Skip to main content
Palgrave Macmillan
Book cover

Race, Gender and the Body in British Immigration Control

Subject to Examination

  • Book
  • © 2014

Overview

Part of the book series: Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship (MDC)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

eBook USD 44.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (8 chapters)

Keywords

About this book

This book analyses the practice of virginity testing endured by South Asian women who wished to enter Britain between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, and places this practice into a wider historical context. Using recently opened government documents the extent to which these women were interrogated and scrutinized at the border is uncovered.

Reviews

"An important and revelatory study of a shameful episode in 20th century British immigration history that was shaped by Imperial racism." - Alan Travis, Home Affairs Editor, The Guardian

"It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of Smith and Marmo's study. Their chilling documentation of abuses permitted and vigorously denied by the Home Office represents feminist scholarship at its best." - Philippa Levine, Mary Helen Thompson Centennial Professor in the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin, US

"This historical study examines the intertwining of 'race', gender and the body in the application of immigration controls in Britain since the 1970s. Drawing on research in British Government archives, 'Race, Gender and the Body in British Immigration Control' begins with the shocking case of virginity testing of a 35 year old woman, who arrived at Heathrow Airport, London in 1979 to marry her fiancé. Smith and Marmo unpick these obscene practices as symptomatic of the de-humanising treatment of migrants from the former colonies and the dense racialized, sexual politics of British border controls. Crucially, Smith and Marmo also explore the incredible resistance of South Asian women and anti-deportation activists against the discriminatory practices of the British state. This important new history of immigration control speaks directly to the contemporary situation of border securitisation in Britain and beyond. It will be of interest to, and willbe widely read by all interested in migration, citizenship, human rights, post-colonial migration, and histories of resistance to unjust border controls."

- Dr Imogen Tyler, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Lancaster University, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  • Flinders University, Australia

    Evan Smith, Marinella Marmo

About the authors

Evan Smith is Vice-Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of International Studies at Flinders University, Australia. He has written widely on the British immigration control system, the politics of race in Britain and the British far left.

Marinella Marmo is Associate Professor in Criminology at Flinders University Law School, Australia. Her research interests include international criminal justice, transnational crime and comparative criminology.

Bibliographic Information

Publish with us