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Managing surveillance? The impact of biometric residence permits on UK migrants

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journal contribution
posted on 2011-11-07, 14:21 authored by Adam WarrenAdam Warren, Elizabeth MavroudiElizabeth Mavroudi
On 27 May 2010, the newly formed UK Coalition government announced the cancellation of national identity cards for UK citizens. Yet, foreign nationals remain subject to a separate biometric identity card scheme—renamed ‘Biometric Residence Permits' (BRPs)—currently being rolled out to various categories of migrant. To date, over 300,000 such cards have been issued to various foreign-national groups, including international students, visiting scholars, entrepreneurs, investors and domestic workers. Although research has been conducted on UK immigration policy, there has been little investigation into how foreign nationals view, experience and negotiate BRPs. In this paper, we draw on our own empirical work to examine the impact of BRPs on migrants. From March to December 2010, interviews and participative research were conducted with the Home Office, the UK Border Agency, advocacy and civil society groups, Higher Education Institutions and individual migrants. We consider the extent to which this scheme acts as a means of exercising surveillance and control over foreign nationals, and the ability of these migrants to negotiate around such constraints.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Geography and Environment

Citation

WARREN, A.P. and MAVROUDI, E., 2011. Managing surveillance? The impact of biometric residence permits on UK migrants. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 37 (9), pp. 1495-1511

Publisher

© Taylor and Francis

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publication date

2011

Notes

This article was published in the serial, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies [© Taylor and Francis]. The definitive version is available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.2011.623624

ISSN

1369-183X

Language

  • en