The large rise in the number of asylum seekers coming to Britain in the 1990s and since then has made asylum policy and associated matters an increasingly important issue for the government. On the one hand, the government has wished to deter asylum seekers but on the other, it recognises the importance of integrating those who are given permission to settle. Issues surrounding asylum seekers have become highly political as the media, local authorities and local people have all become involved in trying to influence the content and delivery of asylum policy. This thesis focuses on the effect of the current dispersal policy on asylum seeker and refugee integration. In this piece of research, an asylum seeker is an individual who reaches the UK through his/her own means and submits a request for asylum to the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) at the Home Office. Asylum seekers who are granted permission to reside in the UK are defined as refugees in this thesis, whether they be Convention refugees or individuals possessing Humanitarian Protection (HP) or Discretionary Leave (DL). This study uses the approach to integration developed by Ager and Strang (2004a) and in particular their four main components of asylum seeker and refugee integration. My major hypothesis is that dispersal exercises a negative impact on the four dimensions of integration studied because this policy sends asylum seekers to localities where there are no settled co-ethnics, hostile host-community members, limited employment opportunities and inadequate dwellings. In order to test this hypothesis, I compare the significantly different integration opportunities encountered by asylum seekers and refugees in two contrasting dispersal cities, Newcastle and Birmingham. Given the national, ethnic and socio-economic heterogeneity of the group under study, I also adopt a case study approach and focus on the experiences of Kurds from Iraq. Significantly, asylum seekers and refugees possess different rights and for this reason, their experiences of dispersal and integration are analyzed separately. I chose semi-structured interviewing with asylum seekers and refugees because this method reflects my structured research strategy as well as my commitment to remain alert to unexpected findings. Furthermore, this technique helps the researcher appreciate the standpoint of the group studied, an important objective in my study. The in-depth nature of the qualitative data produced also assists with the understanding of the complex processes tied to the effect of the dispersal policy on integration. A non-probability sampling technique, snowball sampling, customarily used when a population is elusive, was employed to select the sample of asylum seekers and refugees. Semi-structured interviews were also carried out with national policy-makers and local service providers as well as Kurdish community workers and businessmen. These interviews helped the researcher understand the standpoints of central and local government, the voluntary and private sector as well as the perspective of influential Iraqi Kurds. The findings suggest that asylum seekers and refugees' experiences of dispersal and their process of integrating into UK society are not necessarily contradictory phenomena. In fact, in some instances, the dispersal policy has introduced members of this group to better integration opportunities than they would otherwise have encountered in their voluntarily chosen, traditional areas of concentration, in London and the South East of England. The conclusions also highlight several gaps in Ager and Strang's (2004a) integration framework, namely the absence of an intra-national spatial dimension, the failure to incorporate the ambivalent, non-linear effect of the passage of time and finally, the lack of reference to the idea that success in one sub-area of integration can reduce progress in another.

This thesis examines migration as a contemporary social phenomenon. Adopting Marxian dialectics, migration is defined as a form and as a process of social relations. Thus, migration exists as a differentiated but also as an internal part of social totality. This social totality, as a historical result, constitutes the general social framework within which migration is examined. This study of migration starts from the examination of this particular social organisation of social relations. Migration as an international phenomenon is explored through migration policies and flows, alongside with the relationship between national and international contexts. Moreover, the analysis focuses on a new territorial political organisation, the EU, and its interaction with migration. Furthermore, this study explores the ways that migration is constructed in a specific national context, that of the Greek state. Particularly, the interest in on the ways that migration is included in the social and political process in Greek society. Finally, the analysis focuses on people's experience as migrants in Greece, which is examined through structural social characteristics and attitudes, in order to illustrate that migration means a process of being constructed as a 'migrant' depending on both general and specific social contexts.

