A little thread on early modern immigration control. Feat. a 'commission for strangers' among other experiments... In 16thC and 17thC common law, subjects had access to both 'legal' protection and 'natural' protection by virtue of birth in the monarch's dominions ("in allegiance").

Really pleased to share my (open access!) article on immigration control in early modern England, feat. rights-bearing subjects, rightsless migrants, and experiments in immigration control

Very pleased to share my review of @endeeekay.bsky.social, Subha Mukherji and Rowan Williams' collection, Crossings, an attempt to reorient migration studies through the lens of migrant knowledge(s) & migrant forms: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/RXI2X...

Our programme for summer seminars @ihr.bsky.social is up now! Featuring a v timely paper on American citizenship + immigration at the founding; ancient Greek refugeedom; gypsy and Roma mobility; & cross-confessional solidarity with refugees in early 20thC Britain tinyurl.com/3bxsdy32

Please do spread the word about the @srsrensoc.bsky.social Scholars of Colour MA Scholarship Awards -- two pots of £4,000 each, and an optional mentoring opportunity. I've very much enjoyed being a mentor to a fantastic scholar through this scheme!

Performative cruelty (again); refugee status is already temporary. Shortening it causes massive distress to refugees, many of whom have been waiting for leave for years. Given the HO already has a huge backlog, how will they resource reviews for every refugee at 30 months? tinyurl.com/ycx5ewty

V pleased to be part of the Migrants' Law Project who are representing @safepassageintl.bsky.social in this important case: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026.... The MLP's lawyers + SPI have worked incredibly hard since last September to get this case into court

V pleased (& scared) to be sharing some of my research at the Oxford Early Modern Britain seminar on how the legal status of "infidel" was deployed in early modern England in different ways to control Jewish migrants and enslaved Africans: talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/e1f...

This looks like an amazing intervention into thinking about bordering (thinking particularly as someone who is banging the drum for bringing the law back into early modern migration history - which revolves around (legally enforced) internal borders)

The next @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar is on 3rd March - @conniethomas.bsky.social will be presenting 'Public activism and the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts' - of (huge) interest to those interested in migration, citizenship & US history. Sign up here: tinyurl.com/3s6yym7t

The next @ihrhistorylab.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar is on 3rd March - @conniethomas.bsky.social will be presenting 'Public activism and the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts' - of (huge) interest to those interested in migration, citizenship & US history. Sign up here: tinyurl.com/3s6yym7t

It was a real pleasure and privilege for the @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar to host a showcase of postgrad students' work in migration history with @ihrhistorylab.bsky.social last night - some fascinating papers on academic mobility, gender, vikings and Irish "displaced patriots"

I am once again imploring people to not abuse Calvin's Case to argue against birthright citizenship in the US: it simply summarised a bunch of (contested) legal thinking. More important is that in 17thC legal practice, birthright subjecthood most certainly *was* a thing tinyurl.com/2rjyvwnb

Less than a week to sign up for our exciting showcase of new research directions in migration and mobility history, ft. Vikings, Germans in interwar Turkey, Cumann na mBan & female Indian scholars in England with @ihr.bsky.social @ihrhistorylab.bsky.social 3rd Feb, book here: tinyurl.com/3bxsdy32

Hello, I have a new book out in the spring with Picador and I would love it if you could help me spread the word. IF WE TOLERATE THIS draws on years of work, to help readers understand why British politics is hurtling rightwards and what to do about it. Pre-orders: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/if-w...

Wonderful paper yesterday from Nadia Joseph @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar on mobility, Apartheid, exile, & the personal and political. Next up, an exciting showcase of new research on migration in partnership with @ihrhistorylab.bsky.social! 3rd Feb, book here: tinyurl.com/3bxsdy32

Thank you Sheffield (and my mum)!

!!!!!

Really delighted to have Nadia Joseph at the first @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar of 2026 speaking on anti-apartheid activism and mobility. Sign up here! www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

In addition to academic stuff about migration, I am Director of a small charity providing group therapies to torture survivors: vital work as the govt seeks to marginalise & isolate refugees. We have a match funding campaign this week, pls give if you can: donate.biggive.org/campaign/a05...

From the government that first refused to allow unaccompanied children seeking asylum to access family reunion, then suspended *all* family reunion.

As the UK moves towards redefining what constitutes a refugee (in questionably legal ways), I want to highlight my piece looking at previous English experiments in refugee protection. There is a long (long) prehistory of exclusion - and if refugee resistance to this

"Palestinians experience the displacement of the 2020s genocide not as a singular event, but as part of a repeated cycle." Anne Irfan on the importance of writing Gaza's history.

Great paper at the @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar yesterday by Ben Braber on media depictions of migrants in 19th & 20thC British media. We'll be back in 2026 with...

