The Windrush Scandal in a trans-national and Commonwealth context

这一为期三年的研究项目首次试图在一个完全跨国的框架内对所谓的“Windrush丑闻”进行学术审查，适当考虑大西洋两岸各种官方和非官方行为者的机构，以及后殖民和英联邦背景下国际关系的作用。那些在1962年《英联邦移民法》生效前抵达英国的英联邦加勒比国家的人，通常有权凭借英国和殖民地公民的身份进入英国并留在英国。该项目的主要目标是开发一个独特的数字研究资源，在英国档案馆和加勒比政府记录的数字化政府文件的支持下，对围绕Windrush丑闻的国家和外交活动进行广泛的采访。将结合口头和档案研究方法，探索明显不同的国际外交领域和社区行动主义之间的联系，一方面深入了解英联邦代表的非传统公共外交方法，另一方面，这种国际支持如何加强和扩大以社区为基础的运动和调查性报道。探索这些联系将提供当前项目的中心和总体重点。主要成果将是60次口述历史访谈，这些访谈将以电子方式提供，并建立一个可搜索的数据库，其中包括关于“Windrush一代人”的现有口述历史资源。其中30个采访将集中在加勒比海各国政府及其驻伦敦代表对20世纪60年代初对从加勒比海移民到英国的法律限制的反应，以及那些留在英国的权利受到英国政府挑战的侨民社区成员的困境。其他30次采访将集中在散居国外的社区成员、那些发现自己受到驱逐威胁或实际上被驱逐出境的人，以及他们的支持者和法律和政治代表。访谈将探讨关于国籍的法律的复杂性和模糊性在多大程度上加剧了围绕加勒比和英国身份和归属感的相互竞争的概念的混乱。他们将寻求确定散居海外的社区成员在多大程度上意识到自1962年以来议会的连续法案给他们的权利和义务带来的变化，以及相当多的人留在英国的权利受到挑战的阶段。这项口述历史研究将得到英国和加勒比地区收藏的档案研究的补充。选定的文件将被数字化，并与采访录音和辅助说明材料一起在项目网站上提供，包括项目组制作的一系列播客。项目组将与布里克斯顿的黑人文化档案馆合作，努力确保尽可能广泛地传播，并在BCA为社区积极分子举办一次关于项目调查结果的特别研讨会。我们还将举办一个项目‘路演’，它将访问英国拥有大量加勒比海侨民社区的城市。我们还将在伦敦为外交部、内政部和加勒比地区高级专员公署的工作人员单独举办研讨会。我们希望我们的研究资源能被撰写本科生和研究生学位论文的学者和学生广泛使用，我们的播客将面向学院以外的人，其中一个播客专门针对参加OCR历史GCSE模块“移民到英国，1000-2010”的学生。我们为大英图书馆‘Windrush Stories’网站撰写的文章将使我们能够证明我们的项目材料与一系列研究人员和教育工作者的相关性。

This three-year research project seeks, for the first time, to produce a scholarly examination of the so-called 'Windrush scandal' within a fully trans-national framework, one that properly considers the agency of a wide variety of official and non-official actors from both sides of the Atlantic and the role of the post-colonial and Commonwealth contexts of international relations. Those people from Commonwealth Caribbean states who arrived in the UK before the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act came into force generally had the right to enter and remain in Britain by virtue of being Citizens of the UK and Colonies (CUKC). The project's key objective is to develop a unique digital research resource of extended interviews on the national and diplomatic activism around the Windrush scandal, supported by digitized government documents from the British archives and Caribbean government records. Oral and archival research methodologies will be combined to explore the links between the apparently distinct spheres of international diplomacy and community activism, providing insights into, on the one hand, unconventional methods of public diplomacy by Commonwealth representatives, and on the other, the ways in which this international support enhanced and amplified community-based campaigning and investigative reporting. Exploring these links will provide the central, overarching focus of the current project. The key outputs will be 60 oral history interviews which will be available electronically and a searchable database of existing oral history resources on the 'Windrush generation'. 30 of the interviews will focus on the response of Caribbean governments and their representatives in London to the legal restrictions imposed on immigration to the UK from the Caribbean from the early 1960s, and the plight of those members of the diaspora community whose right to remain in the UK was challenged by the British state. The other 30 interviews will focus on members of the diaspora community, those who found themselves under threat of deportation or actually deported, and their supporters and legal and political representatives. The interviews will explore the extent to which the complexities and ambiguities of the law governing nationality exacerbated confusion around competing notions of Caribbean and British identity and belonging. They will seek to identify the extent to which members of the diaspora community were aware of changes to their rights and obligations brought about by successive acts of parliament from 1962, and the stages by which it became clear that significant numbers of people were having their right to remain in the UK challenged. This oral history research will be supplemented by archival research in collections in the UK and the Caribbean. Selected documents will be digitized and made available on the project website alongside the recordings of the interviews and supporting explanatory materials including a series of podcasts produced by the project team.In partnership with the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton, the team will seek to ensure the broadest possible dissemination, with a special seminar at the BCA for community activists on the project's findings. We will also stage a project 'roadshow' which will visit cities in the UK with significant Caribbean diaspora communities. We will also provide separate seminars aimed at the staff of the FCO, the Home Office and the Caribbean High Commissions in London. We expect the research resources we produce to be widely used by academics and students producing undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations, and our podcasts will be aimed at those outside the academy, with one podcast specifically aimed at pupils taking the OCR History GCSE module 'Migration to Britain, 1000-2010'. Our articles for the British Library's 'Windrush Stories' website will enable us to demonstrate the relevance of our project materials to a range of researchers and educators.