The UK tabloid media reporting on asylum seekers has largely been hostile and focused on the idea of asylum seekers pretending to need asylum and abusing the UK welfare system. Conservative and far-right politicians in particular have participated in the vilification of asylum seekers. Large parts of the public believe that asylum seekers should work rather than enjoy living a lazy life in hotels. Together, these views present enormous challenges to any kind of successful integration of asylum seekers into British society. Drawing on a unique set of over three dozen interviews with asylum seekers in hotels in London, this paper focuses on their experiential accounts. It argues that better understanding asylum seekers’ motivations for coming to the UK, their fears and hopes for the futures enables us to rehumanise them and to consider them as individuals with fears and hope not all that dissimilar to our own everyday concerns. These insights into their asylum seeker experiences can provide a basis for integration activities that put common humanity at the centre and enable co-citizenship.

Authors:
Stefanie Pukallus, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

About the Presenter(s)
Professor Stefanie Pukallus is a University Professor/Principal Lecturer at University of Sheffield in United Kingdom

See this presentation on the full schedule – Wednesday Schedule

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