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‘Stranger Views’: Researching Marginality and (Non)Belonging Among Migrants Experiencing Homelessness in the UK

PMCID: PMC12793710

PMID: 41015916

Abstract

ABSTRACT With reference to Simmel's work, this article puts forward the notion of ‘stranger views’, which are expressive on the one hand, of the experiences of those who occupy a marginal position in society characterised by experiences of belonging and non‐belonging, and on the other, of our own position as researchers, probing spaces of non‐belonging and hearing stories that are then rearticulated for an academic audience. In doing so, it provides a reflective dialog between the findings of a research project on migrant homelessness in the UK and the methodological framework brought by New Area Studies. The article deploys the life story research method and focuses on views of the UK from the perspective of migrants from former European colonies who have been in the UK for several years but whose immigration status and lack of economic capital renders them vulnerable to destitution and homelessness. The article offers unique insights into the co‐existence of belonging and non‐belonging and the dissonance between these feelings. In providing a dialog between accounts deriving from life story interviews with migrants experiencing homelessness and a self‐critical reflection about the knowledge produced with such accounts, our article contributes to debates on the sociology of marginality with a three‐tiered discussion of migration, homelessness and methodological frameworks, which are rarely considered together.

Full Text

Consideration of the relationship between power and knowledge is crucial for our present reflection on marginality and migrant homelessness. Following Chimni (2009) we understand the double nature of knowledge, as it can serve forces both of ‘dominance and emancipation’ (p. 14), serving to legitimise subordination and work for the empowerment of marginal groups. In this article, we argue that self‐reflection is a precondition for critical engagement with the relationship between power and knowledge, and more specifically, between marginalised voices and the study of marginality.
As Wacquant (2008, 231) observes in his analyses of the French working‐class periphery and an African‐American neighbourhood, each instance of marginality needs to be considered in relation to its specific historical situation, bearing in mind, for example, the complex interplay between class, race and the nation state. Nevertheless, Wacquant proceeds to argue that there are forms of what he terms advanced marginality that have much in common. Key characteristics of this phenomenon include forms of social closure that effectively block dominated groups from accessing key societal networks, resources and the ability to compete for these resources. Whereas in his study, Wacquant focuses on peripheries and deprived areas, our article focuses on a project led by Stewart (Stewart et al. 2023; Stewart and Sanders 2023), which researches the lives of migrants experiencing homelessness whose lives are not fixed to specific neighbourhoods and who have a greater need to move around the city, disconnected as they are from secure accommodation and access to the job market.
In this article, we extend Simmel's (1971[1908]) discussion of the social type of the stranger to apply it to the cases of migrants experiencing homelessness in the UK and to ourselves as researchers of marginalities. With a focus on migrants from former European colonies, we demonstrate how their experiences of marginality, simultaneously belonging and non‐belonging enables ‘stranger views’, that is insights into the dominant society from the perspective of the dominated. These stranger views are expressive of the co‐existence of feelings of belonging and non‐belonging. Despite the suffering experienced by many of the research participants before coming to the UK and during their time here, where they have experienced homelessness, the perspectives that they offer about life in the UK provide unique insights from the point of view of those who have often been in the country for many years. Their stories convey a sense of being part of life in the UK, and yet as a consequence of their immigration status and declining material conditions of existence, provide unsettling reminders of their non‐belonging. We explore the dissonance between their senses of belonging and non‐belonging.
Marginality is associated with a dominated social position occupied by individuals and groups where they are denied access to resources or the means of competition for resources. According to Wacquant (2008), the inter‐related characteristics of advanced marginality include insecure wage labour, disconnection from macroeconomic trends (even during times of economic prosperity), territorial stigmatisation, the dissolution of a sense of ‘place’, the loss of hinterland, and social fragmentation. Marginality is advanced because it is not an aspect of the past that is behind us, a residual issue that is in the process of being resolved. It is instead something that is currently taking shape, which looms on the horizon, and has consequences that lie ahead of us in the current moment. However, marginality is more than a site of domination, where inequalities are perpetuated, and where the dominant are in the strongest position to continue their plundering. For example, hooks argues that marginality is also a site of resistance and radical possibility (1991, p. 23). This has particular implications for us as social scientists, because it directs us to think about research produced from the margins as well as research produced about the margins. A focus on marginality as resistance invites us to engage in more power‐critical research, meaning that we ought to consider about whom knowledge is being produced and by whom (Barrios Aquino 2024). Following Foucault (1982), we can understand resistance as a diagnosis of power and not external or opposed to it. Similarly to hooks, Foucault proposes the use of resistance ‘to bring to light power relations, locate their position, find out their points of application and the methods used’ (1982, pp. 209–211). The point here is that marginality as resistance affords us the possibility of a critical approach where counter‐hegemonic practices and discourses reveal the sites of power and oppression and, simultaneously, provide opportunities for contestation and cultural change (hooks 1989, p. 15).
hooks's analysis of alternative perceptions and practices deriving from the position of marginality brings to mind key literature from classical social theory on this topic. Simmel's (1971) famous essay on the social type of the stranger, who is part of the group but also outside of it, draws attention to someone whose marginal social position enables a sense of double consciousness. Simmel's analysis of the stranger is in line with more recent research in migration studies, which refutes any simplistic binary of either belonging or non‐belonging, being inside or outside. Simmel argues that the stranger is part of the group and yet is separate from it. The stranger is someone who ‘comes today and stays tomorrow’; someone who is close to the group and yet remote (Simmel 1971, 143). In this article, we further undermine this binary opposition and pursue a definition of non‐belonging as much more than the absence of belonging. According to Korteweg and Yurdakul (2024, 294) non‐belonging ‘has its own logics and creates particular spaces’.
The tension between distance and closeness is a feature of all human interaction but in the social type of the stranger it takes a specific form. The stranger's interactions with others are characterised by the synthesis of belonging and non‐belonging and this position provides an alternative to the hegemonic views. The stranger's views also cast a light on the active production of non‐belonging through policies and law (Korteweg and Yurdakul 2024) which produce legal categories that in the case of migrants ‘are not merely devices for inclusion but also exclusion’ (Chimni 2009, 12). The legal categories ascribed to the stranger (in this case referring to those with ‘inferior’ immigration statuses) have meant that they are more likely than others to get the blame when things go wrong and are thus vulnerable to stereotyping and forms of harmful representation. Moreover, these legal categories result in a colonial hierarchy of human bodies that continues to shape the politics of belonging today (Wynter 2003; Yuval‐Davis 2006).
Inspired by Simmel's (1971) essay and by Korteweg and Yurdakul’s (2024) conceptualisation of colonial spaces of non‐belonging, we consider the position of migrants experiencing homelessness in the UK as examples of advanced marginality and engage with it as an opportunity to scrutinise knowledge production about marginalised communities. The social problem of migrants experiencing homelessness, in the context of an increasingly hostile immigration environment in the UK, is not a residual issue from a previous era that is in the process of being resolved. In line with Wacquant’s (2008, 232) argument, it is very much part of the present moment and looms on the horizon. Under successive governments, migrants with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) remain particularly vulnerable to destitution, with no access to social benefits, the job market or housing. Without secure housing, they are less likely to have access to a hinterland, a community or group on which they can depend during difficult times. Moreover, seeking out alternative means of survival, such as work in the informal economy or other forms of precarious work, entails a drift towards illegality and further disconnection from mainstream society (Stewart and Sanders 2023). As Wacquant (2008, 252) points out, the ‘free market’, which is one of the causes of advanced marginality, ‘can hardly be counted on to provide remedies for it’.
Drawing on Simmel, we argue that the position of simultaneous belonging and non‐belonging allows stranger views into life in the UK from the perspective of dominated groups. Our focus is on those experiencing a combination of material deprivation as homeless and carrying an ‘inferior’ position through being racialised as migrants and restricted in their access to rights taken for granted by UK citizens (Wynter 2003). Our article deploys the life story research method and focuses on views of the UK from the perspective of migrants from countries that were former European colonies, who have been in the UK for several years but whose immigration status and lack of economic capital renders them vulnerable to destitution. In doing so, the article contributes to the under‐researched topic of migrant homelessness. Each migrant experiencing homelessness occupies a unique space of non‐belonging combined with a sense of belonging. Some have lived in the UK for many decades while others have only recently arrived. What they have in common is the articulation of a stranger view of the UK: a perspective that on the one hand is expressive of familiarity and belonging, and moments of being part of the group, and on the other hand, one that reinforces their relegation to a space of non‐belonging that is most apparent when confronted with the reality of a weak structural position (e.g., lacking material resources and unable to access work or benefits) combined with the threat of deportation. This is a threat that looms even while it seems to be suspended. Stranger views offer insights from the inside and outside, casting a light on the dislocation that occurs when non‐belonging generates new modes of existence, where individuals are denied access to resources and/or the right to work and cling to the possibility of recovering rights that have been suspended (Korteweg and Yurdakul 2024; Stewart and Sanders 2024; Scuzzarello and Moroşanu 2023). But before we explore this further, we will turn to some reflections on marginality that underpin our approach to this topic.

