posts should be between 800 and 1200 words long, and attributed to individual/s, not an organisation/s or anonymous author/s

• Blogs should be written in a style that is easily accessible for non-experts and experts alike

• Instead of footnotes, please use in-text links and/or suggestions for further reading

• Please include a small biography (max 50 words) and a personal photo

• Where possible, include an image (which you have permission to reproduce) to accompany submission—we are happy to help identify suitable images

• You must declare any organisational affiliations, material that was used as the basis for your submission (where relevant, eg in a post based on an academic article), and funding received

• We encourage authors to include links to any of their research or other projects relevant to RefugeeHistory.org

With your consent we may make minor editorial changes to your post. If the editorial team feel that significant revisions are required we will send you constructive suggestions for a resubmission.

The header image is a photo from a demonstration in Paris in May 2018. It includes a banner reading ‘Notre solidarité n’est pas un délit’, ‘Our solidarity is not an offence’. Source: Jeanne Menjoulet (CC-BY), via Wikimedia Commons.