Jonny Darling

Refugee homelessness in UK has more than doubled in two years, charity says Naccom members accommodated record 4,434 refugees and migrants in 2024-25 but could not house another 3,450

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Reforms Will ‘Make People's Lives Miserable’, Academic Warns, as UK Moves Toward New Asylum Model - tovima.com Asylum debate shifts to the right – asylum seekers and refugees are being labelled as criminals

Spoke to Greek newspaper @tovimagr.bsky.social about #UK asylum and immigration proposals and how they may impact non-citizens already in the UK
tovima.com/world/reforms-will-make-peoples-lives-miserable-academic-warns-as-uk-moves-toward-new-asylum-model/

Cover of Occupied Refuge: Humanitarian Colonization and the Camp in Kenya by Hanno Brankamp. The cover features a black-and-white photograph of a refugee camp with small structures that have corrugated metal roofs. In the foreground, a dirt ground stretches across the image with people walking, sitting, and standing near a vehicle. A vertical yellow line runs from top to bottom, dividing the composition. The title and subtitle appear in white text on the left side of the cover, with the author's name at the bottom right.

In "Occupied Refuge," @hannobrankamp.bsky.social challenges the view of refugee camps as indispensable safe havens, showing that humanitarian missions often function as militarized occupations that treat camp inhabitants as colonized subjects. Read the intro for free now: buff.ly/IwyWW8p

UK to overhaul asylum policy – will the new measures work? People who have been recognised as needing humanitarian protection will be under constant review.

People who have been recognised as needing humanitarian protection will be under constant review.

UK to overhaul asylum policy – will the new measures work? People who have been recognised as needing humanitarian protection will be under constant review.

Commentary on govt proposals to further restrict refugee protection, expand removals, and limit support. Talking tough will not fix govt failures on asylum, but it will hinder integration, cause harm, and further drive resentment towards those seeking protection theconversation.com/uk-to-overha...

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Transactions by Anna Pearce (2025) entitled: 'Asylum as Artifice: Race, Law and Capital as Regimes of Abstraction in the United Kingdom's Asylum Accommodation System' with a red banner at the top. Taking as its case study the category of the ‘asylum seeker’ in UK law, this paper develops on latent concerns in legal geographies with processes of abstraction. Following Bhandar and Toscano, race, law and capital are here understood as different, co-articulating modalities of abstraction, through which the ‘asylum seeker’ is constituted and reconstituted by spatial practice and law over time. The case study charts the history of the category in UK law with the corresponding developments in the material and spatial infrastructures of asylum accommodation, from the point at which the ‘asylum seeker’ was first codified in UK law in 1993 to the delegitimisation of asylum itself in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023. As well as providing the application of Bhandar and Toscano's innovative methodology to a new empirical area, I further make the case that, as well as functioning as organisational nodes for race and capital, legal objects may also serve as conduits. In this way, these differing regimes of abstraction are put into mutually influential relationships with one another, with particularly concerning implications for the independence of law from capital. Though the case study and its legislative context are necessarily narrow in order to properly trace the contours of this particular legal object, the potential application of the theoretical arguments developed from this tight focus is broad, contributing to studies of immigration law, asylum reception and processing, as well as legal geographies more widely.

New in TIBG:

'Asylum as artifice: Race, law and capital as regimes of abstractions in the United Kingdom's asylum accommodation system' by Anna Pearce

This paper charts the history of the category of 'asylum seeker' from 1993 to 2023.

doi.org/10.1111/tran...

Home Office squandered billions on ‘failed and chaotic’ asylum accommodation Commons committee describes successive governments’ failures to manage hotel use, contracts, spending and safeguarding

Timely and critical Home Affairs Committee report on asylum accommodation noting failures over costs, safeguarding, and conditions. Disappointing the report stops short of proposing an overhaul and remains accepting of mass accommodation sites as a feasible model: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Britain's asylum hotels problem - and the bold idea to solve it Instead of using private contractors to provide hotel rooms to asylum seekers, could paying councils to buy more properties be the solution?

This plan for housing is:

- Better for people seeking asylum
- Better for wider communities
- Cheaper for the taxpayer

Let’s use public money to buy quality homes for all people in our communities – not to fill the pockets of the mega wealthy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdx4rrrvg8do

A graphic showing the title page of Area on a black background with a large 'A' on the right hand page. On the left hand page are seven tiles with the names of papers in a Special Section titled 'Gentle Geographies', and an editorial. The papers are: 1) Areas of opportunity Jeremy J. Schmidt, Mary Lawhon, Jonathan Darling, Eli D. Lazarus 2) Editorial: Towards more gentle geographies: Narrating a virtue turn, and possibilities for multi-tonal politics of activism and academic labour Matt Finn, Jayne M. Jeffries 3) The quiet politics and gentle literary activism behind the battle for Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument Laura Smith 4) Power in numbers/Power and numbers: Gentle data activism as strategic collaboration Jonathan Cinnamon 5) For diffident geographies and modest activisms: Questioning the ANYTHING-BUT-GENTLE academy John Horton 6) Treading carefully through tomatoes: Embodying a gentle methodological approach Laura Pottinger 7) CoPSE: A methodological intervention towards gentle more-than-human relations Suzanne Hocknell