What we research is deeply intertwined with how we do research. Marginality as a conceptual guide is a site of radical possibility to expand both our research focus as well as our research practice. Moreover, New Area Studies opens up methodological approaches for research practice that enable us to avoid reproducing the hierarchies we are trying to undermine (Barrios Aquino 2024).
Thus, in thinking through our epistemological approach, we are informed by debates in New Area Studies that interpret culture, politics and social relations in ways that are multi‐layered, non‐linear, made of complex temporalities and transcending borders, and where narratives and storytelling are key tools to access the rich variety of lifeworlds (Baumann and et al. 2020; Fleschenberg and Baumann 2020; Hutchings 2020; Hodgett and Ruys Smith 2021). Our reflection thus focuses on two aspects of marginality:

Academic research on marginalities runs the risk of exotifying, othering and constructing cultures from the point of view of a western scientific perspective. This western scientific perspective refers here to a particular way of constructing a knowing subject ‘untouched by the geo‐political configuration of the world in which people are racially ranked and regions are racially configured’ (Mignolo 2009, 160). This involves the researcher who is arguably outside and looking in, adopting a stranger view with a very different inflection, and with the advantages of perspective, in our case afforded by the concepts, methods and resources available in Anglo‐American/European academia.
Relatedly, our self‐critical reflection is informed by feminist traditions and embraces our positionality, emotions and ethics as part of the process rather than seeking to bracket them out to gain ‘objectivity’ (Nadar 2014, 26). This results in an attempt to break the fiction of objectivity and neutrality and involve ourselves and our positionality in our research practice, in this case, even as a form of reflection after the research project has concluded. This situated knowledge follows a long‐standing tradition in feminist approaches to research (Rose 1997; Haraway 1988; Motta and Gonzalez 2023) and aims to open up spaces for the articulation of what Chimni (2009) termed the dual nature of knowledge, namely that it can be deployed for the purposes of emancipation and domination. With this in mind, we note the following:

As scholars in institutions in the Global North we need to ask ourselves questions that will lead to a justification of our research interests and the impact of our research practices. These are difficult questions to ask, as they imply a harsh reckoning with our place in the production of larger marginalities at a global scale (Odysseos 2017). With this in mind, we can assert the following:

