OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
In this paper, drawing on fieldwork in two British immigration removal centres (IRCs), I will discuss staff accounts of race and racism in detention. Designed as places to expel unwanted foreign citizens, IRCs are highly racialised institutions as nearly all residents within them are members of an ethnic minority. What is it like to work in such places? How, if at all, do staff members internalise or promote ideas about race and racialization. What happens when the staff members themselves are migrants or second-generation British citizens? How do they view and interpret ideas of race? By focusing on staff accounts rather than detainees’ this paper seeks to widen our understanding of the ways in which these institutions of confinement reinforce and, maybe sometimes, disrupt ideas of race and belonging in British society.
