Points-Based Immigration System in Context: 16 October 2010July 20, 2010Points-Based Immigration System in Context: Research and Campaign Strategies10am-6pm, Saturday 16 October 2010, University of London Union, MaletStreet, London WC1
This conference will present new research on issues related to thepoints-based immigration system (PBIS) as it affects Further and HigherEducation. The conference will assess:a) the wider significance of immigration;b) the full consequences of PBIS;c) the characteristics of new systems of regulation and surveillance inuniversities and colleges.
The conference aims to offer both expertise inresearch but also a focus for campaigners who object to the fundamentallydiscriminatory nature of the rules.
Supported by UCU, ULU, Centre for Cultural Studies, Department ofPolitics, Department of Media & Communications (all at Goldsmiths)
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Erm, Stop Press/ *Hot Topic Alert*/ – because the Points based immigration in context conference is coming up soonish, this blog will be temporarily turned over to various longer pieces discussing the new ‘objects’ of immigration law/oppression. Some of the papers to be ‘published’ here on this blog are talks that were given at the Beyond Text Creativity Across Borders workshops, some are destined for publication elsewhere and appear here with thanks, others have been written for the blog. Please read and discuss (Trinketization will return to its usual occasional transmission shortly, but in the meantime, something important… – See the Border page (side bar) for an index to the articles)
Articles so far:
Nandita Dogra – The ‘Kingdom’ Strikes Twice- Double Whammy on Post-study Skilled Immigrants.
More to come…
Trinketization 
The British and Australian versions of the points-based immigration system, and the relation of both to education economies, are significantly different, and even have opposing imperatives, and also reflect differences in the relationship of the commodification of education to the enforcement and commodification of the border, so it would be a mistake to read them as equivalent. The Australian system has been distinct as a commodification of access to conditions of social reproduction in Australian, with the points system enabling this process and imposing a set of filters and obligations useful to the Australian state and ‘industry’; the points system doesn’t primarily determine who gets in, but rather of those who get in, who gets to stay after study i.e. who gets permanent residence. In the formal sense there have been filters intending to keep out those without substantial resource, but in reality, as ever, people find ways to get what they need as part of individual and family survival strategies, and fit themselves into the bureaucratic categories of border and political management (or not) as useful to that end.
The dynamic in Britain is obviously different, insofar as the points-based system serves a different purpose and the education economies of Britain has a somewhat different basis. Thus the acccount of Australian conditions would not be directly applicable, despite key parallels.
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Ben, there are some similarities, especially in terms of who gets to stay after study and who gets citizenship (surprise surprise, the venerable institution of marriage is supported here by immigration necessity), but yes, on the whole the PBI fiasco is doing something different – directed at allegedly suspect ‘fake’ language schools that are apparently the major training ground for terrorists swarming all over the UK, in you bed and under it as well. Oh, they are everywhere, crikey. On the buses and on the streets (where they belong, wastrels… etc etc). Swarming I tell you, and other publishing metaphors beloved of the autono-lefts. Amidst all this, its considered no great hassle to inconvenience, delay and exclude people through bureau-admin cock-up and summary rejection without review. The new racism is administrative, or rather, insofar as its merely administrative overload, no-one seems to denounce it as they used to. We are thinking of a new project – and your ‘objects’ of immigration analysis fits neatly here:
Plan: The contemporary mutations of racism take forms that must be examined in different contexts. There is a legal and juridicial-bureaucratic language which now seems to rewrite commentary about race in ‘reasoned’ tones, allowing discussions and statements that might once have been considered unacceptably racist to now be aired without censure. Similarly, but in a different field, there is a new discourse of national belonging, on the back of which interventions, rethinking of asylum and support policies, and the administration of a new citizenship (eg., proposed English language requirement for visas for marriage) has become a central concern. Amidst these moves, the alleged ‘good’ economics of cultural exchange, education, the arts, and creativity in general, are also impacted severely by administrative impediments, many of these justified as responses to security anxiety and terror, but often indiscriminately harming the potential economic, social and creative benefits of a migration that have long been important for our ever so tolerant Europe. Working with a variety of groups to exchange and understand these trends and contexts is an urgent and important initiative…. blah blah, funding app speak…
What is the current fare from Melb to London, assuming you could get a visa?
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