Because we are aware of the danger of reproducing marginalities, it is our responsibility to engage in an honest reflection about positionality and be fully aware of the spaces we occupy if we want to contribute to challenging dominant power relations and explore marginality as a site of possibility (Sadan 2020).
Insights can be taken from approaches in New Area Studies that call upon researchers to emphasise an understanding of the various ways in which our worldview is reproduced in our research objects. For example, as Barrios Aquino (2024) notes, hierarchies can be perpetuated through the research process when not attended to reflexively. There are many challenges in research of this kind. Given the power differential between the researcher and the researched, there is a danger that a project such as ours is merely extractive in treating migrants' accounts as data that can be used for our own career enhancement thus reproducing a colonial or capitalist logic. Further, there is a danger of retraumatising research participants by encouraging them to discuss potentially traumatic past experiences.
Through reflections that we encounter in discussions on New Area Studies, we have come to take more seriously the power dynamics at play in our relationship to the migrants experiencing homelessness that participated in Stewart's research project. Without these reflections, researchers risk becoming invisible and assuming a position of ‘scientific objectivity’, theorising homelessness as a characteristic of research participants and theorising their lives and experiences through dominant knowledge systems (academic research and language) (Omodan 2024). This is a colonial model of understanding the world that, if left unchallenged, perpetuates inequalities and places us (academics based in the West) as the holders of the truths.
Stewart and colleagues chose the life story research method because it provided the benefit of opening up opportunities for insight into how individuals have responded to situations where their actions and choices are constrained by ‘the unequal structure of possibilities’ (Souza and Lemos 2023, 5), such as when they proceed with a lack of material resources and an ‘inferior’ immigration status. Moreover, the authors chose to engage with a reflection on knowledge production after the research project had finished, using New Area Studies as an epistemological framework. In this article, therefore, we engage both with ethics of qualitative research on marginalities and with a post‐research design reflection about our work as researchers thinking through marginality.
Stewart's research was conducted between 2020 and 2022 and was funded by UK Research and Innovation and the Economic and Social Research Council.
The research questions that structured the project were designed to explore migrants' experiences of homelessness before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic. The research team worked with nine homelessness organisations in the sector across three UK cities in the South of England, including London. Partnering with these organisations was central to the development of fieldwork, not only because of their expertise but also because they were key to putting the research team in contact with research participants. In formulating the project, Stewart worked with a homelessness organisation and through them, was able to contact staff and their clients at this and other organisations in the sector. The research was conducted in two phases: First, 37 semi‐structured interviews were carried out with staff and volunteers to get a better understanding of the context, that is, the situation of migrant homelessness. The fieldwork took place during the COVID‐19 pandemic when the country went in and out of lockdown, and interviews were conducted in‐person, online and over the phone. Paradoxically, the pandemic enabled access to those who were ordinarily finding ways to survive without statutory support because the UK Government's Everyone In initiative ensured that people were given homelessness assistance regardless of their immigration status (Stewart et al. 2023). In the second phase of the research, the research team conducted life story interviews with 43 migrants experiencing homelessness. All were non‐UK nationals who were born outside of the UK. These interviews were generally conducted over three sittings and were led by Stewart (the Principal Investigator) and members of the project team including the Co‐Investigator, the postdoctoral research associate and a colleague from the homelessness organisation who then worked on the project as an independent researcher.
The project team analysed the data thematically, pursuing a collaborative form of analysis which involved discussing the data and generating themes (Richards and Hemphill 2018). A key theme generated from the analysis of the data was the co‐existence of belonging and non‐belonging and the dissonance between these feelings among migrants experiencing homelessness in the UK. In this article, we have chosen to focus on vignettes based on the life stories of four of the research participants, all of whom hail from former European colonies (Albania, Algeria, Singapore and Sudan). These stories have been chosen because they offer striking illustrations of this theme of belonging and non‐belonging generated through the collaborative analysis. Our extended exploration of this selection of stories provides the rich detail necessary to understand the ambivalences in their accounts as well as the dis/continuities in the participants' experiences of migration and homelessness.
Life story interviews were chosen because they provide opportunities for diagnoses of systems of domination from the perspective of those most impacted. Further, the research project aimed to explore perspectives on the impact of hostile environment policies ‘from below’, that is from those most impacted by these policies. Given the sensitive nature of the topic of experiences of extreme destitution and marginality, a more humane and intimate approach was necessary in order to have access to this aspect of human experience. Life stories present the opportunity for an intimacy appropriate to this context. According to Moreno Figueroa (2008, 76) ‘writing sociological research is the process of intimate listening’. Life stories constitute a way of honouring that intimacy. The first part of the interview used prompts about life in the present; the second focused on journeys to the UK; the third section focused on social origins.
Insights from life story research in black feminism also demonstrate the role that telling stories can play in community building and in developing the courage to transform social relations (Nadar 2014). In contrast to abstract theory building, Nadar (2014) argues that life stories provide opportunities to put a human face on the research process. Further, in privileging subjectivity, they are not so concerned with replicating with total accuracy exactly what happened as much as how events were experienced by people.
Angelina's case highlights the double consciousness that comes from occupying the spaces of belonging and non‐belonging, a sense of what Du Bois (1903, 2) referred to as ‘always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity’. Angelina is a Sudanese woman of dual heritage in her fifties who has been in the UK for several years and gained refugee status after experiencing a period of homelessness while awaiting the resolution of her asylum claim. She observes that

