The Structure of Luck: Navigating everyday injustice in the British immigration system. A case study of access to advice in the South West of England.

Abstract

This thesis is about the everyday injustices experienced by people seeking asylum in the United Kingdom (UK) as they navigate the immigration system and the possibilities for challenging these injustices within the context of the British civil justice system. The thesis examines the role of advice organisations in assisting people to navigate everyday injustices and the significance of specialist advice in contesting unjust systems of border control. It considers how the cuts to immigration legal aid implemented through the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (also known as ‘LASPO’) have affected local advice infrastructures and the experiences of those seeking advice. Justified through governmental discourse as part of a broader package of ‘austerity measures’ to save money for taxpayers, the Act delivered the most significant funding cuts to the British legal aid system since it was introduced as part of the welfare state in 1949. Using an ethnographic case study of access to legal advice within the South West of England for people with asylum and human rights claims, the thesis traces how the relationship between hostile immigration policy and austerity becomes manifest in daily life, influencing whether individuals are able to access legal assistance for their immigration cases, and the consequences when affordable advice is not available. These empirical investigations are framed through discussion of geographic and socio-legal literature that examines who is able to access the justice system and how to identify and tackle injustice in practice. The thesis argues that although asylum outcomes are often interpreted as a matter of chance, discourses of luck can conceal the effects of structural differences in material wealth on different populations. The thesis contributes to contemporary understandings of legal exclusion and disciplinary power within the politics of border control. As well as voicing the experiences of people who have been forced to migrate and the many barriers that they must overcome to reside in the UK on a permanent basis, it provides an account of the possibilities that exist for challenging structural injustice and re-working state power through local activist projects. The thesis uses and develops geographic theories of legal inclusion/exclusion and contributes to socio-legal studies of legal consciousness, as well as literature on the impact of austerity. The thesis argues that LASPO has re-worked the relationship between civil society and the state. However, rather than creating a ‘small state’, which is often perceived to be the political objective of austerity, the thesis demonstrates how cuts to immigration legal aid have led to a tightening of social control over the lives of migrant populations, heightening experiences of risk and restricting access to legal avenues for challenging the injustices of border control.