Rethinking Resistance: Creativity and potentiality within the UK asylum system.

The contemporary moment of asylum geopolitics, is characterised by an extension of increasingly violent practices of border control. Across the so-called Global North, national borders have been pushed offshore and moved beyond the edges of traditional state territory into camps, processing and detention centres. Simultaneously the national border has multiplied internally within the state, emerging in schools, workplaces and public transport: 'the' border has shattered (into) the fabric of everyday life. This seeping presence of the border is not however, unchallenged; there has been a growth in migrant advocacy groups, support and hospitality networks. As this resistance to immigration control expands, posing urgent questions for policymakers, advocates, and civil society as it does so, academic work has emerged, commenting, critiquing and attempting to intervene within the multiple practices and policies that are resisting practices of immigration control. However, such work has, to date, often remained wedded to an uncritical account of resistance. In critically examining the 'category' of resistance itself, my work offers a novel approach to understanding resistance as an inherently creative, material and at times incoherent practice.
My research therefore asks how we can think differently about resistance, through an attention to creativity. Drawing upon previous work with charities working with refugees in this area (including in UK detention centres, and with asylum seekers in the community), this fellowship would allow me to successfully complete three aims:
1. Publish from my doctoral research.
2. Develop my public impact.
3. Take my research forward, and develop a project proposal to continue this work in the context of European Refugee camps.