Her experiences of being racialised speak to the colonial hierarchy of bodies she encountered in the UK. Her societal status is also context dependent. Angelina hails from an affluent middle‐class family and grew up in a large, spacious house with lots of land. In contrast, while in the UK, she experienced homelessness and lived in precarious accommodation, surviving on minimal funds while seeking asylum. Angelina's affluent background allowed her to travel to the UK as a tourist before migrating, which afforded her a double consciousness regarding her experience of the UK. This brings to light Bauman's (1998) distinction between the tourist as the affluent person who is able to move freely across borders and the vagabond who is either forced to move or unable to cross borders because of a lack of papers and money. In previous years, with money at her disposal, Angelina travelled on several occasions to European countries, including the UK, as a tourist. She would visit European cities for shopping trips. Her experience of the UK this time, as an asylum seeker, was quite different. Her view of the UK is also split between bitter recollections of the application process for asylum and her general view of the country as a ‘civilised’ place. She strikes a contrast between Sudan and the UK, highlighting the colonial discourses that place not only bodies, but also countries in a hierarchy of civilisations: ‘We are an under‐developed country and we came to the civilised country. You can feel the gap’.
In her reflections on border control, Bhattacharyya (2018, 127) notes that it does not serve to block all movement; rather, it serves as a filtering mechanism that enables differential access to the labour market. This exposition of racial capitalism (Tazzioli and de Genova 2023) explains how the contradictory tendencies of nationalist ‘hard border’ policies such as Donald Trump's professed desire to create a Mexico‐United States border wall or Theresa May's avowal to ‘create, here in Britain, a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants’ (cited in Griffiths and Yeo 2021) coexist with the need for the countries such as the US and UK to maintain a supply of cheap labour. This tiering process racializes individuals as migrants and serves to perpetuate the unequal distribution of capital across the social system (Meghji 2021).
The accounts we present here belong to individuals that were placed in spaces of non‐belonging by the immigration system (Korteweg and Yurdakul 2024). The experiences of these spaces are highlighted in the affective responses of migrants to the bordering they have to navigate. In addition to the external borders, and the visible threat of deportability posed by the ‘border spectacle’ (De Genova 2002), migrants experiencing homelessness are forced to negotiate the internal borders of the hostile immigration environment. For example, in the UK (and most of Europe), secondary immigration control leads to ‘everyday bordering’, which is where teachers, landlords, employers and support workers have to perform the role of de facto border guards, checking the paperwork of their clients (migrants or not) and rendering them liable if they offer services to ‘illegal’ migrants (Yuval‐Davis et al. 2018). As Back et al. (2012) remind us, the socio‐legal and political mechanisms of bordering are enforced through a hierarchy of belonging and deservingness, sustained by fear (p. 151).
In the previous section, we mentioned Joshua's Anglophilic stance. Here we show how it co‐exists with his experiences of the UK's hostile environment relegating him to places of non‐belonging. He acknowledges that ‘the Home Office destroyed my life. And I don't deserve this, I caused no harm to nobody in life’. Joshua's experiences are a testament to the vulnerable position migrants are placed in by the UK immigration system. Before he became homeless, he had been living and working in the UK for several decades. During his time as an undergraduate, he was informed that the student visa application that he had submitted to the Home Office had been received a day late and he was thus ineligible to remain in the UK. He contested the decision and was ultimately successful in this case. However, dealing with the uncertainty and dense bureaucracy of the immigration system disrupted his studies. Despite this, he managed to secure part‐time employment and had a successful period of work that lasted until he was made redundant during a period of restructuring at his organisation. At this stage, the NRPF condition on his immigration status kicked in and when he lost his accommodation, he joined the ranks of the ‘hidden homeless’ and, for a period of time, stayed with friends and sofa‐surfed. After he felt that he had outstayed his welcome, he started to practice what we term ‘cultivated invisibility’, which refers to a habitual condition whereby an individual learns to blend into the crowd (or avoids the crowd) in order to find places to sleep (such as on buses during the morning rush‐hour), to eat (e.g., finding the cheapest sources of fast‐food) and wash (registering in gyms or using the facilities at train stations) (Stewart and Sanders 2023). In the meantime, as he moved unnoticed among the early morning commuters, he drifted further towards illegality and ill health: without the correct immigration paperwork, he was vulnerable to deportation. In line with Wacquant’s (2008, 241) notion of advanced marginality, Joshua was forced to be ‘on the move’ and was deprived of a specific locale which could be characterised as ‘home’. Without access to housing or welfare, his health deteriorated rapidly and he was not able to get the requisite care. With his case expressive of advanced marginality, Joshua had no hinterland, no community to fall back upon for support.
At the time of our interview, Arian was still awaiting a Home Office decision on his claim for indefinite leave to remain having lived and worked (and paid taxes) in the UK for more than 2 decades. He notes with desperation that he is not able to find any updates on his case. This led to an absurd situation whereby he travelled to Croydon to hand himself in for deportation but was told that his case was pending and therefore he could not be deported. We see in this example how a liminal state of non‐belonging is fostered by state practices and how this is embodied in Arian's palpable sense of desperation (Korteweg and Yurdakul 2024):

What is the value of this research? We argue that the life stories produced in the course of this research have the potential to inform social change as they enable insights into systems of domination from the perspectives of those most impacted by these systems. In connecting individual stories to wider social structures, it is possible to trace social causes of homelessness, destitution and non‐belonging. In this article, we have tried to show both that we are aware of the pitfalls of working with marginalised communities, while also recognising the emancipatory power of stories from the margins. New Area Studies approaches invite us to critically reflect on the organising concepts of our research and to include our own positionality in that reflection. This is what doing ‘power‐critical research’ entails. The purpose of this reflection is to be explicit about the challenges of producing knowledge when working with marginalised communities and the implications of operating within existing hierarchies of knowledge (Barrios Aquino 2024).
Our research points to the potential inherent in the analysis of stories of people and places in envisaging alternative futures. What might such futures hold? Sociological analysis of life stories connects objective conditions of marginality to subjective experience and this is the starting point in any programme to alleviate suffering. The diagnosis precedes the cure. Life story narratives express a ‘relationship between tellers and listeners and their cultural, political and historical contexts’ (Shuman 2010, 25). Whilst stories can be ‘curated’ by institutions to align with dominant ideologies of individualism, they also have the potential to ‘express the fullness and complexity of experience’ and undermine power relations (Fernandes 2017, 4). Life stories enable us to trace the social causes of suffering, as migrants are caught between neoliberal and nationalist policies, and our sociological imagination can proceed to envisage a future where, in a rich country such as the UK, there is no destitution or homelessness. Marginality can indeed be a site of radical possibility (hooks 1991). Whilst anti‐migrant rhetoric and hostile environment policies from political leaders create divisions, life story‐based research which draws attention to our common humanity enables us to imagine ‘the possibility of living together differently, with less misery or no misery’ (Bauman 2000, 215).

