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This article explores the impact of the 'hostile environment' on racialised migrant women's experiences of pregnancy and childbirth in England, arguing that the 'hostile environment' functions as a technology of 'stratified reproduction.' First coined by Shellee Colen, the concept of stratified reproduction describes the dynamic by which some individuals and groups may be supported in their reproductive activities, while others are disempowered and discouraged. This paper locates the stratified reproduction produced by the 'hostile environment' as intertwined with wider gendered and racialised discourses around British citizenship which have been 'designed to fail' racialised residents of the UK. Drawing on interviews with racialised migrant mothers in the north of England, this paper analyses how the proliferation and intensification of immigration controls interacts with gender, race, class, and other social regimes to differentially allocate the resources necessary for a safe and healthy pregnancy and childbirth, and how this is experienced materially by pregnant migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prison library staff play a central role in supporting prisoners with their educational, informational, recreational and cultural needs during incarceration. Their role is unique within the wider library profession, as they require both expertise in library and information management as well as the skills and knowledge required to operate in a prison environment. There has been little research exploring the experiences and perspectives of library staff who manage and deliver prison library services in the United Kingdom (UK). This paper addresses this gap in knowledge and seeks to amplify the voices of those working in an often overlooked profession. Findings are drawn from the first phase of a broader doctoral study which explored prisoner engagement with library services. A mixed-methods approach was taken, combining both a questionnaire and follow-up interviews with prison library staff across the UK. The questionnaire received 31 responses from library staff and 10 respondents participated in a follow-up interview. Findings offer a contemporary overview of the management and delivery of prison library services in the UK and underline common themes and concerns among prison library professionals, namely the implications of dual management, the impact of the unique social context in which they work and the importance of communication and liaison in providing effective library services. The paper concludes with recommendations for combatting the professional isolation felt by those working in this sector and for the promotion of prison library services both within and outside the prison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes that LGBT+ mainstreaming on reality television programme Strictly Come Dancing creates space for audience demand for radical, authentic representations of same-sex desire and intimacy, both of which challenges normative representations of ballroom dancing. Integrating concepts of normativity and authenticity explored in existing scholarship, I argue against the encountering through a defensive stance, of reality TV's normalization of queer narratives to promote authentic, inclusive representation. Focusing on dance-themed British reality TV programme for family entertainment, I draw on a queer reading of 285 newspaper articles on Strictly Come Dancing's same-sex dance partnerships and 35 interviews with LGBT+ equality dancers in the United Kingdom, to conclude that active engagement with mechanisms of normalization can open up spaces for a reclamation of queer representation in its authenticity. The article makes a contribution to media and cultural studies and queer television scholarship through a troubling of anti-normativity, proposing a working with normativity to achieve queer inclusivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how distanciation, understood as the active production of different forms of distance as a method of control, is used to manage people racialised and criminalised as migrants within the UK's hostile environment. Analysing different policies introduced under the hostile environment agenda, as well as the more recent New Plan for Immigration, we argue distanciation is a key tactic that shapes these policies and their implementation as well as offers us insight into changing forms of governing migration. Drawing on the analysis of a wide range of policy documents, the paper attends to different forms of distanciation used as a method of control within the UK's wider hostile environment and then presents the results of a case-study of how distanciation is mobilised within the English National Health Service, under the Migrant and Visitor Cost Recovery Programme in particular, which was introduced in 2014 to ensure the NHS receives 'a fair contribution' from people racialised as migrants. Addressing different forms of distanciation such as – spatial, legal and emotional – we argue that the lens of distance can offer insights into how detachment – increasing distance between different agents in immigration law and border enforcement is an intentional design to control empathy, solidarity and resistance. Tracing ways these forms of distanciation are designed into legislative and administrative measures helps us better understand how hostile environment policies work as well as locating agencies and possibilities of resistance within different spaces, agents and subjects of bordering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the dramatic evacuation from Kabul airport in August 2021, the UK government proclaimed its commitment to a 'warm welcome' for Afghans. In this paper we draw on original qualitative research to explore the emerging experiences of evacuees, and other recent arrivals, during their first year in London. Using the narratives of our Afghans participants, as well as insights from key stakeholders, we show how they navigated slow, opaque bureaucratic processes and lack of communication with official agencies. As a result of these lengthy processes, many thousands of evacuees