How do the everyday experiences of destitute irregular migrants shape their relationship with the city of Bristol?

Despite a large irregular migrant population across UK urban areas, little is understood about the strategies they use to get by when they are living destitute in the city, and the urban remains under-theorised as a site where irregular migrants produce space. In this thesis, I seek to better understand how the everyday experiences and practices of destitute irregular migrants shape their relationship with the city itself - its people, public spaces and institutions. Bristol provides an interesting location for a study of the strategies and practices that are employed during times of destitution: it is a City of Sanctuary, inside which activists, diasporas and the third sector come together as a political community to try to mitigate some of the more perilous conditions of destitution. Yet the city exists within a nation-state that is pursuing a hostile environment towards refused asylum seekers and other irregular migrants; and many vital services are under-funded or inaccessible. I use in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation to probe some of these tensions, as well as to learn more about what the everyday looks like for those living destitute and illegalised. Building on this rich empirical data, I ask whether in Bristol it is possible for (some) destitute irregular migrants to claim an alternative kind of citizenship or right to the city (Lefebvre, 1996; 2003) that lies in use-value (use of space, services, information, networks and culture), self-management, and expressions of the right to be different.