Migrants at work: How legal status and regional geography affect migrant labour market experiences in the UK

Work is a central point of interest in public and policy debates on the benefits and
burdens of immigration. Migrants' experiences of work in the British economy are
diverse and depend on a series of factors that include qualifications, national
background and legal status. Yet many migrants face shared experiences of
insecurity and precarity. The proposed research will explore the labour market
experience of three types of migrants in precarious employment: Non-EU work
migrants, EU citizens, and refugees. Looking at two urban contexts, it considers the
circumstances of two distinct city economies, Newcastle and Bristol. The aim of the
research is to explore strategies that migrants employ as they face casualisation,
flexibility and the insecurity of status and work. The research is therefore interested in
collective forms of overt resistance as well as more covert forms of individual agency
within and outside of the workplace. The research will gather data from 40 semistructured,
in- depth interviews and ethnographic work, following a 'life-history'
approach in order to generate material to be analysed with a narrative practice
framework.