A graphic showing the title page of Area on a black background with a large 'A' on the right hand page. On the left hand page are eight tiles with the names of papers in the issue. The papers are: 1) ‘What is visible… and what isn't’: A public art intervention for re-imagining the food system Ekaterina Gladkova, Naho Matsuda 2) Reimagining the streetscapes of Varanasi city: Public art, urban regeneration and smart city practices Iman Banerjee, Amrita Bajaj, Apala Saha 3) It takes a team to participate – Refining working participant observations through multiple researchers Maria Thulemark, Susanna Heldt-Cassel, Tara Duncan 4) Right-sizing the smart city in Southeast Asia Prerona Das, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong 5) The role of virtual field trips in Geography higher education: A perspective paper Elizabeth R. Hurrell, Simon M. Hutchinson, Lynda Yorke, Lesley C. Batty, M. Jane Bunting, Dan Swanton, Derek A. McDougall, Daniel R. Parsons 6) Is the spatial persistence of deprivation dependent on neighbouring areas? Stephen D. Clark, Fran Pontin, Paul Norman 7) ‘Backward geographies’: Contested lives and livelihoods in the tea plantation enclaves of South Asia Suranjan Majumder 8) On the forms of borderwork in public institutions: Bordering social security through conditions and tests Kathryn Cassidy, Gill Davidson 9) Navigating inequalities and shaping aspirations: The role of supplementary education in low-income immigrant youth's transition to selective secondary school Lara Landolt

A graphic showing the title page of Area on a black background with a large 'A' on the right hand page. On the left hand page are nine tiles with the names of papers in a Special Section titled 'Open Access Book Publishing: A Forum for Debate' and three 'Ethics in/of Geographical Research' papers. The papers are: 1) ‘The city is not for us’: Ethics, everyday sexism, and negotiating unwanted encounters during fieldwork Morag Rose 2) Participation, inclusion and reflexivity in multi-step (focus) group discussions Marina Korzenevica, Engdasew Feleke Lemma, Catherine Fallon Grasham, Khonker Taskin Anmol, Daniel Ekai Esukuku, Fahreen Hossain, Mercy Mbithe Musyoka, Saskia Nowicki, Dalmas Ochieng Omia, Salome A. Bukachi 3) The ‘creative thesis’ in the academic ‘anxiety machine’ Angela Last 4) Against book enclosures: Moving towards more diverse, humane and accessible book publishing Simon P. J. Batterbury, Andrea E. Pia, Gerda Wielander, Nicholas Loubere 5) Uneven geographies of power in UK higher education's conjunctural crisis: A response to Gandy Julie Cupples 6) Beyond open access: Book publishing in a metric culture Clancy Wilmott 7) Gandy & 'Books under threat': A response Frank Houghton 8) Challenges and opportunities for open access book publishing: A perspective from a society publisher in the geosciences Jenny Lunn, Kate Lajtha 9) Ex Libris: Books, creativity and academic freedom Matthew Gandy

📢September Issue of Area📢

Our latest issue features an editorial from our new team, a Special Section on 'Gentle Geographies', and a discussion forum on #OpenAccess book publishing.

Available to read here ⬇️
rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14754762...

Photo of a pile of books. The books are 'Debt Trap Nation' by Katherine Brickell and Mel Nowicki. Cover image features a woman and small child in a deep concrete basin or pit with no way of climbing out as the ladder is too short.

Just arrived:

Debt Trap Nation
by @kbrickell.bsky.social & Mel Nowicki

“A compelling call to action... shows how reimagining policy could deliver economic justice.” - @nicolajanesharp.bsky.social

Author royalties will be donated to @seacharity.bsky.social

www.agendapub.com/page/detail/...

Why confining asylum seekers to military barracks is especially cruel Housing asylum seekers in military barracks could cause significant damage, explains Freedom from Torture's Ann Saltar.

The last Government's failed experiment in asylum camps cost the taxpayer millions, all while traumatising and isolating torture survivors.

Now, Keir Starmer wants to return to this cruel and wasteful plan.

We can't go back.

#CommunitiesNotCamps

Read @jonnydarling.bsky.social's latest thoughts on #asylum housing, from @theconversation.com
@geogdurham.bsky.social

After the Epping Forest case, the government needs to be bold and build asylum housing that works Asylum housing needs to come back under public control.

Asylum housing needs to come back under public control.

After the Epping Forest case, the government needs to be bold and build asylum housing that works Asylum housing needs to come back under public control.

Commentary on asylum hotels considering how govt can develop dignified community-based housing that meets multiple social needs. Warehousing people in camps and continuing a failed experiment in privatisation causes nothing but further harm @geogdurham.bsky.social theconversation.com/after-the-ep...

Great stuff! Congratulations Jeremy!