remained in temporary hotel accommodation for protracted periods. Drawing on the concept of 'everyday bordering', we explore the extent to which Afghan resettlement policies are achieving their objectives. We consider how such policies are birthed within a punitive immigration system, which is designed to 'wear down' migrants in the UK, regardless of their reason for migration. Moreover, we argue that the ad hoc response of the Home Office and the Foreign Office has created 'false distinctions' between categories of Afghan refugees, reinforcing notions of 'deserving' versus 'underserving' migrants. This distinction allows the government to present itself as humanitarian, 'rescuing' people from Afghanistan, while simultaneously maintaining its commitment to the 'hostile immigration environment'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information poverty is widely recognised as having a negative impact upon peoples' health and wellbeing, and socioeconomic prosperity; however, whilst an issue of significant societal concern evidenced across a wide variety of adult groups and socioeconomic contexts, no studies have been previously undertaken with children. This appears a significant oversight given that many children across the globe are considered multi-dimensionally poor. This study thus sought to explore the possibility of information poverty amongst children. One hundred fifty-six children (aged 6–8) from five UK primary schools participated in a series of practical exercises exploring their information behaviours, and 34 parents and teachers were interviewed to provide further insights. Finding's evidence self-protective information behaviours and unmet information needs amongst children aged 6–8; both characteristics of an impoverished information state. Whilst much can be explained in developmental terms (i.e. in relation to child age and emergent literacies), much can also be explained in information poverty terms encompassing issues of both information access and use. Notably, approximately half of our child participants considered themselves to be, in general, unsuccessful information seekers; and contrasts with the views of our adult participants who majority believed that children are, in general, successful information seekers. This paper provides the first evidence of information poverty in young children, and provides further insights into the role of parents in supporting their children's information needs and shaping their developing information behaviours, with parental mediation of child media use appearing particularly problematic. Enduring inequalities in information access are also highlighted. Beyond call for further global research, a public communication campaign to increase awareness of child information poverty and contributory factors is recommended as an immediate priority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to handle the trajectory tracking control for a class of three-wheel mobile robot by using a novel adaptive robust control. The mobile robot consists of nonholonomic constraints and uncertainties. The uncertainties include initial condition offset, mass, and moment of inertia of the system, which are time-varying and bounded (unknown). The control force in analytical form is obtained by UK theory, and the adaptive robust control is formulated to handle the uncertainties. For estimating the unknown bounds of uncertainties, the leakage-type adaptive law is designed, which can automatically adjust its own value according to the trajectory tracking errors. Then we verify the uniform boundedness and uniform ultimate boundedness of the proposed control by Lyapunov method. Finally, numerical simulations are conducted to show the trajectory tracking effectiveness of the designed control method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is litigation in respect of dementia in ex-rugby football players. The allegation is that these ex-players have suffered a traumatic encephalopathy syndrome causing dementia and other neurological problems. The syndrome is alleged to have been caused by repeated concussion during play. It is alleged that governing bodies of rugby should have been aware, and players should have been warned, of this risk. The dilemma, for both claimants and defendants, is that there is no agreed definition of the syndrome nor are there any diagnostic tests that confirm or refute this diagnosis. This paper reviews the literature of traumatic encephalopathy syndrome and when governing bodies were aware of the possibility of rugby concussion causing dementia. The legal principles are discussed and a framework for determining the probability of an ex-rugby player having the syndrome is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conspiracy beliefs have been found to have negative real-world consequences that can impact interpersonal relationships; however, this remains an under-researched area. With the current popularity of conspiracy movements such as QAnon, more research into these phenomena is necessary. The present research therefore aimed to explore the impact of QAnon belief on interpersonal relationships. Fifteen participants aged 21–54 (M = 41) with a QAnon-affiliated loved one were interviewed about how QAnon has changed their relationship. Using thematic analysis, four main themes were identified: Malignant Q, Distance, Qonflict, and Attempts at Healing. Participants characterized QAnon as a malignant force in their relationships and communicated with their loved ones less as a result. Although QAnon was a source of conflict and tension for all participants, they were motivated to understand their loved ones. Most participants who still had relationships with their loved ones were motivated to heal or maintain their relationships, while those who no longer did had previously tried many different strategies to save their relationships. These findings provide greater insight into how QAnon can impact relationships, offering fruitful directions for future research examining how individuals can heal from QAnon-afflicted relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resistance to housing and welfare reforms on economic, 'practical' grounds was