Migrant and Refugee Challenges in Europe

his seminar series aims at giving Brunel staff, international experts, decision-makers, practitioners and Brunel students a better understanding of the consequences of the recent sudden influx of migrants and refugees in Europe and the measures adopted or considered by European states to deal with the crisis. The series will use academics from various disciplines (law, politics, philosophy, history and education) as well as decision-makers and practitioners from the grassroots to share insights into the crisis and figure out possible ways forward. Although the media are never too far away from the unfolding crisis, the academy has not yet had the time and space to explore at length the legality and the consequences of the measures considered to deal with the crisis. In addition, the big headlines and the emotive rhetoric have encouraged knee-jerk reactions that limit human rights. The seminar series aims at encouraging Brunel staff to use their expertise in various areas in order to tackle issues relevant to this crisis. Hence, one of the objectives of the series is to put Brunel colleagues in touch with international experts, decision-makers and practitioners in a knowledge transfer exercise that will hopefully lead to influencing the debate in the UK and in Greece, which is the main state at the centre of the crisis. Many issues regarding the refugee and migrant crisis are linked to research areas where Brunel has an expertise. The rights of refugees and the responses of states are linked to Brunel’s strength in international law. Non-discrimination issues are the expertise of several senior and junior staff. The states’ responsibilities towards unaccompanied children, women who come from post-conflict areas; Muslims; the security threat rhetoric; all touch on research already conducted by CBASS colleagues. The ‘universal adversary’ (Neocleous, 2016) has again been at the forefront of media headlines when it was revealed that some of the suspects implicated in the Brussels bombing came from Turkey to Greece and then to Belgium, have been discussed by CBASS staff. In addition, concerns about cultural attitudes of migrants, and especially Muslims, have been repeatedly reported after the incident in Cologne in New Year eve 2016 when a large number allegedly of migrants sexually assaulted tens of women, are the subject of intense CBASS research. These issues have only been discussed in a rather superficial way with respect to the current crisis, partly because of the multi-disciplinarity of the challenges involved. The main objective of the seminar series is to use CBASS expertise and contacts to serve the aim of working towards a cross-discipline, cross-national informal network on migrants and refugees that will engage in further activities and search for funding.

People

	Name	Telephone	Email	Office
	Professor Alexandra Xanthaki Professor (Principal investigator) T: +44 (0)1895 266240 E: alexandra.xanthaki@brunel.ac.uk	+44 (0)1895 266240	alexandra.xanthaki@brunel.ac.uk	Elliott Jaques 009b