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All Outputs (35)

Support and Autonomy: Social Workers’ Approaches in Dutch Shelters for Female Survivors of Domestic Violence (2025)
Journal Article
Roegiers Mayeux, C., Saharso, S., Tonkens, E., & Darling, J. (2025). Support and Autonomy: Social Workers’ Approaches in Dutch Shelters for Female Survivors of Domestic Violence. Social Sciences, 14(4), https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14040241

It is not uncommon that women residing in Dutch shelters following domestic violence consider returning to their partners during the course of their stay. Social workers cannot prohibit return due to the importance of the client’s autonomy, as stated... Read More about Support and Autonomy: Social Workers’ Approaches in Dutch Shelters for Female Survivors of Domestic Violence.

Hotels, refuge, and the rise of carceral hospitality (2025)
Journal Article
Darling, J., & Burridge, A. (online). Hotels, refuge, and the rise of carceral hospitality. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Article e70001. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.70001

Geographical work on hotels has foregrounded their role as spaces of commercial hospitality, leisure, and increasingly as sites of emergency accommodation for a range of displaced groups. Developing such work, this paper critically examines the centr... Read More about Hotels, refuge, and the rise of carceral hospitality.

Interview with Jonathan Darling, author of Systems of Suffering: Dispersal and the Denial of Asylum (2022) (2024)
Journal Article
Darling, J., & Hughes, S. M. (2024). Interview with Jonathan Darling, author of Systems of Suffering: Dispersal and the Denial of Asylum (2022). Migration and Society, 7(1), 206-213. https://doi.org/10.3167/arms.2024.070117

This conversation between Jonathan Darling and Sarah M. Hughes focuses on Darling’s recently published book Systems of Suffering: Dispersal and the Denial of Asylum (2022). Based on research conducted over the course of six years, Systems of Sufferin... Read More about Interview with Jonathan Darling, author of Systems of Suffering: Dispersal and the Denial of Asylum (2022).

Governing through partnership: Strategic migration partnerships and the politics of enrolment and ambivalence (2023)
Journal Article
Darling, J. (2024). Governing through partnership: Strategic migration partnerships and the politics of enrolment and ambivalence. Political Geography, 108, Article 103041. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2023.103041

This paper examines the role of partnerships in the governance of UK migration policy, considering how partnerships have been mobilised to navigate tensions between multiple state and non-state actors. The paper focuses on the work of regional strate... Read More about Governing through partnership: Strategic migration partnerships and the politics of enrolment and ambivalence.

Institutional Solidarity in The Netherlands: Examining the Role of Dutch Policies in Women with Migration Backgrounds’ Decisions to Leave a Violent Relationship (2023)
Journal Article
Roegiers (Mayeux), C., Saharso, S., Tonkens, E., & Darling, J. (2023). Institutional Solidarity in The Netherlands: Examining the Role of Dutch Policies in Women with Migration Backgrounds’ Decisions to Leave a Violent Relationship. Societies, 13(11), Article 243. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13110243

In The Netherlands, women who experience domestic violence can rely on public policies that aim to support them, such as shelters. Drawing on the lived experiences, through 10 interviews and observations, of women with different cultural backgrounds... Read More about Institutional Solidarity in The Netherlands: Examining the Role of Dutch Policies in Women with Migration Backgrounds’ Decisions to Leave a Violent Relationship.

The politics of discretion: authority and influence in asylum dispersal (2021)
Journal Article
Darling, J. (2022). The politics of discretion: authority and influence in asylum dispersal. Political Geography, 94, Article 102560. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102560

This paper considers how discretion, understood as both a capacity to make decisions and a form of influence that is often hidden, operates within the accommodation and support of asylum seekers. Combining critical discussions of discretion with acco... Read More about The politics of discretion: authority and influence in asylum dispersal.

The Cautious Politics of “Humanizing” Refugee Research (2021)
Journal Article
Darling, J. (2021). The Cautious Politics of “Humanizing” Refugee Research. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 37(2), 56-62. https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.40798

In this intervention, I reflect on what it may mean to ‘humanize’ refugee research. The assumption often made is that ‘humanizing’ can arise through a concern with the particularity of the individual, through drawing from ‘the mass’ the narrative of... Read More about The Cautious Politics of “Humanizing” Refugee Research.

Refugee urbanism: seeing asylum ‘like a city’ (2020)
Journal Article
Darling, J. (2021). Refugee urbanism: seeing asylum ‘like a city’. Urban Geography, 42(7), 894-914. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2020.1763611

This paper explores how asylum might be understood from an urban perspective. The paper focuses on a range of conceptual interventions mobilized around the notion of ‘seeing like a city’, which foreground the pragmatic and compositional nature of urb... Read More about Refugee urbanism: seeing asylum ‘like a city’.

