Intersectionality and UK's multiscalar governance approach to race, gender and asylum seeking in Scotland and England

Focusing on the experiences of asylum seekers and refugees in the UK, this chapter will explore (1) how displaced migration is a phenomenon that is both gendered and racialized, (2) the extent to which post-migration government policies account for the racialization and gendering of displacement, and (3) the consequences of prevailing government approaches to gender, race and displacement for asylum seekers’ and refugees’ post-migration access to rights, services and opportunities. To do this, the chapter will place in dialogue two distinctive policy environments in the UK. First, it will critically examine the UK Government’s historic and contemporary approaches to asylum seeker and refugee “integration” and map-out their cumulative racialized and gendered effects. Second, it will consider the extent to which the divergent policy environment created by the devolved Scottish Government offers an alternative approach to integration. Finally, it will work across both policy landscapes to identify intersectional consequences of racialized and gender-discriminatory asylum-seeker and refugee integration policies.