@kabcommons.bsky.social
Researching immigration control in 17C England, and what it tells us about citizenship now and then. Co-convenor @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar. Co-Director, Room to Heal, trustee @afrilcharity.bsky.social, Abigail Housing.
Less than a week to sign up for our exciting showcase of new research directions in migration and mobility history, ft. Vikings, Germans in interwar Turkey, Cumann na mBan & female Indian scholars in England with @ihr.bsky.social @ihrhistorylab.bsky.social 3rd Feb, book here: tinyurl.com/3bxsdy32
28.01.2026 11:02 β π 1 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0
Hello, I have a new book out in the spring with Picador and I would love it if you could help me spread the word.
IF WE TOLERATE THIS draws on years of work, to help readers understand why British politics is hurtling rightwards and what to do about it.
Pre-orders: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/if-w...
Wonderful paper yesterday from Nadia Joseph @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar on mobility, Apartheid, exile, & the personal and political. Next up, an exciting showcase of new research on migration in partnership with @ihrhistorylab.bsky.social! 3rd Feb, book here: tinyurl.com/3bxsdy32
21.01.2026 14:45 β π 6 π 3 π¬ 0 π 0
PhD Graduation photo of a woman and her mother
Thank you Sheffield (and my mum)!
13.01.2026 14:16 β π 7 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0I know!!
08.01.2026 11:54 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0!!!!!
08.01.2026 11:49 β π 16 π 1 π¬ 1 π 0
Really delighted to have Nadia Joseph at the first @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar of 2026 speaking on anti-apartheid activism and mobility. Sign up here! www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...
05.01.2026 16:07 β π 4 π 6 π¬ 0 π 0Congratulations!
19.12.2025 13:35 β π 2 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
In addition to academic stuff about migration, I am Director of a small charity providing group therapies to torture survivors: vital work as the govt seeks to marginalise & isolate refugees. We have a match funding campaign this week, pls give if you can: donate.biggive.org/campaign/a05...
04.12.2025 10:54 β π 1 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0My (unpublished) thesis goes back further, to 17thC law governing access to subjects' rights for migrants, if you want to go deep
02.12.2025 10:52 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0From the government that first refused to allow unaccompanied children seeking asylum to access family reunion, then suspended *all* family reunion.
26.11.2025 20:59 β π 0 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0By carefully tracing longer histories of exclusion (& refugee challenges to this) we can provide a useful corrective to the notion that Britain has a "proud history of welcome", so often used by the govt to justify contemporary attacks on the concept of refuge.
26.11.2025 12:22 β π 2 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0As the UK moves towards redefining what constitutes a refugee (in questionably legal ways), I want to highlight my piece looking at previous English experiments in refugee protection. There is a long (long) prehistory of exclusion - and if refugee resistance to this
26.11.2025 12:22 β π 5 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
"Palestinians experience the displacement of the 2020s genocide not as a singular event, but as part of a repeated cycle."
Anne Irfan on the importance of writing Gaza's history.
papers on early modern US migration law @conniethomas.bsky.social, British Gypsies and Roma, refugees from apartheid, migrants in ancient Greece, work on churches and sanctuary & a @ihrhistorylab.bsky.social collaboration for ECRs and PhDs working on migration and mobility!
26.11.2025 08:06 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Great paper at the @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar yesterday by Ben Braber on media depictions of migrants in 19th & 20thC British media. We'll be back in 2026 with...
26.11.2025 08:06 β π 3 π 1 π¬ 1 π 0Cannot wrap my head around the fact that Labour's new policies for refugees are both performatively cruel but also obviously nonsensical. People seeking asylum won't get financial support if they "can work" but the ban on asylum seekers' working won't be lifted? Meaningless and stupid "announcement"
16.11.2025 08:59 β π 4 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0
To reiterate, this is about making life immeasurably more miserable and stressful for some of the most vulnerable people, in the almost certainly vain hope of winning over the votes of racists.
Anything more shabby and shameful is difficult to envisage.
Our next @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar will be on 25th November. We will be welcoming Ben Braber to present on depictions of immigrants in British media between 1841 and 2021 - sign up link here: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...
10.11.2025 10:44 β π 11 π 7 π¬ 0 π 0
New post on refugeehistory.org: were there refugees in 16thC England? Answer: it's complicated - migrants and the state were in the process of negotiating a form of refugee protection, which helps us to complicate notions of Britain's "proud history of welcome": tinyurl.com/bdyevr4d
23.10.2025 08:08 β π 20 π 12 π¬ 0 π 1Great session of @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar - fantastic paper from Anne Irfan on the displacement-immobility nexus and Palestinian refugees - and some great questions in the Q&A afterwards
29.10.2025 09:06 β π 3 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
New post on refugeehistory.org: were there refugees in 16thC England? Answer: it's complicated - migrants and the state were in the process of negotiating a form of refugee protection, which helps us to complicate notions of Britain's "proud history of welcome": tinyurl.com/bdyevr4d
23.10.2025 08:08 β π 20 π 12 π¬ 0 π 1Quick bump for this - a great opportunity for PGRs and ECRs to share their research on migration and mobility!
22.10.2025 07:48 β π 1 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0
Just over a week until the next Migration and Mobility Seminar - we will be hearing (online and in-person - for free!) from Anne Irfan on Structural displacement and enforced immobility: Palestinian refugee history in Gaza since 1948: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...
17.10.2025 09:20 β π 3 π 2 π¬ 0 π 0π±
08.10.2025 16:16 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Astonished at all the fab work scholars keep producing, despite all pressures & uncertainty.
Or because of? Good & bad: trying to save our job & knowing this matters so much that people try to stop us
@historyworkshop.org.uk podcast on #ScholarSunday: www.historyworkshop.org.uk/podcast/chan...
Our next seminar will be with the wonderful Anne Irfan's paper on 'Structural displacement and enforced immobility: Palestinian refugee history in Gaza since 1948' on 28 October. Sign up here: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/... or join our mailing list: forms.gle/8JtLfYwH1MYL...
01.10.2025 06:52 β π 2 π 1 π¬ 0 π 1It was brilliant to kick off the Migration and Mobility Seminar with great papers from @profpanayi.bsky.social @endeeekay.bsky.social @bengidley.bsky.social @marcloureiro.bsky.social - a lot to think about in terms of how we do migration history, especially in the current moment
01.10.2025 06:52 β π 5 π 2 π¬ 1 π 0Such a privilege to be part of this amazing roundtable, organised by @onslies.bsky.social at @rshc.bsky.social. So pleased that the conversation can be shared more widely (less pleased about my wobbly voice)
30.09.2025 07:30 β π 11 π 4 π¬ 1 π 0On a personal and slightly self-aggrandizing note, will be pleased to introduce this banging lineup for the first time officially as *Dr* Commons. Many thanks to @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social and Phil Withington for examining me with such care, and Anthony Milton for being a superlative supervisor
29.09.2025 16:15 β π 21 π 1 π¬ 2 π 2
