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，包括在对移民、庇护和英国帝国历史的两极分化态度的背景下，与种族和难以捉摸的“英国性”身份的不平等关系。索马里侨民是英国最受歧视和误解但足智多谋的群体之一，他们的经历使这些问题以及英国脱欧后的大流行病所带来的更广泛挑战凸显出来。英国索马里的经历处于当地和全球挑战的交叉点，在有问题的“融合”思想背景下，这是当代种族、避难和不平等公民身份问题的象征。此外，英国索马里社区的生活往往是高度跨大陆的，在“家园”进行投资和政治参与的模式，以及“回归”的现实或愿望，塑造了他们与英国和英国政府的关系。因此，索马里人在英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，我们也需要以更紧密联系的方式思考政策，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。它通过对三个非常不同的城市的研究，将英国索马里城市公民的经验与英国在当地和全球的不同“面孔”联系起来，说明了英国城市政治地理的不同方面，并在索马里移民历史中扮演了不同的角色：谢菲尔德、布里斯托尔和伦敦卡姆登自治市。此外，还对索马里/索马里兰境内的回返者和跨大陆社区进行了研究。它将跨学科方法与城市研究和发展研究结合起来，采用基于合作伙伴关系的设计，吸引民间社会合作伙伴，包括难民委员会、庇护之城、索马里组织委员会和所有三个城市的索马里当地社区组织。该研究旨在探索：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；这与不断变化的横贯大陆的网络和索马里的发展有何关系；iii)英国在全球和当地的政策如何影响索马里侨民的经验和管理经常性危机的能力；iv)更好地了解这些动态如何能够增强城市公民意识和团结，并改善一系列领域的政策。通过不同规模的地方和国家合作伙伴以及政府的参与，该项目将为跨部门对话、从业者指导和以研究为主导的民间社会活动创造新的途径。此外，由于索马里难民是冷战后时期第一个重要的入境难民群体，从长远的角度看待他们的经历对目前和今后的难民经历具有重要的借鉴意义。因此，该项目将把有关索马里侨民经历的研究结果与最近抵达的难民的需要结合起来，并通过与难民理事会和庇护市的项目伙伴关系向前推进。该项目的总体愿景是通过关注多代索马里难民侨民的城市经验，加深对全球和地方挑战相互依存关系的认识，以建立社区间的团结，并有助于改善相关政策领域之间的一致性。它通过横贯大陆的研究项目为相互关联的问题提供了新的视角，该项目涉及持续的跨部门工作模式、多地点和跨学科研究的新形式，以及基于深度社区参与的影响和知识交流的合作计划。

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.