HS3T90-Poor Law to Hostile Environment: Repatriation, Deportation and Exclusion from Britain 1800-2016

Module Provider: History
Number of credits: 20 [10 ECTS credits]
Level:6
Terms in which taught: Autumn term module
Pre-requisites:
Non-modular pre-requisites:
Co-requisites:
Modules excluded:
Current from: 2022/3

Module Convenor: Dr Daniel Renshaw
Email: d.g.renshaw@reading.ac.uk

Type of module:

Summary module description:

This module will examine the fraught and often controversial language and policy based around concepts of repatriation and expulsion of migrant and minority groups in modern Britain. Beginning in the early nineteenth century and concluding in the twenty-first century, it will consider concepts of the ‘self’ and the ‘other’, what constitutes ‘foreignness’ and ‘home’, attitudes towards migration, and the relationship between voluntary and forced forms of repatriation.

Aims:

Part 3 Options involve the study of specific periods, subjects or types of History. This module aims to make clear the continuities and differences in reactions to migration from the early nineteenth century, to understand why removal of groups deemed as ‘others’ has had such potency, to interpret the historiography of responses to migration and how historical analysis of these responses has evolved, and to base the examination in primary material, including press reports, oral history, and government communications.Ìý

Assessable learning outcomes:

By the end of the module it is expected that the student will be able to:

• identify and explain the main issues and events studied


• acquire a detailed knowledge of the events through extensive reading in specialised literature


• locate and assemble information on the subject by independent research


• appraise critically the primary sources and historical interpretations of the subject


• organise materialand articulate arguments effectively in writing, both under timed conditions and in assessed essays.

Additional outcomes:

The module also aims to encourage the development of oral communication skills and the student's effectiveness in group situations. Students will also develop their IT skills by use of relevant web resources.

Outline content:

The module will adopt a long-term chronological focus, considering the political, social, and cultural elements of removal from one country to another, and make frequent comparisons between forms of repatriation and deportation in different time periods in modern Britain. Beginning at the start of the nineteenth century, the module will commence by examining forced removal of Irish migrants to Britain before, during and after the Great Famine of the 1840s. The economic, political and religious contexts of this wave of large-scale repatriation will be looked at. The module will then consider ideas of repatriation before the First World War, with an emphasis on the complex question of the return to Eastern Europe of Jewish migrants, and how the deportation of immigrants was enforced by the British government after the Aliens Act of 1905. Moving forward, it will consider voluntary and forced repatriation of different migrant groups during the First and Second World Wars, and the rise of fascism in Britain which made use of the rhetoric of expulsion. Continuing into the post-war era, the course will look at demands for repatriation of New Commonwealth migrants from the 1950s to the 1980s, the rise of the National Front, the presence of Enoch Powell and government schemes of ‘assisted return’ for migrants. It will conclude with the controversies of the early twenty-first century.

Brief description of teaching and learning methods:

Seminars for which students must carry out full preparatory reading and research. Seminars rely on structured group discussion and may also include: seminar papers by students; discussion of evidence; team-based exercises and debates; study visit to a relevant location. Students are expected to carry out self-directed revision in the Summer term. Staff will be available for consultation as necessary.