ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes important patterns of social inclusion and exclusion relating to young adult migrants in the United Kingdom. It attempts to set the historical, political and economic scene for understanding this, as well as developing a critical assessment of the ways in which ‘immigration’ has figured as a key site of political concern and racism. Historically, Britain’s responses to these themes were shaped through war and colonialism, and more recently by the UK’s post-Empire economic and geopolitical considerations (Gilroy 2004). Events in Europe including the Madrid bombing, the Danish cartoons and the Theo van Gogh affair 1 have also influenced current domestic political debate. The debate about ‘immigration’ is haunted by both a colonial past and contemporary military invasions and differential effects of European integration that order the mobility of people across UK borders. In this sense, we argue from the outset that the plight of young people moving across Europe’s borders today is affected by an imperial legacy and shifting forms of racism driven by new geopolitical divisions and global conflicts.
