The Migration Oxford Podcast

The language used to talk about migration at Europe's borders has evolved over the last decade. But how has this shift influenced how legal obligations are interpreted, how rescue responsibilities are understood, and how people on the move are treated?

In this episode of the Migration Oxford podcast:

The language used to talk about migration at Europe's maritime borders has evolved over the last decade, with terms such as 'deterrence', 'facilitation', and 'externalisation' becoming increasingly prominent in migration policy and political debate.



Our guest speakers, a migration policy expert, a leader at an NGO that works to save lives in the Mediterranean Sea, and a former asylum seeker who is now a UK-based researcher, will discuss how this shift in language is influencing how legal obligations are interpreted, how rescue responsibilities are understood, and how people on the move are treated.

With Europe hardening its stance on migration, the panel will also consider the bigger picture.

Who has the most influence over the language used to discuss migration? Do debates over terminology distract from broader structural and systemic issues? And what are the real-world consequences of the words we use, for example, when people seeking protection are described as 'illegal'?

Speakers


Bianca Benvenuti, Head of International Advocacy and Public Positionings, SOS MEDITERRANEE



Sam Pordale, Research Assistant at the University of Warwick



Dr Peter William Walsh, Senior Researcher at The Migration Observatory based at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS)


Host: Rob McNeil, Deputy Director and Head of Media and Communications at the Migration Observatory

Producer: Kelvin Brown

As the World Cup kicks off, our experts unpack why more European-born players are choosing to represent their parents' and grandparents' homelands, and what this change reveals about identity, belonging and shifting global power What can football tell us about the politics of migration?

As the World Cup kicks off, our experts unpack why an increasing number of European-born players are choosing to represent their parents' and grandparents' homelands, using Morocco's national team - the Atlas Lions- as a case in point.

What does Morocco's experience reveal about wider trends in football, and what can these changes tell us about identity, belonging and shifting global power?

Listen to find out more ⚽

Speakers Guests: Myriam Cherti, Senior Researcher at the Global Exchange on Migration based at COMPAS, and Bousetta Hassan, Research Associate at the University of Liège

Hosts: Rob McNeil, Deputy Director and Head of Media and Communications at the Migration Observatory, and Jacqueline Broadhead, Director of the Global Exchange on Migration.

Producer: Kelvin Brown

In this episode we discuss the realities of immigration detention across Europe, from the individual experiencing detention to the broader politics shaping the system. What is immigration detention? The Migration Observatory explains in a recent policy briefing, ‘In the UK, immigration detention refers to the Home Office practice of detaining foreign nationals for the purposes of resolving their immigration statuses. Most countries use immigration detention. When people are detained, they are typically held in prison like conditions’.

But what does detention actually mean for those who experience it? And how do broader political forces shape the system?

Recorded earlier last year, we explore these important questions in our latest episode of the Migration Oxford podcast, and examine immigration detention through multiple lenses:

· The individual human experience: We hear from Gee Manoharan, Co-Director of Policy and Influencing at AVID (Association of Visitors to Immigration Detainees), about his harrowing experience of detention in the UK.

· The importance of research: While Dr Andriani Fili, Wellcome Trust Research Fellow and Co-Director of Border Criminologies at the University of Oxford, highlights the importance of research in imagining more humane systems, drawing on the ‘Detention Landscapes’ programme of work, which investigates human rights violations inside detention facilities in Greece,

· The politics of immigration detention: Dr Lena Karamanidou, Head of Research at the Border Violence Monitoring Network, looks at the broader politics of immigration detention across Europe, and examines the prevalence violence in detention centres.

Together, we critique and analyse current systems, and imagine an alternative future - what does a better system look like and how could we get there?

The episode is co-hosted by Rob McNeil, Deputy Director of the Migration Observatory, and Delphine Boagey, Programme Officer at the Refugee-Led Research Hub and producer of the Migration Oxford podcast.

How empowering is humanitarian aid in the 21st century? We welcome an expert panel to discuss past and present localisation efforts, and how they affect migration dynamics and community building. What does the future of humanitarian aid look like in the 21st century? How empowering can humanitarian efforts be for the individuals and communities they serve? And is it possible for this work to advance decolonisation in the migration-development sector?

In this episode, recorded in early 2025, we spoke with Danilo Angulo-Molina, MSc alumni in Global Governance and Diplomacy at the University of Oxford, and Ruta Nimkar, Co-Founder of Meraki Labs and DPhil candidate in Migration Studies at COMPAS, about the idea of the localisation of aid and how it contrasts with the image of large international organisations. How does the principle of localisation work in practice? What is the Grand Bargain, and why is it significant in shaping discussions about cross-border migration?

We draw on several project at COMPAS and the University of Oxford’s Department of International Development, including the MIGNEX project that examined the role of aid in migration decision making and found it to be multi-layered.

We also explore research undertaken in Colombia, Iran, Somalia and South Sudan with Meraki Labs to consider how local groups and initiatives can amplify the voices of migrants, often more effectively than national or international aid programmes.

This episode was recorded in early 2025. We would therefore like to acknowledge that the context discussed may since have changed.

In this episode, we explore how patterns of mobility to and from Mexico have changed over time, and how these shifts reflect the growing complexity of migration in the modern world. Mexico is a place of transit. It is a place where settlement, emigration, immigration, and internal displacement occur simultaneously and at an unprecedented scale within Latin America.

However, as both a border between the global North and South and a recipient of increasingly restrictive U.S. migration policies, Mexico also reflects the growing complexity of migration in the modern world and inequality across borders.

In this episode, recorded earlier last year, we spoke with Maria Elena Hernández, Regional Protection Coordinator at the Danish Refugee Council; Mara Tissera Luna, Research Fellow at Georgetown University; and Abril Ríos-Rivera, DPhil candidate in Migration Studies, about the politics of migration across the continent and within Mexico. Together, they discuss how patterns of mobility to and from Mexico have changed over time, and how these shifts reflect the growing complexity of migration in the modern world.

The episode is co-hosted by Jacqueline Broadhead, Director of the Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity, and Rob McNeil, Deputy Director of The Migration Observatory. You can find out more about the speakers, all of who bring lived experience, below:

Maria Elena Hernández is Regional Protection Coordinator at the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) and holds a Master’s degree in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford. Originally a Mexican citizen, she is a humanitarian worker, leading humanitarian protection responses in the Middle East and Asia. Since 2019, she has worked for the DRC to protect the human rights of refugees, migrants, and displaced persons in Latin America.
Abril Ríos-Rivera is a DPhil candidate in Migration Studies at the University of Oxford and an international consultant. Her doctoral research examines how migration experiences transform and expand the agency of women and gender-diverse migrants, investigating how oppressive border regimes and personal life journeys influence migrants’ agency. Abril is also a consultant on forced displacement and refugee well-being in Kenya.
Mara Tissera Luna is an independent researcher focusing on migration and protection in the Americas and currently serves as a Fellow at Georgetown University. She is an international consultant focused on understanding the root causes of forced displacement in Latin America and the Caribbean and improving protection responses for displaced populations (such as children, LGBTQI+ individuals, and women survivors of gender-based violence).