The ‘Linchpin for Success’? The problematic establishment of the 1965 Race Relations Act and its Conciliation Board

The 1965 Race Relations Act was the first legislation directed towards outlawing racial discrimination and racial incitement in Britain; but it has been almost universally criticised as weak, narrow and ineffectual. This article focuses on an area not adequately discussed in the existing literature—the debate about, and impact of, replacing initial criminal sanctions with American-styled conciliation and civil remedies, and subsequent creation of conciliation machinery. It argues that the protracted process of forming this Board had a greater impact upon the Act’s success than has been previously acknowledged, as it demonstrated the bipartite lack of desire to address the politically unpopular issue of race and immigration, thus creating further disillusionment towards the British state. Rather than being the ‘last step’ in such legislation, as desired by many at the time, its weaknesses and limitations stimulated criticism and increased political action, leading to subsequent broader legislation in future years.     

Sanctuary Revisited: Central American Refugee Assistance in the History of Church-based Immigrant Advocacy

Abstract

Extant literature on the U.S. Sanctuary movement of the 1980s mainly facilitates an understanding of the movement as part of liberal religious resistance to the Reagan-Bush Administrations' policy in Central America. However, I argue that Sanctuary should also be understood as pivotal to church involvement in a longer lineage of social activism that can be called immigrant advocacy. Church-based immigrant advocates (CBIAs) were in short supply until the end of World War II, when Christian clergy and laity used biblical calls for hospitality to argue for the admission of thousands of displaced persons from Europe. Over the next quarter-century, many CBIAs provided services to political refugees admitted under State Department criteria. But as CBIAs grew frustrated with double standards in refugee admissions, they began to develop discourses legitimating hospitality work outside of a nation-state framework. In tracing the history of church-based immigrant advocacy, Sanctuary indexes the juncture at which many Christian organizations widened their operations beyond the standard of sovereignty to accommodate undocumented refugees as well as immigrants motivated by economic need.     

Justice Not Benevolence

Abstract

Although there are many migration theories that purport to explain why people migrate, many theologies and ethics of migration rely on neoclassical migration theory, which views migration solely as the result of poverty and unemployment in sending countries. This paper reviews various migration theories in order to argue that Catholic social teaching on migration has primarily relied on neoclassical theories of migration. This over-reliance on neoclassical migration theory has led to flawed policy recommendations and ethical analyses.

Christian ethics must respond to the reality of migration as described by migration systems theory, which suggests that migration systems are actually initiated by the policies of receiving countries, primarily colonial and organized guest worker recruitment. The ethical principles required to respond to migration are not only benevolence and hospitality. Christian ethics must begin by seeing migration as a problem of exploitative relationships between citizens and migrants.     

Accommodating Otherness: anti-asylum centre protest and the maintenance of white privilege

Geographers have recently progressed the debate on NIMBYism by demonstrating that opposition to new development is frequently motivated by white residents' desire to exclude non-white groups. In this paper, I extend this argument by exploring community opposition to a proposed accommodation centre for asylum seekers in Nottinghamshire (UK). Herein, I detail a rhetoric of opposition that ignored the multiple origins and ethnicities of asylum seekers to depict them as an undifferentiated Other group. Though local campaigners rarely referred directly to their own 'whiteness', I argue their campaign can only be understood within a racialized problematic, constituting an attempt to defend the privileges of an 'unmarked' whiteness against the imagined threat of a racialized Other. In conclusion, I argue that studies of NIMBYism must take careful account of the contingency of racial identities if they are to effectively contribute to the geographic literature that seeks to de-centre white privilege.     

Notes on women in the global city: Chicago

As the organizers of an event on women in the global city, we wanted to create a forum exploring the intersections of class, gender and other forms of inequality that fracture ‘global Chicago’. In the panelists' discussion of the intersections of struggles relating to housing, education and environmental justice in Chicago's particular version of the global city, we found evidence of lives disrupted by neoliberal trends, as well as possible sites to contest these disruptions. These struggles reverberate to shape a new urban vision, as the academics and activists assembled for our panel aim not just to work on the local issues of specific women, but to create a city in which work is well compensated, housing is affordable for everyone, schools educate all children well, all neighborhoods are safe both from crime and environmental pollutants, and everyone has the time to fully engage as active citizens of the city.     

The Epistemological Challenge of Higher Education Student Volunteering: “Reproductive” or “Deconstructive” Volunteering?

Abstract: This paper addresses student volunteering as an important socio‐cultural trend which is generally taken for granted and un‐interrogated. We explore tensions inherent in the practice and articulation of higher education student volunteering, via biographical narratives of contrasting student volunteers and employ Rose's (1993, Feminism and Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge, University of Minnesota Press) theory of “paradoxical space” to unpick and understand these narratives, as this has proven a generative approach to re‐conceptualising students’ engagement with universities and communities. Building on this theoretical approach, we propose a new conceptual framework to analyse students’ learning and understanding of social justice through volunteering. This framework contrasts reproductive altruism, or volunteering which reproduces social inequalities, with a deconstructive form that provides students with resources to recognise and challenge power relations and inequality in society.     

Empowerment,transformation and the construction of ‘urban heritage’ in post-colonial Hong Kong

In recent years, there have been many political and economic debates in Hong Kong, and heritage conservation has been used as a political and economic weapon by some members of the community. Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews, this paper analyses how buildings of a small street built in the 1950s were constructed as ‘heritage’, and how a community heritage discourse was used by a group of local residents (Kiefang), university students and professionals to object to the urban renewal project led by the Hong Kong government. In this context, heritage was used to obtain political rights and to express anger against the increasing gap between the rich and poor of Hong Kong. Though the immediate objectives of this group were not achieved, the protest process empowered a group of local residents, and has marked the commencement of a politicalized heritage conservation movement in post-colonial Hong Kong.     

新区域经营观的空间体系价值统一规划理念——我的区域规划社会公正观

依据\"新社会经济发展的公正理念\"首议的\"新区域经营\"管理思想,从空间公正角度创立了将其耦合到区域发展规划的系统理念。当代人文社会科学与区域学科出现了\"社会公正\"转向探讨的系列\"新\"前沿理念。地理学提出了新人文地理学逻辑,社会行政的公共管理也提出了新公共管理逻辑。将空间公正与社会公正耦合到区域生活空间单元体系,为此\"新区域经营\"提出了\"社会与区域价值统一\"的原理。论文以新人文地理学的\"社会生活空间质量观\"为基础,阐述了\"空间体系价值统一规划\"机理、原则与控制性路径;其次,论证了其构建的价值体系响应及构成因素响应结构;最后,论述了新区域经营观对生活质量价值统一的两个层次控制规划规则与路径。     

社会公正:化解社会风险的根本出路

科学认识当前中国所面临的社会风险,对于构建和谐社会具有重要指导意义。社会公正在一定程度上的缺位是改革开放以来中国社会的一个重要特征,也是当前中国所面临社会风险的深层次原因。社会公正的实现,既是化解社会风险的根本出路,也是构建和谐社会的根本保证。