Looking to London: Stories of War, Escape and Asylum

2017 | Gender Studies

This book looks at five communities of refugees living in London, who have travelled from the maelstrom of recent wars and suffered through displacement and the 'migration crisis' in the Middle East and Europe. Women refugees who have made it to London tell of the dangers they've fled, of their struggle with the UK's rigid and racist border controls and the difficulties and rewards of making a home in a strange city. London is celebrated as one of the most ethnically diverse capitals in the world, and has been a magnet of migration since its origin. Looking to London responds to new cohorts of refugees joining their established Kurdish, Somali, Tamil, Sudanese and Syrian communities, under the watchful eye of two sets of security forces, those of the regimes they fled, and those of the UK's anti-terror police. Cynthia Cockburn brings her lively and lucid style to a world in which hatred is being countered by compassion, at a moment when nationalist, anti-immigrant sentiment, post-Brexit, is being challenged by a warm-hearted 'refugees welcome' movement. Her book is helpful reading for all who want to think more deeply about the contradictions of a 'open borders' campaign.

Cynthia Cockburn (Author)