Sections

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It is instead something that is currently taking shape, which looms on the horizon, and has consequences that lie ahead of us in the current moment. However, marginality is more than a site of domination, where inequalities are perpetuated, and where the dominant are in the strongest position to continue their plundering. For example, hooks argues that marginality is also a site of resistance and radical possibility (1991, p. 23). This has particular implications for us as social scientists, because it directs us to think about research produced from the margins as well as research produced about the margins. A focus on marginality as resistance invites us to engage in more power\\u2010critical research, meaning that we ought to consider about whom knowledge is being produced and by whom (Barrios Aquino 2024). Following Foucault\\u00a0(1982), we can understand resistance as a diagnosis of power and not external or opposed to it. Similarly to hooks, Foucault proposes the use of resistance \\u2018to bring to light power relations, locate their position, find out their points of application and the methods used\\u2019 (1982, pp. 209\\u2013211). The point here is that marginality as resistance affords us the possibility of a critical approach where counter\\u2010hegemonic practices and discourses reveal the sites of power and oppression and, simultaneously, provide opportunities for contestation and cultural change (hooks\\u00a01989, p. 15).\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0031\", \"bjos70033-bib-0031\", \"bjos70033-bib-0018\"], \"section\": \"Stranger Views and (Non)Belonging\", \"text\": \"hooks's analysis of alternative perceptions and practices deriving from the position of marginality brings to mind key literature from classical social theory on this topic. Simmel's\\u00a0(1971) famous essay on the social type of the stranger, who is part of the group but also outside of it, draws attention to someone whose marginal social position enables a sense of double consciousness. Simmel's analysis of the stranger is in line with more recent research in migration studies, which refutes any simplistic binary of either belonging or non\\u2010belonging, being inside or outside. Simmel argues that the stranger is part of the group and yet is separate from it. The stranger is someone who \\u2018comes today and stays tomorrow\\u2019; someone who is close to the group and yet remote (Simmel\\u00a01971, 143). In this article, we further undermine this binary opposition and pursue a definition of non\\u2010belonging as much more than the absence of belonging. According to Korteweg and Yurdakul (2024, 294) non\\u2010belonging \\u2018has its own logics and creates particular spaces\\u2019.\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0018\", \"bjos70033-bib-0006\", \"bjos70033-bib-0038\", \"bjos70033-bib-0039\"], \"section\": \"Stranger Views and (Non)Belonging\", \"text\": \"The tension between distance and closeness is a feature of all human interaction but in the social type of the stranger it takes a specific form. The stranger's interactions with others are characterised by the synthesis of belonging and non\\u2010belonging and this position provides an alternative to the hegemonic views. The stranger's views also cast a light on the active production of non\\u2010belonging through policies and law (Korteweg and Yurdakul\\u00a02024) which produce legal categories that in the case of migrants \\u2018are not merely devices for inclusion but also exclusion\\u2019 (Chimni\\u00a02009, 12). The legal categories ascribed to the stranger (in this case referring to those with \\u2018inferior\\u2019 immigration statuses) have meant that they are more likely than others to get the blame when things go wrong and are thus vulnerable to stereotyping and forms of harmful representation. Moreover, these legal categories result in a colonial hierarchy of human bodies that continues to shape the politics of belonging today (Wynter\\u00a02003; Yuval\\u2010Davis\\u00a02006).\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0031\", \"bjos70033-bib-0018\", \"bjos70033-bib-0037\", \"bjos70033-bib-0034\", \"bjos70033-bib-0037\"], \"section\": \"Stranger Views and (Non)Belonging\", \"text\": \"Inspired by Simmel's\\u00a0(1971) essay and by Korteweg and Yurdakul\\u2019s\\u00a0(2024) conceptualisation of colonial spaces of non\\u2010belonging, we consider the position of migrants experiencing homelessness in the UK as examples of advanced marginality and engage with it as an opportunity to scrutinise knowledge production about marginalised communities. The social problem of migrants experiencing homelessness, in the context of an increasingly hostile immigration environment in the UK, is not a residual issue from a previous era that is in the process of being resolved. In line with Wacquant\\u2019s (2008, 232) argument, it is very much part of the present moment and looms on the horizon. Under successive governments, migrants with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) remain particularly vulnerable to destitution, with no access to social benefits, the job market or housing. Without secure housing, they are less likely to have access to a hinterland, a community or group on which they can depend during difficult times. Moreover, seeking out alternative means of survival, such as work in the informal economy or other forms of precarious work, entails a drift towards illegality and further disconnection from mainstream society (Stewart and Sanders\\u00a02023). As Wacquant (2008, 252) points out, the \\u2018free market\\u2019, which is one of the causes of advanced marginality, \\u2018can hardly be counted on to provide remedies for it\\u2019.\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0038\", \"bjos70033-bib-0018\", \"bjos70033-bib-0035\", \"bjos70033-bib-0029\"], \"section\": \"Stranger Views and (Non)Belonging\", \"text\": \"Drawing on Simmel, we argue that the position of simultaneous belonging and non\\u2010belonging allows stranger views into life in the UK from the perspective of dominated groups. Our focus is on those experiencing a combination of material deprivation as homeless and carrying an \\u2018inferior\\u2019 position through being racialised as migrants and restricted in their access to rights taken for granted by UK citizens (Wynter\\u00a02003). Our article deploys the life story research method and focuses on views of the UK from the perspective of migrants from countries that were former European colonies, who have been in the UK for several years but whose immigration status and lack of economic capital renders them vulnerable to destitution. In doing\\u00a0so, the article contributes to the under\\u2010researched topic\\u00a0of\\u00a0migrant homelessness. Each migrant experiencing homelessness occupies a unique space of non\\u2010belonging combined with a sense of belonging. Some have lived in the UK for many decades while others have only recently arrived. What they have in common is the articulation of a stranger view of the UK: a perspective that on the one hand is expressive of familiarity and belonging, and moments of being part of the group, and on the other hand, one that reinforces their relegation to a space of non\\u2010belonging that is most apparent when confronted with the reality of a weak structural position (e.g., lacking material resources and unable to access work or benefits) combined with the threat of deportation. This is a threat that looms even while it seems to be suspended. Stranger views offer insights from the inside and outside, casting a light on the dislocation that occurs when non\\u2010belonging generates new modes of existence, where individuals are denied access to resources and/or the right to work and cling to the possibility of recovering rights that have been suspended (Korteweg and Yurdakul\\u00a02024; Stewart and Sanders\\u00a02024; Scuzzarello and Moro\\u015fanu\\u00a02023). But before we explore this further, we will turn to some reflections on marginality that underpin our approach to this topic.