Organizer: Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Type/Location: Hybird / London, United Kingdom
Description:
The tragic deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants in a lorry in Essex (UK) in 2019, drew media and policy attention to the perilous journeys made by undocumented Vietnamese migrants. Since then, unprecedented numbers of Vietnamese migrants have taken the ‘small boats’ route from Calais, France across the English Channel. Drawing upon multi-sited, empirical qualitative research conducted in Vietnam and the UK, this talk explores the social, economic and development issues shaping the specific labour migration to the UK from north-Central Vietnam. Our research straddles sociology, migration and development studies to explore how Vietnam’s transition to market socialism drives a politics of development which serves as an overriding social and political narrative guiding perilous migration journeys to the UK and Europe. The talk examines Vietnamese migrants’ understanding of the imperatives underlying their migration journeys, their labour market experiences in the UK and how they are perceived by migrant support organisations. We argue that during the plight to improve livelihoods, an individualisation and embodiment of Vietnamese development narratives occurs and becomes intensified through UK hostile bordering practices.
About the Speakers:
Dr. Tamsin Barber is Reader in Sociology and Chair of the Migration and Refugees Network at Oxford Brookes University. Her research and teaching focuses on the topics of migration, race, ethnicity and inequality. Her first monograph, Oriental Identities in Superdiverse Britain: Young Vietnamese in London, focuses on the racialized identities among second-generation youth in London. She is currently writing a book on Vietnamese Migrants and UK bordering Processes for Amsterdam University Press, this latest research focuses on undocumented Vietnamese migration and hostile bordering practices. Her research has been funded by the Leverhulme Trust, British Academy and Newton Fund. Her articles appear in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Culture, Place and Gender, Identities, and Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law.
About the Moderator: Prof. John Sidel is Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, and the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Professor Sidel received his BA and MA from Yale University and his PhD from Cornell University. He is the author of Capital, Coercion, and Crime: Bossism in the Philippines (1999), Philippine Politics and Society in the Twentieth Century: Colonial Legacies, Postcolonial Trajectories (2000), Riots, Pogroms, Jihad: Religious Violence in Indonesia (2006), The Islamist Threat in Southeast Asia: A Reassessment (2007), Thinking and Working Politically in Development: Coalitions for Change in the Philippines (2020, with Jaime Faustino) and Republicanism, Communism, Islam: Cosmopolitan Origins of Revolution in Southeast Asia (2021).
Registration:
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