Graduate Journal of Social Science

edited by Laura Henneke, Vanessa Hughes, Peter Rees, Ignacio Rivera, Kaoru Takahashi and Sarah Walker

Articles

• Being Black, being British, being Ghanaian – A Discussion on Belonging

  Yvette Twumasi-Ankrah

  • Abstract

    Identity and belonging in Britain has been highlighted in recent times by the ‘Windrush Scandal’ and the result of the referendum on leaving the European Union (Brexit). The idea of who belongs, how they belong and where they fit in society was a key theme which ran through the empirical data gathered in my study which addresses the construction of identity amongst second-generation Ghanaians. This paper is based on my unpublished PhD and focuses on being Black, being British, being Ghanaian and belonging in different spaces. I draw on the narratives from my qualitative research and propose that negative discussions of immigrants can affect the second generation, leading to disassociation with their natal country. For my participants, the experience of degrees of belonging had been enacted across many spheres. They had to negotiate their sense of belonging in Britain, in Ghana and within Black communities in London. The argument here is that being Black, middle-class, second-generation Ghanaian and being raised in the UK creates a hybrid identity where finding space to belong is negotiated through the development of a ‘third space’ – a space where they can be themselves.

  • View Abstract
  • Read Article
  • pp. 12–35

• The Politics of Identity and Notions of Home: How Serbian Londoners Perceived Brexit

  Sanja Vico

  • Abstract

    This paper looks at the attitudes of Serbian Londoners to Brexit and at the motives behind their voting decisions at the 2016 EU referendum in Britain. It aims to understand why these people voted the way they did and what this means for their identities and their sense of belonging. Based on two-year-long ethnographic research and in-depth interviews with forty Serbian Londoners, this paper finds that Serbian Londoners were divided on Brexit and that economic status and income were not the most important factors for understanding voting decisions, but rather social and cultural capital. Their differences in attitudes to Brexit and degrees of openness to others can further be explained by Bonikowski’s (2017) argument that there may be a common repertoire of dispositions towards the nation that transcends national boundaries, which explains similarities in nationalisms among different countries. The paper also considers whether Spivak’s (1987) concept of strategic essentialism can be applied to understanding how Serbian Londoners perceived Brexit. Finally, it sheds light on the ambivalent role of living in London – both a cosmopolitan and a British city – and what impact this may have on these participants’ sense of belonging.

    Keywords

    Brexit, identity, nationalism, cosmopolitanism, migration, Serbian Londoners, social class

  • View Abstract & Keywords
  • Read Article
  • pp. 36–61

• Safe Havens and Prison Islands: The Politics of Protection and Deterrence of Border Crossers on Lesvos Island

  Evgenia Iliadou

  • Abstract

    In this paper I argue that the refugee crisis, in terms of discourse and sequence of events, has been deliberately misused by the EU policymakers in order to govern unwanted human mobility and to impose and legitimize brutal, obscene and violent politics, such as the EU-Turkey Statement, the Hotspot Approach and the geographical restriction rule. Based on ethnographic research I conducted on border crossers on Lesvos, I argue here that these obscene policies produce a Kafkaesque and suffocating context with enormous and devastating consequences upon border crossers’ lives. For the purposes of this paper, I will focus on 1) the refugee crisis discourse; 2) the immobilisation of border crossers on Lesvos, the Prison Island; and 3) the racial profiling and segregation of people into penal and bureaucratic “categories”: “vulnerable/ non-vulnerable” and “delinquents”.

    Keywords

    refugee crisis, externalisation, internalisation, Lesvos

  • View Abstract & Keywords
  • Read Article
  • pp. 62–88

• Space of Refuge: constructing a spatial dialogue inside the Palestinian refugee camp

  Samar Maqusi

  • Abstract

    Addressing spaces of refuge (refugee camps), especially as architects, has become quite a complex issue, mainly due to a protraction of refuge (including people and space), which resulted in the emergence of scenarios of inhabitation that surpass and transgress the established relief space (refugee camps) by international and government bodies. This paper aims to unravel the impact of host-government policies on the physical form of these camps, examining, in particular, the issues of control and vulnerability. Furthermore, the paper proposes an alternative method for analyzing these camp-spaces, specifically for Palestinian refugees, as well as suggesting new tools for designing and creating the necessary spatial interventions that can enhance the self-determination of Palestinian refugees and the potential of their camp spaces to offer resistance.

    Keywords

    refugee camps, spatial politics, spaces of conflict, camp evolution, spatial installations

  • View Abstract & Keywords
  • Read Article
  • pp. 89–118

• Breaking New Ground – Let Us Learn Story

  Dami Makinde

  • No abstract available.
  • Read Article
  • pp. 119–123

• Poem and Art works. (B)e C(o)nscious

  Bo Thai

  • No abstract available.
  • Read Article
  • pp. 124–128