The transnational activities of migrant groups have become a major issue in recent decades. This study offers an analysis of overseas Sikhs' involvement in Punjab issues; especially concentrating on post-1984 period, when a vigorous support and mobilisation by overseas Sikhs for a 'homeland' has led to diplomatic strains between the Government of India and some of the states with large Sikh migrant population. This study concentrates upon the mobilisation among Sikh migrant groups in Canada, the United States and Great Britain -three countries which account for over three quarter of overseas Sikh population. The issue of 'homeland' among displaced minorities and migrant groups has usually been studied as a diasporic phenomenon. In a theoretical formulation preceding this study, the term diaspora and recent contributions to extend its scope to all such migrant groups who were neither forced out of their homelands nor had continuous historic connections is critically examined. Rejecting the wider definition advocated by more recent contributors to extend this term to any migrant group which maintains some connections with their land of origins, a case is made for only those migrant groups which are essentially involved in a demand for a secure and independent 'homeland' to be part of 'diaspora studies' Proceeding with migration history and experiences of Sikhs in Britain, Canada and the United States, the study explores the persistence and continuation of cultural and religious practices derived from their land of origins. Noting that neither the homeland for Sikhs was an unambiguous term till recently nor were they forced out from their homes, Sikh migrant groups provide an interesting but problematic example of transnational ethnic linkages. The next two chapters analyze the social, cultural and political links with the Punjab. The study then provides a description and analysis of Sikh mobilisation as a reaction to dramatic events in the Punjab in June 1984. The last chapter situates overseas Sikh mobilisation as a reaction to a crisis which has fermented some new elements of ethnic consciousness with consequent bearing upon the group identity and political mobilisation within overseas Sikh migrant groups. It also notes the impact of overseas Sikh mobilisation on the transnational relationship of concerned states and their respective policies towards Sikh migrant groups. This study of overseas Sikhs provides an interesting case of transnational politics where a crucial event in a migrant groups' home country could perceptibly shift their political loyalty towards an imaginary homeland, and how in the process, their land of origin becomes a 'threatened homeland' . The study thus illustrates the limitation of the existing analytical concepts dealing with the behaviour of migrant groups whose attachments to their roots are principally triggered into a virulent form of mobilisation due to a traumatic event in their religious centre. The study draws upon a wide range of sources including interviews with leading participants, and a thorough examination of ethnic Purijabi media of the United States, Canada and Great Britain. In addition it takes account of the growing body of secondary materials associated with the study of Sikhs in the Punjab.

This thesis is a survey of the development of religious and secular colonial education for African girls and women in Afrique Occidentale Francaise, from 1819 to 1960. The historiography of colonial education in AOF has dismissed the education of African girls and women as they were numerically too insignificant to merit any special attention. / This study argues that an examination of educational objectives, institutions and curricula provides a rare and valuable window on French colonial discourse on African women. It was a discourse fed by sexism and ethnocentrism, that ultimately intended to refashion women's gender identities and roles to approximate those prescribed by the French ideology of domesticity. / The system took the form of a number of domestic sciences training centres that aimed to change the very social definition of what constituted an African woman--to remake her according to the Euro-Christian, patriarchal ideal of mother, wife and housekeeper. Colonial educators argued that such a woman, especially in her role as mother, was the best conduit for the propagation of French mores, practices, and most importantly, submission to French hegemony. / The final decades of formal colonial rule in AOF saw the emergence of a small African male bourgeoisie. Members of this class, called "assimiles", accepted to varying degrees French language, lifestyle and values. This study further examines how many of them embraced the ideology of domesticity and became active in the debate on African women's education and the need to control and transform their gender identities.

Ever since Joseph Conrad chose fin de siecle London as the place to begin and end his Heart of Darkness, the city of London has been host to literary meditations on the darker aspects of empire and imperialism. The decline of the British Empire in the twentieth century has had far-reaching consequences for the former heart of empire. In the second half of the twentieth century, immigrants from the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia have transformed Britain into an ethnically and racially diverse nation. The colonies have 'come home to roost.' / Following Conrad's narrative in Heart of Darkness, my thesis begins in London and then moves to the margins of the empire. The long shadow of imperialism shapes the novels of J. M. Coetzee and Bessie Head. In their works these two writers depict the evils of apartheid South Africa and reflect upon the complex psychological mechanisms that underlie encounters between different groups. Such encounters result in a pattern of nonrecognition and misrecognition that in turn create relations based upon domination and servitude. Coetzee's and Head's works speculate on the psychological structures that have shaped the history of colonialism in Africa. / Returning to London, my thesis then examines the works of two writers who combine experience of the colony with knowledge of the centre of Empire. Doris Lessing's experience of coming-of-age in Southern Rhodesia supplies her with powerful insights into both the plight of new immigrants to Britain and the concerns and prejudices of native Londoners. Her knowledge of identity politics in Southern Africa deepens her fictional response to post-war British society. The detective writer Mike Phillips came to Britain from Guyana as a child and he now resides in London. While his novels reflect the concerns of a first-generation black immigrant to the United Kingdom they also depict the challenges and rewards of being black in the London of today.

Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-130) / Microfiche. / xv, 130 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

v, 240 leaves : ill., maps, photos, (some col.), graphs ; 29 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Zoology, 1981

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (M.A.)--Texas State University-San Marcos, 2007. / Vita. Appendices: leaves 102-145. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 146-157).