Minority women and austerity

Bassel and Emejulu explore minority women's experiences of austerity measures in France and Britain. They demonstrate how they use their race, class, gender and legal status for collective action in the face of the neoliberal colonisation.

Leah Bassel is Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Leicester. Her research interests include the political sociology of gender, migration, race and citizenship and she is author of Refugee Women: Beyond Gender versus Culture (Routledge, 2012) and The Politics of Listening: Possibilities and Challenges for Democratic Life (Palgrave, 2017). Before pursuing an academic career Leah provided humanitarian assistance to asylum seekers and created a circus camp project for refugee youth. She is the Assistant Editor of the journal Citizenship Studies. Akwugo Emejulu is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. Her research interests include the political sociology of race, gender and the grassroots activism of women of colour in Europe and America. Her first book, Community Development as Micropolitics: Comparing Theories, Policies and Politics in America and Britain was published by Policy Press in 2015. Her work has appeared in Politics & Gender, Race & Class and the Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies. Before entering academia, Akwugo worked as a community organiser, a participatory action researcher and as a trade union organiser in America and Britain.