Building inclusive cities: emerging learning from a knowledge exchange with UK cities

Public Seminar Series, Hilary term 2019

Series convenor: Dr Naohiko Omata

About the seminar series

This public seminar series consists of two separate themes: 1) Refugees in the United Kingdom and 2) Urban Refugees. Speakers come from diverse backgrounds, including both practitioners and academics, to consolidate existing empirical and theoretical knowledge of the proposed themes.

1)  Refugees in the United Kingdom

At the end of 2016, the United Kingdom hosted nearly 120,000 refugees from a range of countries. While the available literature on this population has been growing, many areas of refugees’ post-resettlement/asylum lives remain under-explored. This seminar series will offer insights into the ways in which refugees in the UK have adapted to their new lives, with a focus on understanding the lived experiences of their economic and socio-cultural integration – or lack thereof.

2)  Urban Refugees

Currently, more than half of the world’s refugees live outside of designated refugee camps or settlements, surviving with varying degrees of independence and success, and often living under the radar of aid organisations. This seminar series will enable audiences to cultivate a better understanding of the day-to-day lives of ‘self-settled’ refugees around the world, particularly in the Global South.

About the seminar

Cities are increasingly at the forefront of innovation in relation to the reception and integration of newcomers - as the places with the highest proportions of newcomers and therefore as those most likely to feel the effects of any failures of integration. In the UK, this has been supplemented by an increasing devolution agenda sitting alongside the lack of a national integration policy framework acting as a driver for local government to take a lead. 

Inclusive Cities is a knowledge exchange initiative facilitated by the Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society. It is working with six UK cities (Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, Peterborough and London) to develop their strategic and practical approach to the integration of newcomers. The project supports city administrations to develop an action plan of priority areas (from civic orientation, to language skills and employment through to the role of arts and sport in inclusion) delivered by a taskforce of partners. It supports cities to work with each other, supplemented by research input and a learning exchange with US NGO Welcoming America.

This seminar will discuss the theory on integration processes underpinning the project, integration policy and how this applies to the local level, alongside the emerging learning from the project. This includes the development of new local narratives of inclusion, place making through building new partnerships (with a particular focus on employer engagement) and galvanising local action, for example building on the experience of UK cities in the Syrian Vulnerable Person’s Resettlement Programme.

About the speaker

Jacqueline Broadhead is a Senior Researcher at COMPAS, University of Oxford, and leads on the Inclusive Cities programme at the Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity. Inclusive Cities supports five UK cities and their local partners to achieve a step-change in their approach towards integration of newcomers in the city, including through a learning exchange with Welcoming America. Jacqui acts as the UK coordinator for the European Website on Social Integration. She is a Research Member of the Common Room at Kellogg College and sits on the Departmental Research Ethics Committee (DREC) for SAME and the Central University Ethics Committee (CUREC).  Read more at: https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/people/jacqui-broadhead/

Registration is not required. Refreshments will be served after the seminar.