The good, the bad and the migrant?

In academia there is a lot of debate about whether immigration controls are inherently unjust. But the focus of everyday conversations about migration and asylum is less on the ethics of borders, and more on the morality of migrants. In this episode our host Bridget Anderson is joined by anthropologists Miriam Ticktin and Juan Zhang to unbox how ideas of vulnerability and deservingness work with understandings of migration and mobility, and what the implications are for politics.

Bios:

Bridget Anderson is Director of MMB and Professor of Migration, Mobilities and Citizenship at the University of Bristol. She is the author of Us and Them: The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Controls.

Miriam Ticktin is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the City University of New York. She writes on migration, borders, humanitarianism, and racial and gendered inequalities. She is MMB's Bristol Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professor in 2025 - read more here.

Juan Zhang is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Bristol and researchers borders and transnational migration, with a particular focus on the Asian borderlands, cross-border cultural politics and China.

Further links for the episode:

Miriam's book: Casualties of Care: Immigration and the Politics of Humanitarianism in France. Her most recent book, Against Innocence: Undoing and Remaking the World, is forthcoming with University of Chicago Press.

Juan's chapter: 'Why Can’t Chinese Citizens Go Home? Spoiled Citizenship and Stigmatized Returns in Pandemic Times' in Rethinking Migration: Challenging Borders, Citizenship and Race (2025).

Credits:

Produced by Migration Mobilities Bristol (MMB)

Edited by Melissa FitzGerald – X @melissafitzg

Music by Olly Shaw – ollyshawmusic.com

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