Cannot wrap my head around the fact that Labour's new policies for refugees are both performatively cruel but also obviously nonsensical. People seeking asylum won't get financial support if they "can work" but the ban on asylum seekers' working won't be lifted? Meaningless and stupid "announcement"

To reiterate, this is about making life immeasurably more miserable and stressful for some of the most vulnerable people, in the almost certainly vain hope of winning over the votes of racists. Anything more shabby and shameful is difficult to envisage.

Our next @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar will be on 25th November. We will be welcoming Ben Braber to present on depictions of immigrants in British media between 1841 and 2021 - sign up link here: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

New post on refugeehistory.org: were there refugees in 16thC England? Answer: it's complicated - migrants and the state were in the process of negotiating a form of refugee protection, which helps us to complicate notions of Britain's "proud history of welcome": tinyurl.com/bdyevr4d

Great session of @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar - fantastic paper from Anne Irfan on the displacement-immobility nexus and Palestinian refugees - and some great questions in the Q&A afterwards

New post on refugeehistory.org: were there refugees in 16thC England? Answer: it's complicated - migrants and the state were in the process of negotiating a form of refugee protection, which helps us to complicate notions of Britain's "proud history of welcome": tinyurl.com/bdyevr4d

Quick bump for this - a great opportunity for PGRs and ECRs to share their research on migration and mobility!

Just over a week until the next Migration and Mobility Seminar - we will be hearing (online and in-person - for free!) from Anne Irfan on Structural displacement and enforced immobility: Palestinian refugee history in Gaza since 1948: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Astonished at all the fab work scholars keep producing, despite all pressures & uncertainty. Or because of? Good & bad: trying to save our job & knowing this matters so much that people try to stop us @historyworkshop.org.uk podcast on #ScholarSunday: www.historyworkshop.org.uk/podcast/chan...

It was brilliant to kick off the Migration and Mobility Seminar with great papers from @profpanayi.bsky.social @endeeekay.bsky.social @bengidley.bsky.social @marcloureiro.bsky.social - a lot to think about in terms of how we do migration history, especially in the current moment

Such a privilege to be part of this amazing roundtable, organised by @onslies.bsky.social at @rshc.bsky.social. So pleased that the conversation can be shared more widely (less pleased about my wobbly voice)

On a personal and slightly self-aggrandizing note, will be pleased to introduce this banging lineup for the first time officially as *Dr* Commons. Many thanks to @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social and Phil Withington for examining me with such care, and Anthony Milton for being a superlative supervisor

reminder we’re kicking off tomorrow 5:30- 7:30pm Hybrid/IHR @profpanayi.bsky.social & @kabcommons.bsky.social will open, then I’ll will speak on history & social studies; @marcloureiro.bsky.social on history & law; and Natalya Din-Kariuki on history & literature. www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Call for Papers! @ihrhistorylab.bsky.social x @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar special edition - we want papers on all types of migration and mobility history from ECRs and PGRs. Abstracts to kabcommons [@] gmail.com by 15th November. Pls spread the word & DM with any questions

Thousands of Londoners have indefinite leave to remain. They have legal rights and are our friends, neighbours and colleagues, contributing hugely to our city. Threatening to deport people living and working here legally is unacceptable.

If you want to know what the UK government's position is on its obligations under the Genocide Convention in relation to its support for Israel, here's what it argued in court this summer.

A High Court Judge ruled that Home Office had no real oversight of their commercial agents who provide asylum-seeker accommodation. They have a tissue-thin layer of staff with no real idea what’s happening, scared that Ministers and the press will realise this.

Suspending family reunion, one of the *only* safe routes into the UK, is barbaric www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

V pleased to have a new article in @huguenotsociety.bsky.social journal: tinyurl.com/e2zb9bfb. (A little🧵)

V pleased to have a new article in @huguenotsociety.bsky.social journal: tinyurl.com/e2zb9bfb. (A little🧵)

NEW: An Oxford report warns that misleading media coverage is shaping public debate on immigration and human rights. The study finds the ECHR is frequently misreported in deportation cases, fueling misconceptions that erode trust in the legal system. 🧵 [1/8]

The first term's programme for the IHR Migration and Mobility Seminar is now live! www.history.ac.uk/news-events/.... We're hybrid, so if you're interested in migration and mobility across space and time - but also in how we can write better histories of mobility - sign up from anywhere!

The current policy excludes many refugees from family reunion, particularly those who arrive as children. One way to 'stop the boats" would be to *open up* family reunion, stopping separated, often orphaned siblings being driven to desperately dangerous and traumatising journeys in search of family

📣🎉 We are pleased to announce 3 new IHR Seminar Series starting in September 2025. • African History • Migration & Mobility History • Planetary History Find out about the new series on the IHR website: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

We have some really exciting plans coming up: a space to think more thoroughly about the intersection between migration studies and history: can migration studies help historians theorise migration history better? Can history help recover regimes of control and exclusion over the long (long) term?

Good morning, I've written a piece about the prime minister. I spoke to several dozen sources, including government insiders, former legal colleagues and campaigners to ask: what happened to Keir Starmer the heroic human rights lawyer? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...