Between Borders

In this episode, host Jessie Sullivan (University College London) speaks with Olivia Petie (University of Birmingham) and Megan Crossley (Lancaster University) about care "from above" to ask who the state sees as deserving of care and how those framings shape everyday life for migrants in the UK.

We look at the stark contrast between bespoke routes created for some groups and the hostile, securitised response to people seeking asylum via small boats - discuss how the language of care can be mobilised to legitimise border violence and obscure the structural conditions driving dangerous crossings in the first place. We share examples from our own research, unpacking the myth of asylum hotels as ‘luxury’ spaces and discuss the far right hostility and violence facing asylum hotel residents. We also consider how asylum support policies frame control as care while leaving people destitute, disconnected and constantly on the move.

Mentioned resources:

• Crossley, M. (2026). Careless Bordering: Photovoice accounts from refugees and people seeking asylum in Northwest England. [Doctoral Thesis, Lancaster University]. Lancaster University. https://doi.org/10.17635/lancaster/thesis/3238 (Please note: This thesis is currently unavailable online however contact [email protected] to receive a copy)
• Crossley, M. (forthcoming). Careless Bordering: Care as a technology of control in UK asylum governance
• Petie, O., Phillimore, J. and Allsopp, A. (2025) ‘Exploring hospitality, hostility and (un)home in hotel accommodation for asylum seekers in the United Kingdom’, Hospitality & Society 15(1): 23-44.
• Phillimore, J., Petie, O. (2024) ‘What life is like for the asylum seekers in hotels being attacked by far right groups’, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/what-life-is-like-for-the-asylum-seekers-in-hotels-being-attacked-by-far-right-groups-236020
• Sheikh, Rahil and Kateryna Pavlyuk, (6 February 2026) ‘Number of homeless refugees in England soars, BBC finds.’ BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy9y3n43192o

Further suggested resources:

• Sirriyeh, A. (2018) Politics of Compassion: Immigration and Asylum Policy. Bristol University Press.
• Darling, J. (2022) Systems of Suffering: Dispersal and the Denial of Asylum. Pluto Press
• Darling, J. and Burridge, A. (2025) Hotels, refuge, and the rise of carceral hospitality, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 50 (4).

Active listening questions:

• The hosts mention that care can be "wrapped in the language of support" in ways that make resistance harder. Can you think of other contexts (beyond migration) where the language of care might be used to soften or justify control?
• If you were designing a UK asylum accommodation and support system from scratch, guided by the critical understandings of care discussed in this episode, what might you do differently?
• This episode critiques the framing of asylum seekers as either "illegal migrants" living in luxury or vulnerable victims needing rescue. What do both of these framings leave out?

In this first episode of the new Between Borders season, host Olivia Sheringham (Birkbeck, University of London) speaks to Megan Crossley (Lancaster University) and Rebekka Hölzle (Birkbeck, University of London) about why care has become such an important theme in migration research and solidarity work. Together we unpack what care means, and why it matters, in the context of increasingly hostile and violent border regimes in the UK and beyond.

We trace the term "hostile environment" back to its origins in UK immigration policy and consider how care persists within, and pushes back against, systems designed to dehumanise, exclude and harm migrants. We discuss key concepts and thinkers shaping this field to consider why care is neither innocent nor straightforwardly benevolent, how it is entangled in continuing power dynamics and even complicit in colonial and oppressive histories. Sharing examples of our own research, we explore how a critical, situated approach to care offers a way to move beyond simplistic narratives of victimhood or resilience.

Mentioned resources:

• Home-city Spaces of Care Project (Birkbeck, University of London)
• Hobart H J K & Kneese T (2020) Radical Care: Survival Strategies for Uncertain Times. Social Text 38 (1 (142)): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-7971067
• Raghuram P (2016) Locating Care Ethics Beyond the Global North. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 15(3): 511–533. https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v15i3.1353
• Thompson J (2022) Care Aesthetics: For artful care and careful art. London: Routledge
• Tronto J C (1998) An Ethic of Care. Generations: Journal of the American Society on Aging. (Themed Issue: Ethics and Aging: Bringing the Issues Home) 22 (3): 15-20.

Further suggested resources:

• Clark-Kazak, C. (2023). ‘“Why Care Now” in Forced Migration Research?,” ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 22(4): 1151–1173. https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v22i4.2210
• Crossley, M. (2026). Careless Bordering: Photovoice accounts from refugees and people seeking asylum in Northwest England. [Doctoral Thesis, Lancaster University]. Lancaster University. https://doi.org/10.17635/lancaster/thesis/3238 (Please note: This thesis is currently unavailable online however contact [email protected] to receive a copy)
• Crossley, M. (forthcoming). Careless Bordering: Care as a technology of control in UK asylum governanceMartin, A, Myers, N. & Viseu, A. (2015). The Politics of Care in Technoscience, Social Studies of Science 45(5): 625–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312715602073
• Pirate Care a Syllabus Blog
• Puig de La Bellacasa, M. (2017) Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds, University of Minnesota Press.
• Sheringham, O. (2025). Creating cities of care: Towards a new radical care framework for geographical research with urban migrants and refugees. Progress in Human Geography, 49(3), 266-285. https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325251327718

Active listening questions:

• Why has care become such an important concept within migration research and what can it offer to the field?
• What have been some of the main critiques of ‘care ethics’?
• Why do some scholars use the notion of ‘radical care’ and what does it imply?
• In what ways have scholars thought about the aesthetic dimensions of care? How might this be useful for thinking about the relationships between care, migration, and creativity?