shattered by the covid-19 pandemic, which demonstrated that where there is a will there is a way when it comes to providing housing. Despite a purported 'right' to adequate housing, many people in the UK face profound challenges accessing stable accommodation. Drawing from a biographical-narrative study, this article details experiences of men who have the right to adequate housing denied and thus experience housing insecurity. Subsequently, it explores how such insecurity exacerbates pre-existing mental health problems. The core argument of the article is that welfare reforms produced the sense of a constant threat of homelessness and destitution for the 17 male participants in the study who claimed sickness benefits. This sense of constant threat manifested itself through (a) the production of present homelessness at the time of the research and (b) and underlying anxiety, fear and threat of homelessness. The article contends that the UK social security system perpetuates the structural and emotional drivers of mental distress, creating a deleterious cycle of poverty, insecurity and ill-health, concluding that the provision of stable housing is an upstream intervention to improve mental health and reduce social exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter explores employer perspectives on the extension of behavioural conditionality to working social security claimants ('in-work conditionality'). As policymakers across Europe and other developed nations have pursued increasingly interventionist approaches to activating the unemployed through conditional welfare policies, the UK has gone a significant and 'unprecedented' step further by requiring those in receipt of in-work benefits to demonstrate their efforts to increase their working hours and/or pay. As the actors ultimately in control over the jobs people can access and progress in, understanding employer perspectives on this new policy development is critical, which, however, has so far been overlooked by policymakers and researchers. We address this omission through presenting original analysis of 84 semi-structured interviews conducted with a diverse group of employers. We find that while the UK's Work First approach to activation has seemingly encountered little resistance from employers to date, this new Work First, Work More approach may be a step too far. We contribute theoretically by identifying a potential role for employers as latent path disruptors in policy development, and challenge the commonly-held assumption that employers are typically supportive of extensions of behavioural conditionality to social security claimants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents personal stories from a participatory biographical arts-based study with a specific category of racialised migrants: individuals seeking asylum in the North East of England. Responding to the important questions posed by this special issue, the article explores individual experiences of navigating the UK's hostile environment with a focus on the threefold punitive 'threat' of dispersal, detention, and destitution (Bloch and Schuster, 2005). Adopting an intersectional lens, the discussion highlights the impact of such policies and their compound effect of creating (un)safe and exclusionary everyday spaces, while also outlining the potential for resistance as illustrated by participants' actions and their creative (re)actions as part of the study's arts-based approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the production, working and impact of the UK's hostile environment on migrant families with precarious legal status. Our approach is informed by two bodies of scholarly work: critical border studies and research on migrant families. We bridge these literatures to show how the hostile environment is neither a singular, neatly bounded space, nor limited to a set of interactions between immigration enforcement and a clear-cut group of people (so-called 'illegal immigrants'). It affects the lives of a wider segment of the UK population, in particular racialised migrants and citizens, by making their legal status more insecure and precarious, and percolates in multiple and intersecting domains in the lives of families, such as education, housing and welfare, making them ambivalent sites of protection and safety as well as control and enforcement. Drawing on ethnographic engagement with families with insecure immigration statuses, we explore how the hostile environment manifests in the everyday lives of families; how the hostile environment circulates and is re-enacted within the micro-politics of families; and how families negotiate the continuous work of protecting children from the effects of the hostile environment. In conclusion we argue that dramatic and rapid shifts in immigration rules and regulations undermine the capacity of mothers to navigate the policy environment and welfare for their children and to shield them from the consequences of state-driven hostility towards immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Free School Meals (FSM) have been the site of renewed contestation and extensive campaigning in the last half-decade. Until recently, children in families with 'no recourse to public funds' because of their immigration status were excluded from accessing FSMs, despite being some of the most destitute in Britain. Through an analysis of campaign materials and interviews with advocates, we consider this dynamic policy terrain in light of the UK's 'hostile environment' and consider lessons for campaigners. By exploring imaginaries of childhood, poverty, and nation shaping FSM policies, we offer a warning that campaigns can end up justifying exclusions at the same time as aiming for more expansive support. How campaigns represent their causes has implications, which, in this case, is often through the exceptionalism and hyper-deservingness of childhood. We argue these representations reduce discussion to technical questions about who is 'deserving', thereby risking shoring up an exclusionary and hostile state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents personal stories from a participatory biographical arts-based study with a specific