Asylum Seeking and the Global City (Routledge Studies in Criminal Justice, Borders and Citizenship)

Asylum seeking and the global city are two major contemporary subjects of analysis to emerge both in the literature and in public and official discourses on human rights, urban socioeconomic change and national security. Based on extensive, original ethnographic research, this book examines the situation of asylum seekers in Hong Kong and offers a narrative of their experiences related to internal and external borders, the performance of border crossing and asylum politics in the context of the global city.

Hong Kong is a city with no comprehensive legislation covering refugee claims and official and public opinion is dominated by the view that the city would be flooded with illegal economic migrants were policy changes to be implemented. This book considers why Hong Kong has become a destination for asylum seekers, how asylum seekers integrate into local and global economic markets and why the illegalization of asylum seekers plays a significant role in the processes of global city formation.

This book will be essential reading for academics and students involved in the study of migration; globalization and borders; research methods in criminology; social problems and urban sociology.

Francesco Vecchio is a postdoctoral research fellow at Charles Sturt University, and collaborates with Fondazione ISMU and Hong Kong-based NGO Vision First. He develops research on mobility and borders with a focus on refugees. Francesco completed his PhD in Criminology at Monash University, and previously worked in the nonprofit sector. He completed his undergraduate studies in History at the University of Milan and obtained a Masters in Intercultural Studies from the University of Padua.