Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- One Introduction
- Two Policy, law and rights
- Three Migration: motives, journey and status mobility
- Four Undocumented migrants living and working in London
- Five Ethnic enclave entrepreneurs
- Six Social networks and social lives
- Seven The consequences of being undocumented
- Eight Grasping life on the margins
- References
- Index
Six - Social networks and social lives
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- One Introduction
- Two Policy, law and rights
- Three Migration: motives, journey and status mobility
- Four Undocumented migrants living and working in London
- Five Ethnic enclave entrepreneurs
- Six Social networks and social lives
- Seven The consequences of being undocumented
- Eight Grasping life on the margins
- References
- Index
Summary
“I guess after quitting the job I became very demoralised; I also realised that all my networks were based on my work. After losing my job I also lost my friends. I guess I have met all my friends at the Kurdish centre. I did not need to meet people outside of work as there were many people – clients or just community members. OK we are physically in England, but mentally not. We are very dependent on community centres. We do not need to get out of the circle and meet new people. We imagine community centres as our homeland, Kurdistan.” (Zilan, female, Kurd from Cyprus)
Zilan arrived in the UK in 2000, at the age of 22, using what she described as “forged documents” supplied by the shebeke. She applied for asylum at the border but her case was refused after appeal and so she is now living as an undocumented migrant. She has two sisters in London and was living with them at the time of her interview. Both sisters, like Zilan, had been active in Kurdish nationalist politics but, unlike Zilan, had been granted leave to remain in the UK. In the 11 years since her arrival, Zilan had worked both as a community advisor and also in the restaurant sector. At the time of her interview she was unemployed and, as a consequence, dependent on her sisters for housing and subsistence. In the above quote Zilan expresses the feelings of many whom we interviewed in relation to their networks which acknowledge the crucial role that networks play, while at the same time pointing to the restrictions they impose. These restrictions relate to the ways in which she has submerged herself within the micro social networks of other Kurds, making it almost impossible to move away and create links with people from outside the immediate community.
Previous research suggests that undocumented migrants, due to their status, are more reliant on social networks than are other migrants (van Meeteren, 2010). The extent to which these networks of family, friends and acquaintances offer help and/or are based on self-interest will vary, but they are nevertheless central in the lives of many without status (Ambrosini, 2012).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Living on the MarginsUndocumented Migrants in a Global City, pp. 129 - 154Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2016