\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0041\"], \"section\": \"Marginality, Power and Knowledge Production\", \"text\": \"\\nWhat we research is deeply intertwined with how we do research. Marginality as a conceptual guide is a site of radical possibility to expand both our research focus as well as our research practice. Moreover, New Area Studies opens up methodological approaches for research practice that enable us to avoid reproducing the hierarchies we are trying to undermine (Barrios Aquino 2024).\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0004\", \"bjos70033-bib-0010\", \"bjos70033-bib-0017\", \"bjos70033-bib-0014\"], \"section\": \"Marginality, Power and Knowledge Production\", \"text\": \"Thus, in thinking through our epistemological approach, we are informed by debates in New Area Studies that interpret culture, politics and social relations in ways that are multi\\u2010layered, non\\u2010linear, made of complex temporalities and transcending borders, and where narratives and storytelling are key tools to access the rich variety of lifeworlds (Baumann and et\\u00a0al.\\u00a02020; Fleschenberg and Baumann\\u00a02020; Hutchings\\u00a02020; Hodgett and Ruys Smith\\u00a02021). Our reflection thus focuses on two aspects of marginality:\\n\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0020\"], \"section\": \"Marginality, Power and Knowledge Production\", \"text\": \"Academic research on marginalities runs the risk of exotifying, othering and constructing cultures from the point of view of a western scientific perspective. This western scientific perspective refers here to a particular way of constructing a knowing subject \\u2018untouched by the geo\\u2010political configuration of the world in which people are racially ranked and regions are racially configured\\u2019 (Mignolo\\u00a02009, 160). This involves the researcher who is arguably outside and looking in, adopting a stranger view with a very different inflection, and with the advantages of perspective, in our case afforded by the concepts, methods and resources available in Anglo\\u2010American/European academia.\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0023\", \"bjos70033-bib-0027\", \"bjos70033-bib-0013\", \"bjos70033-bib-0022\", \"bjos70033-bib-0006\"], \"section\": \"Marginality, Power and Knowledge Production\", \"text\": \"Relatedly, our self\\u2010critical reflection is informed by feminist traditions and embraces our positionality, emotions and ethics as part of the process rather than seeking to bracket them out to gain \\u2018objectivity\\u2019 (Nadar\\u00a02014, 26). This results in an attempt to break the fiction of objectivity and neutrality and involve ourselves and our positionality in our research practice, in this case, even as a form of reflection after the research project has concluded. This situated knowledge follows a long\\u2010standing tradition in feminist approaches to research (Rose\\u00a01997; Haraway\\u00a01988; Motta and Gonzalez\\u00a02023) and aims to open up spaces for the articulation of what Chimni\\u00a0(2009) termed the dual nature of knowledge, namely that it can be deployed for the purposes of emancipation and domination. With this in mind, we note the following:\\n\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0024\"], \"section\": \"Marginality, Power and Knowledge Production\", \"text\": \"As scholars in institutions in the Global North we need to ask ourselves questions that will lead to a justification of our research interests and the impact of our research practices. These are difficult questions to ask, as they imply a harsh reckoning with our place in the production of larger marginalities at a global scale (Odysseos\\u00a02017). With this in mind, we can assert the following:\\n\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0028\"], \"section\": \"Marginality, Power and Knowledge Production\", \"text\": \"Because we are aware of the danger of reproducing marginalities, it is our responsibility to engage in an honest reflection about positionality and be fully aware of the spaces we occupy if we want to contribute to challenging dominant power relations and explore marginality as a site of possibility (Sadan\\u00a02020).\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0041\"], \"section\": \"Marginality, Power and Knowledge Production\", \"text\": \"Insights can be taken from approaches in New Area Studies that call upon researchers to emphasise an understanding of the various ways in which our worldview is reproduced in our research objects. For example, as Barrios Aquino\\u00a0(2024) notes, hierarchies can be perpetuated through the research process when not attended to reflexively. There are many challenges in research of this kind. Given the power differential between the researcher and the researched, there is a danger that a project such as ours is merely extractive in treating migrants' accounts as data that can be used for our own career enhancement thus reproducing a colonial or capitalist logic. Further, there is a danger of retraumatising research participants by encouraging them to discuss potentially traumatic past experiences.\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0025\"], \"section\": \"Marginality, Power and Knowledge Production\", \"text\": \"Through reflections that we encounter in discussions on New Area Studies, we have come to take more seriously the power dynamics at play in our relationship to the migrants experiencing homelessness that participated in Stewart's research project. Without these reflections, researchers risk becoming invisible and assuming a position of \\u2018scientific objectivity\\u2019, theorising homelessness as a characteristic of research participants and theorising their lives and experiences through dominant knowledge systems (academic research and language) (Omodan\\u00a02024). This is a colonial model of understanding the world that, if left unchallenged, perpetuates inequalities and places us (academics based in the West) as the holders of the truths.\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0032\"], \"section\": \"Methodology\", \"text\": \"Stewart and colleagues chose the life story research method because it provided the benefit of opening up opportunities for insight into how individuals have responded to situations where their actions and choices are constrained by \\u2018the unequal structure of possibilities\\u2019 (Souza and Lemos\\u00a02023, 5), such as when they proceed with a lack of material resources and an \\u2018inferior\\u2019 immigration status. Moreover, the authors chose to engage with a reflection on knowledge production after the research project had finished, using New Area Studies as an epistemological framework. In this article, therefore, we engage both with ethics of qualitative research on marginalities and with a post\\u2010research design reflection about our work as researchers thinking through marginality.\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-note-0002\", \"bjos70033-bib-0033\"], \"section\": \"Research Design\", \"text\": \"Stewart's research was conducted between 2020 and 2022 and was funded by UK Research and Innovation and the Economic and Social Research Council.