Hostile Environments and Hospitable Praxes

University of Kent, 23rd – 24th June 2025

‘Laws try to rationalise the border regime which fundamentally ignores the humanity of those who move. Knowing this, let’s take as our root and starting position the reality that no human is illegal.’

—Leah Cowan, Border Nation: A Story of Migration

The rhetorical and legal framework of the Hostile Environment has been long in the making. Long-standing colonial paradigms shore up a particular vision of British citizenship and draw lines as to who has a right to cross Britain’s borders and access its resources. In the twenty-first century, Britain positions itself, as it long has, as that ‘small island’ embattling to retain its place and status—to preserve its sovereignty and relevance as a global power in the aftermath of its devolved Commonwealth and Empire. It does so at the expense and exclusion of those it deems not British, or not British enough. It does so via an ethos and praxis of hostility.

In this context, immigration is a major political talking point, and is often used to distract attention from other, far more influential, causes of domestic tensions and inequities. Within a praxis of hostility, politicians speak of ‘illegal’ migration, at the expense of international human rights laws; right-wing pundits and politicians stir up populist and hate speech; and the press prints news of humanitarian disaster with no humanity, people drowned at sea mere statistics. Border control in the UK, and within the conglomerate of the ‘Global North’, is exercised with the same securitising, surveillance, and military strategies borne from earlier colonial ventures and machinations and carried out in contemporary global wars and conflicts.

Featuring keynote presentations by Leah Cowan, author of Border Nation: A Story of Migration (Pluto Press, 2021) and Why Would Feminists Trust The Police? (Verso, 2024), and Dr Agnes Woolley (University of Southampton) whose various outputs on asylum and refugee narratives includes Contemporary Asylum Narratives: Representing Refugees in the Twenty-First Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), this two-day conference aims to bring together academics and practitioners from across disciplines to present on, discuss, and engage with the topic of the Hostile Environment, both in the UK, and further afield, and to consider the relationship that present-day migration politics has with the history and legacies of empire. What potential do literary and cultural responses to migratory and racial politics have, to devise possible routes towards long-term, actionable hospitable praxes?

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • The rhetorical and legal structures of ‘hostile environments’ both within and outside of the UK.
  • Significant migratory moments in the UK, from post-war to the present-day.
  • Critical inquiries into representations of migration in news and social media.
  • Law and literature.
  • Writing and human rights.
  • Grassroots activism and/as creative artwork.
  • Borders, border controls, and border crossings.
  • The figure of the ‘refugee’ in literature and culture.
  • Sovereignty, the EU Referendum, and Brexit.
  • Second- and third-generation migration stories and communities.
  • The Windrush Scandal and its continuing impact.
  • Responsive and community-orientated literary forms, such as anthologies and podcasts.

Abstracts of 300 words and bios of 150 words for 20-minute papers, creative/critical presentations, or panels of 3 speakers should be submitted to Dr Rachel Gregory Fox at r.gregory-fox@kent.ac.uk. All submissions should be made by Friday 28th February 2025.

The organisation of this conference is generously supported with funding provided by the Leverhulme Trust.