Participation and wellbeing in urban greenspace: ‘curating sociability’ for refugees and asylum seekers (2019)
Journal Article
Rishbeth, C., Blachnicka-Ciacek, D., & Darling, J. (2019). Participation and wellbeing in urban greenspace: ‘curating sociability’ for refugees and asylum seekers. Geoforum, 106, 125-134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.07.014

This paper examines how asylum seekers and refugees experience urban greenspaces. Whilst often overlooked in a focus on support services and integration, we argue that critically exploring the importance of urban greenspaces has wider implications fo... Read More about Participation and wellbeing in urban greenspace: ‘curating sociability’ for refugees and asylum seekers.

The fragility of welcome – commentary to Gill (2018)
Journal Article
Darling, J. (2018). The fragility of welcome – commentary to Gill. Fennia, 196(2), 220-224. https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.75756

In this commentary, I take Nick Gill’s discussion of the ‘suppression of welcome’ and the politics of hospitality, as a starting point for reflection on how ‘cultures of welcome’ are produced. In exploring the work of those supporting asylum seekers... Read More about The fragility of welcome – commentary to Gill.

Acts, ambiguities, and the labour of contesting citizenship (2017)
Journal Article
Darling, J. (2017). Acts, ambiguities, and the labour of contesting citizenship. Citizenship Studies, 21(6), 727-736. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2017.1341658

This afterword discusses a variety of approaches to exploring the contestation of citizenship, and foregrounds the spatial politics that underpin forms of contestation, struggle and claims making. Beginning with a reflection on how recent work has so... Read More about Acts, ambiguities, and the labour of contesting citizenship.

Asylum in Austere Times: Instability, Privatization and Experimentation within the UK Asylum Dispersal System (2016)
Journal Article
Darling, J. (2016). Asylum in Austere Times: Instability, Privatization and Experimentation within the UK Asylum Dispersal System. Journal of Refugee Studies, 29(4), 483-505. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/few038

In 2010, the UK government passed contracts for the provision of dispersal accommodation and reception services for asylum seekers to three private providers. This article explores the causes and consequences of this process, arguing that dispersal h... Read More about Asylum in Austere Times: Instability, Privatization and Experimentation within the UK Asylum Dispersal System.

Book review: Movement and the Ordering of Freedom: On Liberal Governances of Mobility, Borderities and the Politics of Contemporary Mobile Borders. Kotef Hagar, Movement and the Ordering of Freedom: On Liberal Governances of Mobility. Durham/London: Duke University Press, 2015; 248 pp.: 9780822358558, £16.99 (pbk).Szary Anne-Laure Amilhat Giraut Frédéric (eds) Borderities and the Politics of Contemporary Mobile Borders. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015; 328 pp.: 9781137468840, £65.00 (hbk). (2016)
Journal Article
Darling, J. (2016). Book review: Movement and the Ordering of Freedom: On Liberal Governances of Mobility, Borderities and the Politics of Contemporary Mobile Borders. Kotef Hagar, Movement and the Ordering of Freedom: On Liberal Governances of Mobility. Durham/London: Duke University Press, 2015; 248 pp.: 9780822358558, £16.99 (pbk).Szary Anne-Laure Amilhat Giraut Frédéric (eds) Borderities and the Politics of Contemporary Mobile Borders. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015; 328 pp.: 9781137468840, £65.00 (hbk). Progress in Human Geography, 40(5), 708-712. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132515609018

Privatising asylum: neoliberalisation, depoliticisation and the governance of forced migration (2016)
Journal Article
Darling, J. (2016). Privatising asylum: neoliberalisation, depoliticisation and the governance of forced migration. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 41(3), 230-243. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12118

This paper critically examines the political geography of asylum accommodation in the UK, arguing that in the regulation of housing and support services we witness the depoliticisation of asylum. In 2010, the UK Home Office announced that it would be... Read More about Privatising asylum: neoliberalisation, depoliticisation and the governance of forced migration.

Forced migration and the city: irregularity, informality, and the politics of presence (2016)
Journal Article
Darling, J. (2016). Forced migration and the city: irregularity, informality, and the politics of presence. Progress in Human Geography, 41(2), 178-198. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132516629004

This paper explores the relationship between forced migration and the city. The paper outlines four accounts of the city centred on: displacement and the camp-city, dispersal and refugee resettlement, the ‘re-scaling’ of borders, and the city as a sa... Read More about Forced migration and the city: irregularity, informality, and the politics of presence.

Emotions, Encounters and Expectations: The Uncertain Ethics of ‘The Field’ (2014)
Journal Article
Darling, J. (2014). Emotions, Encounters and Expectations: The Uncertain Ethics of ‘The Field’. Journal of Human Rights Practice, 6(2), 201-212. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/huu011

Entering ‘the field’ can be a daunting, demanding and at times bewildering experience, with researchers negotiating a myriad of assumptions, expectations and motivations. Whilst early career researchers and doctoral students may be trained in theorie... Read More about Emotions, Encounters and Expectations: The Uncertain Ethics of ‘The Field’.