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By Bridget Taylor
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Humanities in Public Festival presented ‘Manchester as Cosmopolis: Global migration in a changing UK’ this week, to explore a number of perspectives on how global skilled migration affects the local economy and society in the context of devolution, public spending and policy choices.

The latest event, in the hugely popular series, highlighted the nature of Manchester as a ‘global’ city, a place that has always attracted migrants, with a multicultural population, and a city that is seen to be competing on the world stage.

Professor Steve Miles, from the Department of Sociology at Manchester Met, introduced the event by raising the question of what it means to belong to a globalised world, where, “the homogenised, predictable city, less adventurous than what it claims to be dominates”. He also suggested that we may be living through particularly turbulent times, due to Brexit, increased migration, and the rise of right wing populism.

Current issues surrounding migration were one of the key themes of the day. Dr Chiara Manzoni presented her research on the NHS’s reliance on EU nurses. Cyclical shortages and a lack of investment in ‘home grown’ nurses, such as scrapping the student bursary, have led to international nurses filling the gap. The impact of Brexit, however, has meant that the number of EU nurses registering has fallen by almost 90%.

Dr Shoba Arun focused on the experiences of international care workers, particularly Indian nurses coming to the UK. She spoke of their feelings of ‘disempowerment’– that they are often subject to racism and a ‘pecking order’ of different nationalities within the workplace, and their skills are not sufficiently recognised. This lack of recognition has meant that a ‘brain drain’ from certain countries has not led to a ‘brain gain’ in others, these migrants often ending up as part of the ‘global precariat’, struggling to survive in a hostile environment.

As migrants themselves, Avni Vyas, Norman Musa, and Anasudhin Azeez all spoke about the practicalities of integration in the UK. Vyas spoke about the importance of getting involved in the Indian institute of art and culture Bhavan, as a way for her to become more integrated in her community. The school attracts people from all backgrounds, allowing them to immerse themselves in a different or familiar culture, this mix making her question the way society outside the school is so compartmentalised. Norman Musa spoke about his desire to promote and educate people on his native Malaysian cuisine, but also about the difficulties small independent businesses face in Manchester now, as the city seeks to be attractive to global investors. Azeez described himself as a ‘global citizen’, because of both his Muslim and his Communist identity. He is the editor of Asian Lite, and brought in the crucial role of the media in moulding the public’s conception of migrants. He criticised the fact that the diversity of this country is not reflected in the make-up of major news corporations like the BBC, which strongly influences the lack of diversity in the way the BAME community is represented.

The second key theme of the day was globalisation, and Manchester’s identity as a ‘global’ city. Professor Kevin Albertson challenged the view that it is migrants that undercut wages. He cited LSE data that indicates that it is the global financial crisis keeping wages down, but that this situation puts a society’s basic values, like tolerance, at risk, allowing people’s belief that migrants are to blame to grow. For him, globalisation in its current form does not benefit everyone, but it is the flow of capital which is a much bigger threat to our livelihoods than the flow of people, as countries are forced to become attractive to multinationals.

Andrew Spinoza, from SKV Communications, seemed to advocate the opposing view, that Manchester got its devolution deal through pragmatism, creating good conditions for investors, so the city needs to have this ‘global’ outlook. He was also concerned about foreign academics and students having ‘migrant’ status, post-Brexit. One attendee criticised the implicit assumption of some of the talks, that migrants need to be able to prove their ‘value’ to society in order to be treated with respect.

Dr Paul Kennedy developed this view of globalised Capitalism as a destabilising force, contributing to the political earthquakes we have been experiencing. He described our current economic system as ‘Vampire Capitalism’, a system which siphons off vast shares of wealth and fails to invest this wealth back into sustainable businesses, instead secreting it in tax havens and luxury items, and paying low wages and low taxes. As a result of the developing world’s industrialisation, and the development of multi-national monopolies, Capitalism has gone out of control. Private companies having grown stronger than democratic governments. He still sees Capitalism as a potential force for good though, as long as it is properly regulated. He was criticised by a member of the audience, however, for suggesting this, as there has never been a time when Capitalism was not destructive, and in its inception relied on exploitative colonial practices.

Professor Saskia Sassen also spoke about the way neoliberal Capitalism has developed, in the context of cities. She argued that what matters to the global economy is the specialised differences of cities, and that the impression that cities are becoming ‘standardised’ encourages the view that they can compete with each other. Multinational corporations rely on this notion of competition, because it means they get more attractive deals, when in reality they need outlets in a lot of different cities. This is not an innocent process, however. These corporations and investors contribute to the density of cities by buying up and developing properties, but at the same time ‘de-urbanise’ them, removing the previous inhabitants and destroying what makes a city habitable. It turns housing into just another ‘materiality’ for the finance sector, another way to extract value from the system. According to Sassen, we need to interrogate these buildings, to understand who owns them and how they are being used, so they do not become invisible.

This event took a comprehensive approach, and so was able to draw out many of the key factors in trying to understand our complex, globalised world. One of the attendees praised the Humanities in Public Festival, saying, “I come to a lot of Humanities in Public events and the quality of the presentations is always really high.”

For more information about upcoming events, visit www2.mmu.ac.uk/hip/