category of racialised migrants: individuals seeking asylum, in the North East of England. Responding to the important questions posed by this special issue, the article explores individual experiences of navigating the UK's hostile environment with a focus on the threefold punitive 'threat' of dispersal, detention, and destitution (Bloch and Schuster, 2005). Adopting an intersectional lens, the discussion highlights the impact of such policies and their compound effect of creating (un)safe and exclusionary everyday spaces, while also outlining the potential for resistance as illustrated by participants' actions and their creative (re)actions as part of the study's arts-based approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stakeholder engagement has become a watchword for environmental scientists to assert the societal relevance of their projects to funding agencies. In water research based on computer simulation modelling, stakeholder engagement has attracted interest as a means to overcome low uptake of new tools for water management. An increasingly accepted view is that more and better stakeholder involvement in research projects will lead to increased adoption of the modelling tools created by scientists in water management. However, we cast doubt on this view by drawing attention to how the freedom of stakeholder organizations to adopt new scientific modelling tools in their regular practices is circumscribed by the societal context. We use a modified concept of co-production in an analysis of a case of scientific research on drought in the UK to show how relationships between actors in the drought governance space influence the uptake of scientific modelling tools. The analysis suggests an explanation of why stakeholder engagement with one scientific project led to one output (data) getting adopted by stakeholders while another output (modelling tools) attracted no discernible interest. Our main objective is to improve the understanding of the limitations to stakeholder engagement as a means of increasing societal uptake of scientific research outputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although previous research suggests that a large proportion of young adults experience ageism, information is scarce regarding exactly how often they encounter different forms of age-based discrimination. To address this lacuna, we recruited young adults from the U.K. to complete four weekly surveys in which they reported the number of days during the preceding week on which they experienced various forms of ageism. More than three-quarters of our respondents experienced some form of ageism at least once during the reporting period, and more than one-quarter of respondents experienced ageism (on average) at least once per week during the reporting period. The most oft-encountered forms of ageism encountered by young adults involved being shown a lack of respect/being patronized and having other people make assumptions about their cognitive or social characteristics. Most commonly, the perpetrators of ageism were middle-aged and later middle-aged persons (rather than older people) encountered in the course of employment. The number of days on which young adults experienced ageism was inversely correlated with the degree to which they believed middle-aged and later-middle aged adults held positive stereotypes of young adults, and positively predicted the desire to avoid interaction with middle-aged, late middle-aged, and older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital media use can connect citizens across geographic boundaries into coordinated action by distributing political information, enabling the formation of groups, and facilitating political talk. These activities can lead to political consumerism, which is an important and popular form of political participation that translates across geographic borders. This article uses original survey data (n = 9284) to examine the relationship between digital media use and political consumerism in the United States, United Kingdom, and France. Talking politics online, joining social groups on social media, and searching online for political information increase participation in political consumerism. However, the strength of these positive correlations differs by age, country, and mode of political consumerism. Joining social groups on social media has a much larger effect size on buycotting compared to boycotting. The findings imply that social groups are more salient in the mobilization process for buycotting campaigns compared to boycotting campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the interaction between digital capital and some offline components (economic, cultural, political, social and personal) that represent the background against which we access and use the Internet. Based on a stratified sample of the UK population (868), six indexes (one for each component) were generated through factor analysis and univariate analysis. We summarised them into a unique model by performing a multiple linear regression to evaluate the role-played by offline components in the development/reinforcement of digital capital. The interaction between these new indexes and the digital capital index shows that, with the exception of the political component, all offline backgrounds positively contribute to digital capital. Moreover, the multiple regression analysis shows that the economic and social components have the strongest influence on digital capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores strategies and practices of approximation to cope with needs of pregnancy and maternity in the locked-down home at a distinct point in time – the earliest lockdown in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, where, disruption of in-person support, both formally and informally, had implications for new mothers, babies and families. Amid a turn to digital for mental health and related support, it appears, unsurprisingly from the fieldwork, that despite many benefits, the role of technology in this context has been complex, as contexts of use, maternal practices, literacies and the nature of perinatal support required deeply shaped the role technology