“Are we criminals?” – everyday racialisation in temporary asylum accommodation

Guma, Taulant; Blake, Yvonne; Maclean, Gavin; MacLeod, Kirsten; Makutsa, Robert; Sharapov, Kiril

Abstract

This paper critically examines the placement of people seeking asylum in temporary accommodation during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is based on a 14-month collaborative ethnography conducted between 2020 and 2022 with asylum seeking individuals in Glasgow. While moves to temporary accommodation were framed by state authorities and private firms as providing a ‘safe environment’ from Covid-19, we show how these relocations amounted to a racialised process which constructed our participants as ‘undeserving’ and ‘unworthy’ of protection and care during a period of crisis. Our analysis highlights how this racialisation took place not only on a policy level but also in practice through everyday encounters with private provider staff. Advancing the literature on asylum housing and dispersal through new theoretical and empirical contributions, we argue that the rise of temporary forms of asylum accommodation can be understood as constitutive of racial modes of belonging within a regime of differential humanity.

Citation

Guma, T., Blake, Y., Maclean, G., MacLeod, K., Makutsa, R., & Sharapov, K. (2024). “Are we criminals?” – everyday racialisation in temporary asylum accommodation. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 47(4), 742-762. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2023.2238052

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 20, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Jul 25, 2023
• Publication Date: 2024
• Deposit Date: Jun 7, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 25, 2023
• Print ISSN: 0141-9870
• Electronic ISSN: 1466-4356
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 47
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 742-762
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2023.2238052
• Keywords: asylum seekers, Covid-19, hostile environment, housing, outsourcing, racism
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/3120358