Solidarity Activism, Campaigning and Knowledge Production: Challenging Refugee Inc. The Case of G4S and Corporate Asylum Markets.

Abstract

Activist research is a powerful tool to resource popular education and mobilisation in social movements. Since 2012 I have been researching and campaigning alongside tenants in asylum housing contracted to G4S, the world’s largest private security company, in Yorkshire and the North East of England. Data collected from fighting housing cases and from discussions with asylum tenants has been the basis for campaign articles published on https://www.opendemocracy.net/ and the Institute for Race Relations news http://www.irr.org.uk/; for reports, press releases and written evidence and briefings for the Westminster Parliamentary Home Affairs and Public Accounts Committee investigations into asylum housing in 2013 and 2014.