\\n The research questions that structured the project were designed to explore migrants' experiences of homelessness before and during the COVID\\u201019 pandemic. The research team worked with nine homelessness organisations in the sector across three UK cities in the South of England, including London. Partnering with these organisations was central to the development of fieldwork, not only because of their expertise but also because they were key to putting the research team in contact with research participants. In formulating the project, Stewart worked with a homelessness organisation and through them, was able to contact staff and their clients at this and other organisations in the sector. The research was conducted in two phases: First, 37 semi\\u2010structured interviews were carried out with staff and volunteers to get a better understanding of the context, that is, the situation of migrant homelessness. The fieldwork took place during the COVID\\u201019 pandemic when the country went in and out of lockdown, and interviews were conducted in\\u2010person, online and over the phone. Paradoxically, the pandemic enabled access to those who were ordinarily finding ways to survive without statutory support because the UK Government's Everyone In initiative ensured that people were given homelessness assistance regardless of their immigration status (Stewart et al. 2023). In the second phase of the research, the research team conducted life story interviews with 43 migrants experiencing homelessness. All were non\\u2010UK nationals who were born outside of the UK. These interviews were generally conducted over three sittings and were led by Stewart (the Principal Investigator) and members of the project team including the Co\\u2010Investigator, the postdoctoral research associate and a colleague from the homelessness organisation who then worked on the project as an independent researcher.\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0026\"], \"section\": \"Research Design\", \"text\": \"The project team analysed the data thematically, pursuing a collaborative form of analysis which involved discussing the data and generating themes (Richards and Hemphill\\u00a02018). A key theme generated from the analysis of the data was the co\\u2010existence of belonging and non\\u2010belonging and the dissonance between these feelings among migrants experiencing homelessness in the UK. In this article, we have chosen to focus on vignettes based on the life stories of four of the research participants, all of whom hail from former European colonies (Albania, Algeria, Singapore and Sudan). These stories have been chosen because they offer striking illustrations of this theme of belonging and non\\u2010belonging generated through the collaborative analysis. Our extended exploration of this selection of stories provides the rich detail necessary to understand the ambivalences in their accounts as well as the dis/continuities in the participants' experiences of migration and homelessness.\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0021\"], \"section\": \"Life Stories\", \"text\": \"Life story interviews were chosen because they provide opportunities for diagnoses of systems of domination from the perspective of those most impacted. Further, the research project aimed to explore perspectives on the impact of hostile environment policies \\u2018from below\\u2019, that is from those most impacted by these policies. Given the sensitive nature of the topic of experiences of extreme destitution and marginality, a more humane and intimate approach was necessary in order to have access to this aspect of human experience. Life stories present the opportunity for an intimacy appropriate to this context. According to Moreno Figueroa (2008, 76) \\u2018writing sociological research is the process of intimate listening\\u2019. Life stories constitute a way of honouring that intimacy. The first part of the interview used prompts about life in the present; the second focused on journeys to the UK; the third section focused on social origins.\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0023\", \"bjos70033-bib-0023\"], \"section\": \"Life Stories\", \"text\": \"Insights from life story research in black feminism also demonstrate the role that telling stories can play in community building and in developing the courage to transform social relations (Nadar\\u00a02014). In contrast to abstract theory building, Nadar\\u00a0(2014) argues that life stories provide opportunities to put a human face on the research process. Further, in privileging subjectivity, they are not so concerned with replicating with total accuracy exactly what happened as much as how events were experienced by people.\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0008\"], \"section\": \"Colonial Visions of England\", \"text\": \"Angelina's case highlights the double consciousness that comes from occupying the spaces of belonging and non\\u2010belonging, a sense of what Du Bois (1903, 2) referred to as \\u2018always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity\\u2019. Angelina is a Sudanese woman of dual heritage in her fifties who has been in the UK for several years and gained refugee status after experiencing a period of homelessness while awaiting the resolution of her asylum claim. She observes that\\n\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0002\"], \"section\": \"Colonial Visions of England\", \"text\": \"Her experiences of being racialised speak to the colonial hierarchy of bodies she encountered in the UK. Her societal status is also context dependent. Angelina hails from an affluent middle\\u2010class family and grew up in a large, spacious house with lots of land. In contrast, while in the UK, she experienced homelessness and lived in precarious accommodation, surviving on minimal funds while seeking asylum. Angelina's affluent background allowed her to travel to the UK as a tourist before migrating, which afforded her a double consciousness regarding her experience of the UK. This brings to light Bauman's\\u00a0(1998) distinction between the tourist as the affluent person who is able to move freely across borders and the vagabond who is either forced to move or unable to cross borders because of a lack of papers and money. In previous years, with money at her disposal, Angelina travelled on several occasions to European countries, including the UK, as a tourist. She would visit European cities for shopping trips. Her experience of the UK this time, as an asylum seeker, was quite different. Her view of the UK is also split between bitter recollections of the application process for asylum and her general view of the country as a \\u2018civilised\\u2019 place. She strikes a contrast between Sudan and the UK, highlighting the colonial discourses that place not only bodies, but also countries in a hierarchy of civilisations: \\u2018We are an under\\u2010developed country and we came to the civilised country. You can feel the gap\\u2019.\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0005\", \"bjos70033-bib-0036\", \"bjos70033-bib-0012\", \"bjos70033-bib-0019\"], \"section\": \"Experiences of the Hostile Environment\", \"text\": \"In her reflections on border control, Bhattacharyya (2018, 127) notes that it does not serve to block all movement; rather, it serves as a filtering mechanism that enables differential access to the labour market. This exposition of racial capitalism (Tazzioli and de Genova\\u00a02023) explains how the contradictory tendencies of nationalist \\u2018hard border\\u2019 policies such as Donald Trump's professed desire to create a Mexico\\u2010United States border wall or Theresa May's avowal to \\u2018create, here in Britain, a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants\\u2019 (cited in Griffiths and Yeo\\u00a02021) coexist with the need for the countries such as the US and UK to maintain a supply of cheap labour. This tiering process racializes individuals as migrants and serves to perpetuate the unequal distribution of capital across the social system (Meghji\\u00a02021).