Dr Ali Bhagat (Saint Mary’s University, Canada, and University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa)

Public Seminar Series, Hilary term 2022 – Race, Borders, and Global (Im)mobility

This talk aims to centre refugee survival in global capitalism between the camp and the city. Drawing on fieldwork data from Paris and Nairobi between 2017-2019, I examine refugee survival on three prongs: shelter, income, and political belonging. With the ever-increasing presence of refugees in major urban centres due to the dismantling of certain camps, trafficking, economically motivated migration and other conflict-related causes, the interconnections between camps and cities like Paris and Nairobi have become more apparent in recent years. In placing refugees in global capitalism, I argue that refugees comprise a disposable population in the global economy along the lines of Kanyal Sanyal and Gargi Bhattacharya’s conception of the ‘edge’. With this in mind, I speak to the material and ideological dimensions of disposability and pay attention to the urban dimensions of racial exclusion amidst logics of capital accumulation.

This seminar will be held via Zoom. Register here

Please direct enquiries to rsc-outreach@qeh.ox.ac.uk“