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

近年来，进一步揭示了英国城市不平等的深度，包括种族和在对移民，庇护和英国帝国历史的两极分化态度的背景下，对难以捉摸的“英国人”身份的不平等。索马里侨民--英国最受污名化和误解但资源丰富的社区之一--的经历使这些问题和英国脱欧后大流行英国的更广泛挑战得到了极大的缓解。联合王国在索马里的经历处于地方和全球挑战的交汇点，在“融合”的问题思想背景下，这种经历象征着当代种族、避难和不平等公民身份问题。此外，英国索马里社区的生活往往是高度跨大陆的，在“祖国”的投资和政治参与模式，以及“回归”的现实或愿望，塑造了他们与英国和英国国家的关系。因此，索马里人在联合王国城市的生活经历与索马里的发展进程密切相关，反之亦然。因此，我们也需要以更加相互关联的方式思考政策，跨越地方社区政策和国际发展政策之间的鸿沟。本项目将分析这些交叉点。它框架的英国索马里城市公民的经验，在当地和全球范围内的英国不同的“面孔”，通过研究在三个非常不同的城市，说明英国的城市政治地理的不同方面，并在索马里移民历史上有不同的角色：谢菲尔德，布里斯托和伦敦卡姆登自治市。对索马里/索马里兰的回返者和跨大陆社区的研究也是一种补充。它将跨学科方法与城市研究和发展研究相结合，并采用基于伙伴关系的协作设计，吸收了民间社会伙伴，包括难民理事会、庇护城、索马里组织理事会和所有三个城市的索马里当地社区组织。该研究旨在探讨：i）英国城市中多代索马里社区在排斥、代表性、服务获取、愿望和社区间参与方面的经验; ii）这与索马里不断变化的跨大陆网络和发展有何关系; iii）英国的全球和地方政策如何为索马里侨民的经验和管理经常性危机的能力提供支持;以及iv）更好地理解这些动态如何能够促进增强城市公民意识和团结，并改善一系列领域的政策。通过在不同规模上与地方和国家合作伙伴及政府进行接触，该项目将开辟跨部门对话的新途径，实践者指导和研究主导的民间社会活动的机会。此外，由于索马里难民是冷战后时期第一批大批涌入的难民群体，从长远的角度看待他们的经历，对当前和今后的难民经历具有重要的借鉴意义。因此，该项目将通过与难民理事会和庇护城市的项目伙伴关系，将与索马里散居者经历有关的研究结果与最近抵达的难民的需求相结合，该项目的总体愿景是通过关注多代索马里散居者的城市经历，以便建立社区间的团结，并促进改善相关政策领域的一致性。它通过一个跨大陆研究方案提供了关于相互关联问题的新视角，该方案涉及持续的部门间工作方式、多地点和跨学科研究的新形式以及一个以社区深度参与为基础的影响和知识交流合作计划。

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.