Gabriella D'Avino is a Researcher at the Institute for Research into Superdiversity, at the University of Birmingham.  The journal of Critical Social Policy has published Gabriella's fascinating article on framing the Community Sponsorship scheme in the context of the UK’s hostile environment.

The launch of the private sponsorship scheme, Community Sponsorship (CS), allowing individuals to resettle refugees in the UK, seems to be in contrast with the government’s approach towards immigration aimed to implement the hostile environment policy. Using frame analysis, Gabriella's research looks at the diagnostic, prognostic and motivational framings used by policymakers in parliamentary debates related to CS to understand how the scheme and the hostile environment coexist. 

Findings from the research show how the used frames allow the government to manage refugee resettlement more as a tool of migration management rather than exclusively as a tool of international protection.  Gabriella concludes that, although CS can positively impact the lives of some refugees, the policymakers’ approach to the scheme further implements the hostile environment because it is adopted to limit and select ‘deserving’ individuals and to shift the government’s responsibility for refugees to civil society.

Read more about Community Sponsorship research conducted by the Institute for Research into Superdiversity.