Child Migrant Voices In Modern Britain

Almost half the people displaced worldwide are under 18, yet their voices are rarely heard. This book records the experiences of children arriving in Britain from Hitler's Europe in the 1930s to those escaping war in Ukraine in 2022. It follows the journeys of war-traumatised children from Mogadishu to Mile End and from Syria to a Scottish isle. Some followed their parents to the 'motherland' from the former British Empire. Others came independently to escape forced marriage or military conscription. These powerful testimonies shed light on children's motivations, trials and achievements, including in adult life, providing critical insight into how the British – both individually and collectively – have welcomed or shunned child migrants. Importantly, Eithne Nightingale links these stories with contemporary issues such as the Windrush Scandal and Britain's Illegal Migration Act 2023. Situated in its historical and political context, Child Migrant Voices in Modern Britain makes vital reading for those studying modern British history, migration and human rights as well as those working with child migrants. It will also appeal to a general audience interested in inspirational life stories

Almost half the people displaced worldwide are under 18, yet their voices are rarely heard. This book records the experiences of children arriving in Britain from Hitler's Europe in the 1930s to those escaping war in Ukraine in 2022. It follows the journeys of war-traumatised children from Mogadishu to Mile End and from Syria to a Scottish isle. Some followed their parents to the 'motherland' from the former British Empire. Others came independently to escape forced marriage or military conscription. These powerful testimonies shed light on children's motivations, trials and achievements, including in adult life, providing critical insight into how the British – both individually and collectively – have welcomed or shunned child migrants. Importantly, Eithne Nightingale links these stories with contemporary issues such as the Windrush Scandal and Britain's Illegal Migration Act 2023. Situated in its historical and political context, Child Migrant Voices in Modern Britain makes vital reading for those studying modern British history, migration and human rights as well as those working with child migrants. It will also appeal to a general audience interested in inspirational life stories

This collection of studies by an international group of researchers provides a place for migrant, refugee and indigenous children to talk about their school experiences. Refugee children from the Sudan, Afghanistan and Somalia, indigenous children from Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Vietnam, migrant children in Canada, Iceland and Hong Kong, urban and rural children from Zanzibar all speak out through drawings, small group and individual discussion.

As global societies grapple with an unprecedented refugee and migration crisis, child refugees and migrants—who constitute a particularly vulnerable immigrant category—have been surprisingly overlooked in immigration scholarship. This book addresses this lapse by presenting interdisciplinary perspectives on child refugees and migrants. It provides a comprehensive overview of child refugees and migrants through richly varied interdisciplinary academic perspectives that integrate communication, media studies, journalism, sociology, criminology, cultural studies, international relations, and public policy. Employing diverse theoretical and methodological lenses, it complicates and elucidates the particular sociopolitical and cultural issues prompted by child migrants and refugees while engaging a range of academic and policy discussions. Relevant to scholars and policy makers alike, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Child Migrants: Seen but Not Heard is an integral and foundational text exploring this relatively unchartered region within immigrant research.

Between 1850 and 1970, around three hundred thousand children were sent to new homes through child migration programmes run by churches, charities and religious orders in the United States and the United Kingdom. Intended as humanitarian initiatives to save children from social and moral harm and to build them up as national and imperial citizens, these schemes have in many cases since become the focus of public censure, apology and sometimes financial redress. Remembering Child Migration is the first book to examine both the American 'orphan train' programmes and Britain's child migration schemes to its imperial colonies. Setting their work in historical context, it discusses their assumptions, methods and effects on the lives of those they claimed to help. Rather than seeing them as reflecting conventional child-care practice of their time, the book demonstrates that they were subject to criticism for much of the period in which they operated. Noting similarities between the American 'orphan trains' and early British migration schemes to Canada, it also shows how later British child migration schemes to Australia constituted a reversal of what had been understood to be good practice in the late Victorian period. At its heart, the book considers how welfare interventions motivated by humanitarian piety came to have such harmful effects in the lives of many child migrants. By examining how strong moral motivations can deflect critical reflection, legitimise power and build unwarranted bonds of trust, it explores the promise and risks of humanitarian sentiment.

The last two decades have seen concerns for equality, diversity, social justice and human rights move from the margins of museum thinking and practice, to the core. The arguments – both moral and pragmatic – for engaging diverse audiences, creating the conditions for more equitable access to museum resources, and opening up opportunities for participation, now enjoy considerable consensus in many parts of the world. A growing number of institutions are concerned to construct new narratives that represent a plurality of lived experiences, histories and identities which aim to nurture support for more progressive, ethically-informed ways of seeing and to actively inform contemporary public debates on often contested rights-related issues. At the same time it would be misleading to suggest an even and uncontested transition from the museum as an organisation that has been widely understood to marginalise, exclude and oppress to one which is wholly inclusive. Moreover, there are signs that momentum towards making museums more inclusive and equitable is slowing down or, in some contexts, reversing. Museums, Equality and Social Justice aims to reflect on and, crucially, to inform debates in museum research, policy and practice at this critical time. It brings together new research from academics and practitioners and insights from artists, activists, and commentators to explore the ways in which museums, galleries and heritage organisations are engaging with the fast-changing equalities terrain and the shifting politics of identity at global, national and local levels and to investigate their potential to contribute to more equitable, fair and just societies.

Every year, thousands of young people on the run from war and persecution, or escaping poverty and chronic instability, make their way to Europe without their parents. Embarking on long and often dangerous journeys, they have either become separated from their families on the way or set out on their own. In recent years, the number of unaccompanied minors arriving in Europe has risen drastically. It has led to a major shift in perception in European countries, initiating a wealth of policies and infrastructures targeted specifically at unaccompanied child refugees. This book investigates the emergence of the unaccompanied child refugee as a ‘crisis figure’. It shows how the sense of exceptionality attached to this figure translates into ambiguous and at times extremely contradictory social practices that have far-reaching effects on the lives of refugee youth. By bringing together ethnographically driven research on unaccompanied minors in some of the core arrival and transit countries in or into Europe, it shows the divergent ways ideas on childhood, deservingness and vulnerability are interpreted, lived, and grappled with on the ground. By laying the focus on young people’s own experiences and perspectives, it establishes a deeper understanding of the ways unaccompanied asylum seekers live and make sense of shifting social terrains. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

The scope and complexity of child migration have only recently emerged as a critical factors in global migration. This volume assembles for the first time a richly interdisciplinary body of work, drawing on contributions from renowned scholars, eminent practitioners and prominent civil society advocates from across the globe and from a wide range of different mobility contexts. Their invaluable pedagogical tools and research documents demonstrate the urgency and breadth of this important new aspect of international human mobility in our global age.

First published in 2016, The Good Immigrant has since been hailed as a modern classic and credited with reshaping the discussion about race in contemporary Britain. It brings together a stellar cast of the country’s most exciting voices to reflect on why immigrants come to the UK, why they stay and what it means to be ‘other’ in a place that doesn’t seem to want you, doesn’t truly accept you – however many generations you’ve been here – but still needs you for its diversity monitoring forms. This 5th anniversary edition, featuring a new preface by editor Nikesh Shukla, shows that the pieces collected here are as poignant, challenging, angry, humorous, heartbreaking and important as ever.