Cooper suggests asylum seekers could be moved into warehouses instead of hotels – UK politics live Home secretary says government aims to ‘shrink the whole asylum system’ and is looking at ‘military and industrial sites’

It shouldn't need saying that 'military and industrial sites' are not, and never have been, 'more appropriate sites' for asylum seekers. The record of such carceral accommodation is nothing but spectacles of harm designed to appease a desire to punish refugees. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library When a positive decision is granted on an asylum claim, a new refugee has limited time before their existing government support (housing, finance) terminates. This transition between legal is various...

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Really happy to see this out "Theorising legal gaps geographically: Exploring the transition from asylum seeker to refugee in the UK"

Happy to share this piece on ethnography in political science:

doi.org/10.1017/S153...

How the UK became dependent on asylum hotels Why hotel use has risen, and what it’s costing the UK.

These comments build on a recent @theconversation.com piece looking at how the UK has become reliant on hotels to accommodate asylum seekers and what can be done to fix a failing accommodation system: theconversation.com/how-the-uk-b...

AntiSocial - Asylum hotels - BBC Sounds Protestors outside asylum hotels say they fear for the safety of women and children.

I was on BBC’s AntiSocial at the end of last week discussing the growth of asylum hotels in Britain, the history of dispersal, and the importance of community-based housing for asylum seekers (at the 40min mark) @geogdurham.bsky.social @durham-university.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Perfectly timed for summer reading, new book from two of my wonderful @geogdurham.bsky.social colleagues: @ajsecor.bsky.social and @benandersongeog.bsky.social. Also perfectly timed for navigating the turbulent cultural politics of the present (coffee strictly optional) @goldsmithspress.bsky.social

Important new book! Immigration Detention Inc. The Big Business of Locking up Migrants
by @nancyhiemstra.bsky.social and @drdconlon.bsky.social Buy it here: www.plutobooks.com/978074534946...

Read more from @jonnydarling.bsky.social on asylum hotels & carceral hospitality in his recently co-authored Transactions paper: doi.org/10.1111/tran... #geosky

A graphic showing the title page of Area on a black background with a large 'A' on the right hand page. On the left hand page are seven tiles with the names of papers in a Special Section titled 'Rivers as Borders'. The papers are: 1) Rivers as borders? Navigating in-between the tensions of water-state-society geographies Rebekka Kanesu, Vanessa Lamb, Eva McGrath 2) Median line: A century of border violence and the alluvial geopolitics of the Evros/Meriç/Maritsa River border Ifor Duncan, Stefanos Levidis 3) Slow violence on the Yarmouk River: Encounters from the river-border environments Muna Dajani 4) Migrating sands: Refocusing transboundary flows from water to sediment C. R. Hackney 5) Crossing riverborderscapes and a view from in-between: Passenger ferries in South West England Eva McGrath, Richard Yarwood, Nichola Harmer 6) Liquid lines: Exploring the Moselle River between France, Luxembourg and Germany Rebekka Kanesu 7) Caring for the river-border: Struggles and opportunities along the Salween River-border Vanessa Lamb

A graphic showing the title page of Area on a black background with a large 'A' on the right hand page. On the left hand page are eight tiles with the names of papers in the issue. The papers are: 1) On undevelopment and de-development: A geographical critique on perpetual growth and resource-based accumulation Gertjan Wijburg 2) Place, institutional spatiality, and the localisation of financial calculative practices Leqian Yu 3) Claim-making in hydrosocial spaces: The temporality of displacement around Kenya's Masinga Dam reservoir Arne Rieber, Benson Nyaga 4) Deliberative approaches to the climate crisis: Adapting Climathons for rural communities Philippa Simmonds, Damian Maye, Julie Ingram, Abigail Gardner, Sofia Raseta 5) Ethnographic fingerprints: Examining co-participation, positionality, and interpersonal relationships in diary method Julius Baker 6) A whole island approach to scoping renewable energy sites and yields Ben Watt, Robert L. Wilby 7) Past, present, future: The RGS-IBG political geography research group within British political geography Daniel Hammett 8) Visualising an undergraduate geography field class using generative AI: Intent, expectations and surprises about the racial depiction of students Terence Day, James Esson

📢June Issue of Area📢

This latest issue pulls together the fully #OpenAccess 'Rivers as Borders' Special Section alongside papers on topics including de-development, AI, and diary methods.

Read all the papers here: rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14754762... #geosky

A short piece from me looking at the politics of 'asylum hotels' in Britain and the challenges for government in finding alternatives @geogdurham.bsky.social

The seagulls have landed: why gulls are encroaching on Britain’s towns Avian invaders have coastal communities in Britain and beyond in a flap – but people are learning how to live with them

Good to see Durham Geography's Helen F Wilson on urban kittiwakes and coexistence in today's Guardian! @geogdurham.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Blog | This Refugee Week, the move-on period extension must be made permanent - NACCOM The theme of Refugee Week 2025, which takes place between 16 – 22 June, is ‘Community as a Superpower’, reminding us that everyone, regardless of their immigration status, deserves a place to call…

This #RefugeeWeek, NACCOM and ‪@homelesslink.bsky.social‬ are sending a clear signal that the immigration and asylum systems are a direct cause of homelessness.

In our new blog, we outline our key recommendations to improve the move-on process.

Find out more: