Existing scholarship on the role of law and policy in shaping (un)belonging has focused primarily on legislation which is deliberately discriminatory and hostile such as nationality and immigration legislation and crime-prevention schemes. In this presentation we explore the impact of a set of laws and policies enacted with the purpose of including black and brown bodies in the nation-state and protecting them as British Citizens and consider what this can tell us about notions of inclusive citizenship and how it is experienced. In 2015, the UK government brought in a series of legislative changes and policy initiatives designed to prevent and eliminate FC/FGM on a platform of inclusive citizenship and with the initial support of affected groups. However, while protecting young girls from harm is the notional purpose of such measures, political and media debates on 'FGM' have often been framed within nation-building rhetoric such that ‘FGM’ has become the de rigour signifier of the vilified migrant/Muslim Other. Our data explores how safeguarding procedures ending up alienating affected communities through racialisation and stigmatisation. We demonstrate the significance of naturalisation processes and discourse in framing understandings of belonging to the nation in this context and how FGM-safeguarding measures brought to the fore for this group what Cohen (2009) terms the “myth of full citizenship”.

Natasha Carver is a Lecturer in International Criminology in School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol. Taking a decolonial and socio-legal approach, her research analyses legal constructions of racialised and gendered identities and how these identities are negotiated by those who are subject(ed) to their force. She has published on the impact of FGM-safeguarding laws on notions of citizenship and belonging; the ongoing effects of colonialism in the UK border regime and the application of the Refugee Convention; the role of legal representatives in cultural translation and the drafting of witness statements for immigration appeals; and the gendered and ethnicised imagining of ‘Britishness’ in the regulation of marriage-related migration to the UK. Her monograph, Marriage, Gender and Refugee Migration (Rutgers University Press), provides empirical evidence on intimacy, gender roles and family life following refugee migration and won the British Sociological Association 2022 Philip Abrams Prize for the best sole-authored first book in the discipline of Sociology.

 

Online: https://bristol-acuk.zoom.us/j/7397144894?pwd=VExGNjdBbCtQVkc3R1N2R2txblRodz09 N.B. Joining the seminar or use of this link will be taken as consent to the seminar being recorded in full.