\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0018\", \"bjos70033-bib-0007\", \"bjos70033-bib-0040\", \"bjos70033-bib-0001\"], \"section\": \"Experiences of the Hostile Environment\", \"text\": \"The accounts we present here belong to individuals that were placed in spaces of non\\u2010belonging by the immigration system (Korteweg and Yurdakul\\u00a02024). The experiences of these spaces are highlighted in the affective responses of migrants to the bordering they have to navigate. In addition to the external borders, and the visible threat of deportability posed by the \\u2018border spectacle\\u2019 (De Genova\\u00a02002), migrants experiencing homelessness are forced to negotiate the internal borders of the hostile immigration environment. For example, in the UK (and most of Europe), secondary immigration control leads to \\u2018everyday bordering\\u2019, which is where teachers, landlords, employers and support workers have to perform the role of de facto border guards, checking the paperwork of their clients (migrants or not) and rendering them liable if they offer services to \\u2018illegal\\u2019 migrants (Yuval\\u2010Davis et\\u00a0al.\\u00a02018). As Back et\\u00a0al.\\u00a0(2012) remind us, the socio\\u2010legal and political mechanisms of bordering are enforced through a hierarchy of belonging and deservingness, sustained by fear (p. 151).\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0034\", \"bjos70033-bib-0037\"], \"section\": \"Experiences of the Hostile Environment\", \"text\": \"In the previous section, we mentioned Joshua's Anglophilic stance. Here we show how it co\\u2010exists with his experiences of the UK's hostile environment relegating him to places of non\\u2010belonging. He acknowledges that \\u2018the Home Office destroyed my life. And I don't deserve this, I caused no harm to nobody in life\\u2019. Joshua's experiences are a testament to the vulnerable position migrants are placed in by the UK immigration system. Before he became homeless, he had been living and working in the UK for several decades. During his time as an undergraduate, he was informed that the student visa application that he had submitted to the Home Office had been received a day late and he was thus ineligible to remain in the UK. He contested the decision and was ultimately successful in this case. However, dealing with the uncertainty and dense bureaucracy of the immigration system disrupted his studies. Despite this, he managed to secure part\\u2010time employment and had a successful period of work that lasted until he was made redundant during a period of restructuring at his organisation. At this stage, the NRPF condition on his immigration status kicked in and when he lost his accommodation, he joined the ranks of the \\u2018hidden homeless\\u2019 and, for a period of time, stayed with friends and sofa\\u2010surfed. After he felt that he had outstayed his welcome, he started to practice what we term \\u2018cultivated invisibility\\u2019, which refers to a habitual condition whereby an individual learns to blend into the crowd (or avoids the crowd) in order to find places to sleep (such as on buses during the morning rush\\u2010hour), to eat (e.g., finding the cheapest sources of fast\\u2010food) and wash (registering in gyms or using the facilities at train stations) (Stewart and Sanders\\u00a02023). In the meantime, as he moved unnoticed among the early morning commuters, he drifted further towards illegality and ill health: without the correct immigration paperwork, he was vulnerable to deportation. In line with Wacquant\\u2019s (2008, 241) notion of advanced marginality, Joshua was forced to be \\u2018on the move\\u2019 and was deprived of a specific locale which could be characterised as \\u2018home\\u2019. Without access to housing or welfare, his health deteriorated rapidly and he was not able to get the requisite care. With his case expressive of advanced marginality, Joshua had no hinterland, no community to fall back upon for support.\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0018\"], \"section\": \"Experiences of the Hostile Environment\", \"text\": \"At the time of our interview, Arian was still awaiting a Home Office decision on his claim for indefinite leave to remain having lived and worked (and paid taxes) in the UK for more than 2\\u00a0decades. He notes with desperation that he is not able to find any updates on his case. This led to an absurd situation whereby he travelled to Croydon to hand himself in for deportation but was told that his case was pending and therefore he could not be deported. We see in this example how a liminal state of non\\u2010belonging is fostered by state practices and how this is embodied in Arian's palpable sense of desperation (Korteweg and Yurdakul\\u00a02024):\\n\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0041\"], \"section\": \"Conclusion\", \"text\": \"What is the value of this research? We argue that the life stories produced in the course of this research have the potential to inform social change as they enable insights into systems of domination from the perspectives of those most impacted by these systems. In connecting individual stories to wider social structures, it is possible to trace social causes of homelessness, destitution and non\\u2010belonging. In this article, we have tried to show both that we are aware of the pitfalls of working with marginalised communities, while also recognising the emancipatory power of stories from the margins. New Area Studies approaches invite us to critically reflect on the organising concepts of our research and to include our own positionality in that reflection. This is what doing \\u2018power\\u2010critical research\\u2019 entails. The purpose of this reflection is to be explicit about the challenges of producing knowledge when working with marginalised communities and the implications of operating within existing hierarchies of knowledge (Barrios Aquino 2024).\"}, {\"pmc\": \"PMC12793710\", \"pmid\": \"41015916\", \"reference_ids\": [\"bjos70033-bib-0030\", \"bjos70033-bib-0009\", \"bjos70033-bib-0016\", \"bjos70033-bib-0003\"], \"section\": \"Conclusion\", \"text\": \"Our research points to the potential inherent in the analysis of stories of people and places in envisaging alternative futures. What might such futures hold? Sociological analysis of life stories connects objective conditions of marginality to subjective experience and this is the starting point in any programme to alleviate suffering. The diagnosis precedes the cure. Life story narratives express a \\u2018relationship between tellers and listeners and their cultural, political and historical contexts\\u2019 (Shuman\\u00a02010, 25). Whilst stories can be \\u2018curated\\u2019 by institutions to align with dominant ideologies of individualism, they also have the potential to \\u2018express the fullness and complexity of experience\\u2019 and undermine power relations (Fernandes\\u00a02017, 4). Life stories enable us to trace the social causes of suffering, as migrants are caught between neoliberal and nationalist policies, and our sociological imagination can proceed to envisage a future where, in a rich country such as the UK, there is no destitution or homelessness. Marginality can indeed be a site of radical possibility (hooks\\u00a01991). Whilst anti\\u2010migrant rhetoric and hostile environment policies from political leaders create divisions, life story\\u2010based research which draws attention to our common humanity enables us to imagine \\u2018the possibility of living together differently, with less misery or no misery\\u2019 (Bauman\\u00a02000, 215).\"}]"

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