Urban citizenship and transcontinental lives: Crisis, connection and policy coherence through the lens of 'Somali Britain'

Recent years have further revealed the depth of inequality in UK cities, including in relation to race and unequal access to the elusive identity of 'Britishness' in the context of polarized attitudes towards migration, asylum and the UK's imperial past. The experience of Somali diaspora - among the UK's most stigmatized and misunderstood but resourceful communities - throws these issues and the broader challenges of post-Brexit, pandemic Britain into sharp relief. The UK Somali experience sits at the intersection of local and global challenges in ways that are emblematic of contemporary questions of race, refuge and unequal citizenship in the context of problematic ideas of 'integration'. Moreover, the lives of UK Somali communities are often highly transcontinental, with patterns of investment and political engagement in the 'homeland', and the reality or aspiration of 'return', shaping their relationship with the UK and the British state. The Somali experience of life in UK cities is thus intimately connected to development processes in Somalia, and vice versa. Consequently we need to think about policy in more connected ways too, spanning the divides between local communities policy and international development policy.

This project will analyse these intersections. It frames the British Somali experience of urban citizenship in relation to the varying 'faces' of Britain both locally and globally, through research in three very different cities that illustrate diverse aspects of the UK's urban political geography and have different roles in Somali migration histories: Sheffield, Bristol and London borough of Camden. This is supplemented by research with returnees and transcontinental communities in Somalia/Somaliland. It combines an interdisciplinary approach drawing across urban studies and development studies with a collaborative, partnership-based design, drawing in civil society partners including the Refugee Council, City of Sanctuary, the Council of Somali Organizations and local Somali community-based organizations in all three cities.

The research aims to explore: i) the experiences of multigenerational Somali communities in UK cities in terms of exclusion, representation, service access, aspirations and inter-community engagement; ii) how this relates to changing transcontinental networks and developments in Somalia; iii) how UK policy both globally and locally feeds into the Somali diasporic experience and capacity to manage recurrent crises; and iv) how a better understanding of these dynamics could foster enhanced urban citizenship and solidarity, and improved policy across a range of domains.

Through engaging local and national partners and government at different scales, the project will generate new avenues of cross-sectoral dialogue, practitioner guidance and opportunities for research-led civil society activism. Moreover, as Somali refugees were the first significant incoming refugee group in the post Cold-War era, a long-term view on their experiences holds important lessons for present and future refugee experiences. The project will therefore put the research findings relating to the experience of Somali diaspora in conversation with the needs of more recent refugee arrivals, taken forward through project partnerships with the Refugee Council and City of Sanctuary.

The overarching vision of this project is to deepen knowledge on the interdependence of global and local challenges through this focus on the urban experience of multigenerational Somali refugee diaspora, in order both to build inter-community solidarity and contribute to improved coherence across relevant policy domains. It offers fresh lenses on interconnected problems through a transcontinental research programme involving sustained inter-sectoral modalities of working, novel forms of multi-sited and interdisciplinary research, and a collaborative plan for impact and knowledge exchange predicated on deep community engagement.