Relational entanglements of coloniality and asylum: British-Somali colonial genealogies and the Glasgow Bajuni campaign

This paper unpacks the ways in multiform colonialities of power, species of colonial power and genealogies of colonial power jostle for dominance at the contemporary UK asylum border. Grounded in the context of the Glasgow Bajuni campaign – an attempt to overturn minoritised Somali asylum seekers' refused "Disputed Nationality" cases – it argues (1) that existing "coloniality of citizenship" literatures can be extended by considering the roles of different "species" of coloniality (such as Protectorate colonialism) in the development of citizenship/migrantising regimes, (2) that "relational entanglements" theorisations should be applied to critiques of bordering/citizenship processes and that (3) relational entanglements are highly contextually specific and full critiques of bordered injustice must incorporate these specificities in their analysis. Consideration of these critiques in combination, the paper argues, leads to precise identification of the multiple and intersecting injustices suffered by the Bajuni campaigners at the asylum border that would otherwise remain obscured.