Bureaucracy, law and dystopia in the United Kingdom's asylum system
John Campbell (School of Oriental & African Studies, London)
Friday, 10 February 2017, 1pm to 2pm
Seminar Room 2, Queen Elizabeth House, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3TB
Hosted by Refugee & Migration Law Discussion Group
Dr John Campbell will give a talk on his new book Bureaucracy, Law and Dystopia in the United Kingdom's Asylum System.
About the speaker
Dr Campbell, Reader in the Anthropology of Africa and Law, is a social anthropologist at the School of Oriental & African Studies, London. He has undertaken fieldwork in Ghana, Tanzania, Ethiopia and the UK; he has also undertaken development consultancy work in Ethiopia, Kenya and Botswana. During 2007-2009 he was engaged in research on the United Kingdom's asylum system, which has resulted in numerous papers and two recent books: Nationalism, Law and Statelessness. Grand Illusions in the Horn of Africa (Routledge, 2014) and Bureaucracy, Law and Dystopia in the UK's Asylum System (Routledge, 2017).
About the book
The central concern of this book is to find answers to fundamental questions about the British asylum system and how it operates. Based on ethnographic research over a two-year period, the work follows and analyses numerous asylum appeals through the British courts. A specific focus lies on the ‘political’ factors at play as different institutions and actors seek to influence judicial decision-making and overturn/uphold official asylum policy. Providing an in-depth ethnographic study of a national asylum system and of immigration law and practice, the book will be an invaluable resource for academics, researchers and policy-makers in the UK and beyond working in this highly topical area.