played amid blanket lockdown restrictions. I explore attempts to 'approximate' in-person ties within the confines of mandatorily digitally mediated interactions by paying attention to the fatigue, materialities and unsettlement of approximation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 9/11, considerable research has been done on US interrogation and detention operations, but comparatively little is known about the involvement of other traditionally liberal states' intelligence agencies and their evolving perspectives on torture-related policies for foreigners abroad. Particularly, the United Kingdom and Germany provide interesting cases; despite similar levels of public and political pressure regarding their indirect involvement in Central Intelligence Agency's operations, the two states took different strategic decisions in 2010 on whether to implement new extraterritorial human rights safeguards. While the United Kingdom introduced a new intelligence guidance for interrogations overseas, the German government opted for policy-continuance, which raises the question why the two states embarked on different policy trajectories, even if they found themselves in contextually similar situations and were subjected to the comparable accountability measures. By bridging insights from Rationalist and normative literature, the article addresses this conundrum by clearly outlining the states' differing strategic preferences, and by dissecting the multi-layered composition of these interests. As a result, the article delineates how strategic constraints pertaining to the states' national, international, or political elite level affect decision-makers' policy responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information science researchers are increasingly seeking to understand the utilisation of knowledge generated through scientific research outside of academia. Although the conceptual levels of knowledge utilisation are well established, our understanding of the various information practices for knowledge utilisation employed by researchers remains limited. This study identified such information practices by text-mining 6637 case studies documented under the United Kingdom's Research Excellence Framework. The results were augmented with expert judgement to develop a framework consisting of nine types based on the theoretical framework of research knowledge utilisation. Three emerging types were identified: deliberation, co-creation and foresighting. They indicate the rise of information practices leveraging social media and analytical capabilities to engage potential beneficiaries in using and realising the value of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014, a long continuing battle began to find out more about Government record-keeping on the deaths of disabled people claiming benefits. Drawing on a timeline of evidence co-produced with disabled people, we analyse how deaths related to the benefits system are an outcome of slow violence, where both the delay between policies and their harmful effects, as well as the more active use of delay tactics, are central to how the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) weaponise time as a strategy to avoid accountability and deny justice. DWP reviews into deaths are an under-researched yet significant focus because they are (supposedly) tools through which the DWP investigates the harms of its own policies, and yet, they are designed and carried out in a way that systemically invisibilise state accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intersex people suffer human rights abuses and harms because of non-consensual early medical interventions. They have historically been rendered outside of welfare regimes and equality, diversity and inclusion policies, or forcibly subsumed within sex-binaried institutions. This article draws on critical intersex studies to interrogate the policy silences and collusions that have taken place regarding intersex people's suffering. Using Ireland and England as case studies, we show that current formations of equality and diversity policies are inadequate in relation to intersex issues. Analysis of policy documents from Ireland and the UK using Bacchi's method reveals the erasure and/or marginalisation of intersex people, despite some stated commitments to gender and sexual equality. We conclude that there is a pressing need for social policy work around intersex issues and for reform to support intersex people's equality, diversity and inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most cyber intrusions are a form of intelligence rather than warfare, but intelligence remains undertheorized in international relations (IR). This article develops a theory of intelligence performance at the operational level, which is where technology is most likely to affect broader political and military outcomes. It uses the pragmatic method of abduction to bootstrap general theory from the historical case of Bletchley Park in World War II. This critical case of computationally enabled signals intelligence anticipates important later developments in cybersecurity. Bletchley Park was uncommonly successful due to four conditions drawn from contemporary practice of cryptography: radio networks provided connectivity; German targets created vulnerability; Britain invested in bureaucratic organization; and British personnel exercised discretion. The method of abduction is used to ground these particular conditions in IR theory, revisit the evaluation of the case, and consider historical disanalogies. The result is a more generalizable theory that can be applied to modern cybersecurity as well as traditional espionage. The overarching theme is that intelligence performance in any era depends on institutional context more than technological sophistication. The political distinctiveness of intelligence practice, in contrast to war or coercive diplomacy, is deceptive competition between rival institutions in a cooperatively constituted institutional environment. Because cyberspace is highly institutionalized, furthermore, intelligence contests become pervasive in cyberspace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]