Six Impossible Ideas (after Brexit)

Meet Suzi Hall, an architect-ethnographer and Director of the LSE Cities programme, who studies the inner workings of multi-ethnic streets in five British cities. Suzi took us to a super-diverse street in South London, Peckham’s Rye Lane, where proprietors from more than 20 countries run their businesses on the 10-min long stretch.

We asked Suzi what we can learn from Rye Lane, in terms of how migrants get on the job ladder, what streets like this mean for the economy, and what we can learn about the ways migration shapes modern cities.

Many people think that migrants take jobs away from citizens, reduce wages or both. But you may also have heard the argument that immigrants benefit the economy because they take risks and start businesses. So, who’s right?

We took this question to Alan Manning, Professor of Economics at LSE. In three short videos, Alan explains how migration affects your job prospects, presents the data from the UK and the world, and gives insights on managing migration in light of this evidence.

“Make America great again”, “Au nom du peuple” (in the name of the people), “Wir sind das Volk” (we are the people). All these slogans promise citizens the ease and comfort of regaining control of their countries from migrants and outsiders.

This desire for collective control is understandable but deeply problematic, says Chandran Kukathas, Head of LSE Government.

Chandran’s impossible idea is that restricting immigration doesn’t just affect those on the “outside”, but the citizens inside, as well.

In our political and media narratives, we often operate with binary notions: secure or insecure borders, legal or illegal immigration. Ruben Andersson, an anthropologist and Associate Professor at Oxford University who researches undocumented migration from West Africa to Southern Europe, challenges this way of thinking.

Andersson immerses himself in the reality of migration, accompanying migrants, border guards, and aid workers to present the impact of the migration control industry from their perspectives.

Apart from the usual three questions, we’ve linked to two full chapters from Andersson’s book, Illegality, Inc., winner of the 2015 British Sociological Association/BBC Thinking Allowed Ethnography Award.

Is the European media reflecting the “refugee crisis” or helping create it? This is the question posed by Myria Georgiou from LSE Communications in her project analysing how newspapers in nine European countries covered the so-called refugee crisis in 2015.

Myria’s seemingly impossible idea is for the media to be more productive in helping us understand complex issues around migration.

The integration of refugees and migrants is a policy priority for every European government right now. However, according to Dominik Hangartner, political scientist at LSE Government, we know surprisingly little about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to integration.

Dominik’s impossible idea is that we should seek empirical answers to these questions and turn them into more effective policies. In this episode, he answers three such questions. We’ve turned them into 2-minute explainers, but should you want to read the original research, we’ve linked to that, too.