Lucy Mayblin

Ways of Seeing: Sexism the Forgotten Prejudice?

Recent developments in feminism, charted in Gender, Place and Culture over the past 21 years, have stressed the relational, differentiated and contested nature of gender. This has led to the rejection of the unified category women, and with this the right for feminism to make claims on behalf of all women. This paper argues that an unintended consequence of this development in ways of thinking about gender is that patriarchy as a form of power relations has become relatively neglected. It draws on research from a European Research Council project (including biographical interviews and case studies of a gym and workplace) to demonstrate that while the development of equality legislation has contained the public expression of the most blatant forms of gender prejudice, sexism persists and is manifest in subtle ways. As a consequence, it can be difficult to name and challenge with the effect that patriarchy as a power structure which systematically (re)produces gender inequalities,is obscured by its ordinariness. Rather, sexism appears only to be ‘seen’ when it affords the instantiation of other forms of prejudice, such as Islamophobia. As such, we argue that Gender, Place and Culture has a responsibility going forward to make sexism as a particular form of prejudice more visible, while also exposing the complexity and fluidity of its intersectional relationship to other forms of oppression and social categories.

'Other' Posts in 'Other' Places: Poland through a Postcolonial Lens?

Postcolonial theory has tended to focus on those spaces where European colonialism has had a territorial and political history. This is unsurprising, as much of the world is in this sense ‘postcolonial’. But not all of it. This article focuses on Poland, often theorised as peripheral to ‘old Europe’, and explores the application of postcolonial analyses to this ‘other’ place. The article draws upon reflections arising from a study of responses to ethnic diversity in Warsaw, Poland. In doing so we conclude that postcolonialism does indeed offer some important insights into understanding Polish attitudes to other nationalities, and yet more work also needs to be done to make the theoretical bridge. In the case of Poland we propose the ‘triple relation’ be the starting point for such work.

‘Big Brother welcomes you’: exploring innovative methods for research with children and young people outside of the home and school environments

This article discusses some of the challenges involved in conducting research with children and young people outside of the home and school environments. We respond to the need to develop new child-centred research techniques which move beyond existing power relations among children and adults by anchoring our approach in the idea of mystery. The paper reports on research utilising a mixed-method design which includes one new technique – the Big Brother diary room. We discuss the unpredictable nature of the fieldwork, reflect on the ‘messiness’ of the research process, and critically evaluate our own research design.

Asylum, welfare and work: reflections on research in asylum and refugee studies

Purpose – Over the past 30 years asylum has become an issue of great political significance, public interest and media coverage in most “Western” countries. Policies and laws designed to deal with asylum seekers have proliferated, as have the resources required to manage them. These developments have come as a result of the rise of asylum as a social, political and economic “problem” which is seen to necessitate urgent action. Within this context, some countries, such as Britain, have sought to limit asylum seekers’ social and economic rights. In Britain specifically this has involved making paid employment illegal for asylum seekers, and in the process making the government liable for the living costs of such individuals – creating a situation of forced welfare dependency. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides a review of research into work and welfare policy relating to asylum seekers in Britain. The paper focuses particularly on three key issues which...

Complexity reduction and policy consensus: Asylum seekers, the right to work, and the ‘pull factor’ thesis in the UK context

Since the early 2000s, asylum policy in Western states has become increasingly dominated by the concept of the ‘pull factor’—the idea that the economic rights afforded to asylum seekers can act as a migratory pull, and will have a bearing on the numbers of asylum applications received. The pull factor thesis has been widely discredited by researchers but remains powerful among policymakers. Through an analysis of the pull factor in the UK context, and drawing on insights from Cultural Political Economy, this article argues that the hegemony of the pull factor thesis is best understood as a ‘policy imaginary’ which has become sedimented through both discursive and extra-discursive practices and processes. The article offers a means of understanding how a common sense assumption—which is challenged by a large body of evidence—has come to dominate policymaking in a key area of concern for politicians and policymakers.

Troubling the exclusive privileges of citizenship: mobile solidarities, asylum seekers, and the right to work

Abstract This article discusses asylum seekers and the right to work in the UK. Differential access to the labour market is one of the ways in which the state maintains a distinction between British citizens, who ‘belong’, and non-citizens who do not. While such a policy approach garners widespread support amongst the general public of citizens, it does not go uncontested. This article discusses a UK-based campaign, ‘Let Them Work’, which has sought to influence the government in extending the right to work to asylum seekers. In doing so, it demonstrates the ways in which the stratified regime of citizenship rights is contested politically, and explores how such contestation troubles the exclusive privileges of citizenship by enacting mobile solidarities from marginalised spaces.

‘They kick you because they are not able to kick the ball’ : normative conceptions of sex difference and the politics of exclusion in mixed-sex football

Abstract This study explores the role of normative conceptions of sex difference through a case study of an anti-discrimination football tournament in Warsaw, Poland. The tournament has a variety of anti-discriminatory aims, including anti-racism, anti-homophobia and anti-sexism, where sport is a way to overcome difference and stereotypes. We found that especially efforts to realize anti-sexism through football encountered barriers and normative conceptions of gender in this traditionally segregated sport were in many cases reaffirmed. Male participant’s reactions to the presence of female players often contained surprise and concern, and sex difference was seen as an unavoidable, biological fact which hindered play. We explore participants’ reactions to the gender-mixing rule, as well as the existence of normative conceptions of sex difference that lead to exclusionary practices concerning females in the context of mixed-sex football. We analyse these practices and explore whether participants declare a change of attitude over time.

Asylum and refugee support in the UK: civil society filling the gaps?

ABSTRACT The vast majority of asylum seekers in the UK are not permitted to enter the labour market. In the absence of the right to work asylum seekers receive welfare support, which amounts to less than a third of the weekly spend of the poorest 10% of British citizens. This article presents new research on the third sector response to the poverty created by this policy regime. Through a four-pronged methodological design we map the scale of this response, and in doing so offer an alternative critical perspective on the inadequacies of government policy, inadequacies which lead to the human rights of some who are within, or who have been through the system, being breached.

Unfree labour in immigration detention: exploitation and coercion of a captive immigrant workforce

Abstract This paper focuses on labour within immigration detention in the United Kingdom, offering an original national case study as well as a new conceptual framework for analysing such practices. It does so through an innovative engagement with recent literatures on forced labour, unfreedom and hyper-precarity, particularly amongst irregular migrants. We advance two key arguments in this paper. First, that the available data on labour within immigration detention indicate that detainees should legally be considered employees and granted access to labour protections, including the national minimum wage. Second, that work in immigration detention is an example of state-sanctioned exploitative, coercive and unfree labour amongst a hyper-precarious group of the population. This case has implications for other country contexts where immigration detention is used.

Freedom time: negritude, decolonization, and the future of the world

may not be particularly well versed in the study of politics. However, our evaluation does not mean that Holloway’s analyses are basic; the text will challenge readers to grasp the depth of federal and state involvement and complicity with both overt racist violence and the systematic dehumanization of Blacks in relatively recent history. Together, her arguments illuminate the systemic nature of racism in the USA, as well as provide insights that broaden our knowledge of how and why the Civil Rights Movement came to pass. Holloway’s book is useful for understanding the systemic nature of how,