Precarious Lives Forced Labour, Exploitation and Asylum

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence

This ground breaking book presents the first evidence of forced labour among displaced migrants who seek refuge in the UK.

Through a critical engagement with contemporary debates about precarity, unfreedom and socio-legal status, the book explores how asylum and forced labour are linked, and enmeshed in a broader picture of modern slavery produced through globalised working conditions.

Drawing on original evidence generated in fieldwork with refugees and asylum seekers, this is important reading for students and academics in social policy, social geography, sociology, politics, refugee, labour and migration studies, and policy makers and practitioners working to support migrants and tackle forced labour.

Dr Hannah Lewis is Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, at the University of Sheffield. Her research interests include community and social relationships, migration and refugee studies; immigration and asylum policy; forced labour and ‘modern slavery’, faith and anti-trafficking; and the ethics and methodologies of research with migrant populations. Her work has been published in many journals and she has contributed to three books.

Peter Dwyer is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at the University of York. His research and teaching focuses on social citizenship. He led the large ESRC funded Welfare Conditionality: Sanctions Support and Behaviour Change (2013-2019) project.

Louise Waite is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Leeds, UK. Her research interests focus on discourses of ‘modern slavery’, unfree/forced labour and exploitative work among asylum seekers and refugees. She has published in a range of peer reviewed journals and in recent collaborative books