About the project
This project runs from April 2026 to July 2026 and is funded by Enabling Mid‑Career Interdisciplinary Research Leadership (EMCIRL) in collaboration with UCL Grand Challenges and supported by UCL Research Culture funding.
Background
This project is set in East London. It focuses on the work of migrant solidarity networks, such as:
- migrant advocacy groups
- activists
- charities
- local authority partnerships and initiatives
- grassroots groups and community organisations.
Combining network mapping and scoping interviews, the project explores how migrant solidarity networks act as social infrastructures that support migrants’ settlement, belonging, and wellbeing, particularly in the context of restrictive UK migration policies and the ‘hostile environment’. It also lays the groundwork for further research.
The study aims are as follows:
- To map the network of support in the borough, including formal and informal networks of solidarity and organisations that provide different types and levels of support and care to migrants:
- Who are they?
- How do they operate?
- What do they deliver?
- Who funds them?
- What is their organisational structure?
- To contribute to debates on welfare bordering, migration governance, migration sanctuary, and urban solidarity. Drawing on concepts such as social infrastructure and the infrastructure of care, the research will uncover how networks of solidarity operate and connect.
- To advance understandings of migrant support systems as a dispersed, hybrid assemblage of public, contracted, and third-sector actors operating under conditions of austerity. In doing so, we will rework ‘care’ as an ambivalent and politically structured practice, exploring both institutional constraints and the potential of these networks to generate new forms of solidarity and belonging under conditions of hostility and exclusion.
Research questions
The study addresses the following questions:
- How do social infrastructures – through the actions of urban solidarity networks – create and shape migrants’ access to resources, wellbeing, and settlement trajectories in the context of the UK’s hostile environment?
- How do urban solidarity infrastructures compensate for, mediate, reproduce, or contest state withdrawal under hostile environment governance?
- How is migrant survival socially organised outside the state under conditions of deliberate institutional exclusion?
Methodology
The research study uses an exploratory qualitative case study design focusing on one East London borough. First, a mapping exercise will identify organisations and informal networks supporting migrants. This will involve desk-based analysis of publicly available sources such as:
- organisational websites
- community directories
- policy documents
- local authority information.
A Research Assistant will support the development of a map of relevant organisations and services.
Second, we will conduct semi-structured interviews with adult participants involved in, or working within:
- migrant support organisations
- advocacy groups
- solidarity movements
- local government initiatives
- charities.
Interviews will be fully transcribed and analysed thematically using the software NVIVO.
Outputs
The project will generate a range of outputs, including academic publications, blog posts, and a policy brief aimed at practitioners and policymakers. It will also provide the foundation for the development of a larger external funding proposal to support future research on migrant solidarity networks, social infrastructure, and migration governance.
Team
Project leaders
Project team member
Contact us
Please contact us if you have any questions about our research.
Image: Sam Robinson for UCL.