Kathleen Commons

From the government that first refused to allow unaccompanied children seeking asylum to access family reunion, then suspended *all* family reunion.

By 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.

As 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

Writing history in a time of genocide Anne Irfan asks, what does it mean to write the history of a place as it is being destroyed before our very eyes?

"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!

Great 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...

Cannot 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"

Asylum in UK to be made temporary under Home Secretary’s plans Shabana Mahmood will lay out reforms modelled on the Danish system on Monday.

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.

Depictions of immigrants in British newspapers between 1841 and 2021

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/...

When is a refugee not a refugee? — Refugee History. England’s ‘proud history’ of welcoming refugees is regularly invoked in contemporary debates about refugees in Britain. Public and academic histories of pre-modern migration to England support this no...

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

Great 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

When is a refugee not a refugee? — Refugee History. England’s ‘proud history’ of welcoming refugees is regularly invoked in contemporary debates about refugees in Britain. Public and academic histories of pre-modern migration to England support this no...

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

Quick bump for this - a great opportunity for PGRs and ECRs to share their research on migration and mobility!

Structural displacement and enforced immobility: Palestinian refugee history in Gaza since 1948

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/...

😱

Astonished 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...

Structural displacement and enforced immobility: Palestinian refugee history in Gaza since 1948

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...

It 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

Such 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)

On 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

reminder we’re kicking off tomorrow
5:30- 7:30pm Hybrid/IHR

@profpanayi.bsky.social & @kabcommons.bsky.social will open, then I’ll will speak on history & social studies; @marcloureiro.bsky.social on history & law; and Natalya Din-Kariuki on history & literature.

www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Call for papers for a seminar for ECRs and PGRs on migration and mobility history

Call for Papers! @ihrhistorylab.bsky.social x @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar special edition - we want papers on all types of migration and mobility history from ECRs and PGRs. Abstracts to kabcommons [@] gmail.com by 15th November. Pls spread the word & DM with any questions

Farage vows to scrap indefinite leave to remain, placing thousands at risk of deportation Reform UK plans to force non-citizens to apply for visas with high salary thresholds and no access to NHS services

Thousands of Londoners have indefinite leave to remain.

They have legal rights and are our friends, neighbours and colleagues, contributing hugely to our city.

Threatening to deport people living and working here legally is unacceptable.

If you want to know what the UK government's position is on its obligations under the Genocide Convention in relation to its support for Israel, here's what it argued in court this summer.

Congratulations! (Belatedly) - and I do!

A High Court Judge ruled that Home Office had no real oversight of their commercial agents who provide asylum-seeker accommodation. They have a tissue-thin layer of staff with no real idea what’s happening, scared that Ministers and the press will realise this.

Four dead, including two children, attempting to cross Channel to UK in last 24 hours Number of attempts to cross Channel has been particularly high for several days, say French authorities

Suspending family reunion, one of the *only* safe routes into the UK, is barbaric www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Contents | Huguenot Society Journal 38, For several hundred years after the mid-sixteenth century, there were two exile or Stranger communities in Norwich, many of whose members were Calvinists who worked in the textile trade. This article investigates three aspects of the financial activities ...

V pleased to have a new article in @huguenotsociety.bsky.social journal: tinyurl.com/e2zb9bfb. (A little🧵)

Feels a little bit on the nose in today's discourse, though I think the idea that stronger rights for subjects enables refugee protection is perhaps a (small) indication of a way to think about refugee protection as a net positive - for citizens and migrants

While at the same time, those seeking to deny protection to Huguenots argued that to extend rights to migrants was a denigration of subjects' rights.