Policing Belonging: Race and Nation in the UK

This paper considers what impact the police’s increased involvement in matters of migration control has for recent migrants and minority ethnic groups in the UK. In what ways (and with what consequences) do criminalization, migration, race and gender intersect when the police are asked to respond to migration and to fears about migrants? Drawing on an empirical research study on police custody suites in the UK, I discuss how the policing of migration represents a tool by which the presence of minority ethnic groups in the UK is questioned, and the wider implications this has for who can(not) belong, and how these procedures are racialized. The paper also provides evidence of the widening reach of the police whose work is increasingly carried out in conjunction with other actors including the members of the public who have been enlisted to surveil, report and help enforce migration policy. Conceptually, the paper brings to light the everyday forms of racism that are renewed through the policing of migrants while exploring how new and familiar modes of policing minority ethnic groups coalesce to racialize and ‘other’ those who are deemed not to belong, risky, criminal or a threat to social and economic resources. For more information: https://www.soas.ac.uk/migrationdiaspora/seminarsevents/seminarseries/01feb2017-policing-belonging-race-and-nation-in-the-uk.html.