Static overlay
Who is welcome project
WHO IS WELCOME?

After a series of successful online events which explored the intersections of different identities with migration status, we have expanded this work into a wider campaign.


Building on the themes explored in the Who is Welcome event series, which included the relationship of racism, Islamophobia and queerness with migration, we are pleased to launch the Who is Welcome campaign alongside our Words Matter campaign.

Migration is often looked at as a siloed issue. Campaigning and policy work rarely looks at the construction of migrants through an intersectional lens or how racism shapes our idea of who is welcome in the West. At the Migrants’ Rights Network, understanding the role intersections of identity play in shaping migration, including refugee, policies is central to our campaigning work. We must understand and be honest about who harmful migration, including asylum, policies are aimed at, and why.

The language of ‘welcome’ also has hidden meaning. A ‘welcome’ places the destination country as a hospitable ‘host’ that welcomes ‘guests’ (in this case migrants) who in turn are expected to be grateful. This rhetoric reinforces the problematic ideas that migrants, including refugees, must contribute, integrate and exhibit gratitude thus creating a hierarchy and the notion of conditional belonging. By calling this campaign ‘Who Is Welcome”, we are also questioning the inherent nature of migration and belonging that creates the host/guest relationship.

Who is Welcome events

The recording for the first event can be accessed here.

Our reflections on our second event can be accessed here.

The recording for the third event can be accessed here.

The recording for the fourth event can be accessed here.

Podcast

Episode 1: Patriotism and Migration

Episode 2: Queerness and Migration

Episode 3: Masculinity and Migration

In this project:

Updates

Our latest articles about WHO IS WELCOME?

  • Stammering at the Border 

    I recently told a fellow migrant friend that crossing the UK Border was always a frightening, stressful experience and they asked, well-meaningly, what I even had to fear considering I have nothing to hide and most things in my favour? She was right in a sense — though both non-White and migrant, I have the…

  • Disability Pride Month

    A narrow definition of disability is unable to capture various instances of chronic debilitation: how racialised and migrant workers are subjected to disabling immigration regimes and working conditions, how we are collectively incapacitated by capitalism, how entire populations are debilitated by neocolonialism or imperialism, or how entire populations are sentenced to “slow death” through a…

  • Keeping the queerdom

    There has been significant progress in the fight for LGBTQIA+ rights in the United Kingdom. Same-sex marriage was legalised in 2014, discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is illegal, and LGBTQIA+ individuals are increasingly visible and accepted in society. However, despite these advancements, there is still much work to be done to ensure…

Scroll to Top