Migration and Asylum in Scotland: A Philosophical Perspective

The Department of Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen is delighted to be hosting the upcoming workshop, “Migration and Asylum in Scotland: A Philosophical Perspective”. This one-day workshop will explore how a distinctively philosophical voice might be added to the existing scholarly literature on migration and asylum in Scotland in particular, and in sub-state regions more generally.  

Workshop Date: Wednesday 29th April 2026  

Confirmed Speakers:

• David Owen (University of Southampton)
• Kerri Woods (University of Leeds)
• Natasha Saunders (University of St Andrews)
• Bradley Hillier-Smith (University of St Andrews)

Organiser: Eilidh Beaton (University of Aberdeen)

Expressions of interest in attending should be sent to Eilidh Beaton at [email protected].

Details

The philosophy of migration and asylum is often state-centric. Much work in this area focuses on migrants’ entitlements against states, and states’ corresponding responsibilities to fulfil these entitlements (e.g. Carens 2013, Miller 2016, Gibney 2018). In recent years, however, calls have been made to move beyond this state-centric lens, including by paying more attention to the role of sub-state political authorities (e.g. Sager 2016, Buxton 2024). 

Against this background, Scotland presents itself as a promising case study. As a devolved nation within the UK, the Scottish Parliament retains control over a wide range of social matters, including housing, benefits, and social services. Hence, as Gareth Mulvey (2018) nicely summarises, while immigration policy is reserved to Westminster, immigrant policy—what happens once people arrive—is largely devolved to the Scottish government. Layered legal landscapes of this sort raise questions which remain as-yet under-explored in the philosophical literature. For instance, how should existing recommendations for migrant integration and inclusion (e.g. Carens 2013, De Schutter & Ypi 2015, Miller 2016) be (re-) interpreted and applied in such contexts, given their distinctive features, promises, and risks (e.g. Arrighi 2014; Galandini et al 2018)?

Socio-culturally too, the Scottish context is ripe for further exploration. It is common across sub-state regions to find discourse portraying the regional government as more progressive and welcoming than the ‘exclusionary and hostile’ central state (Edwards & Wisthaler 2023), and Scotland is no exception (e.g. SNP 2025, Brand Scotland). However, the reality of Scottish attitudes toward migration is more complex than these announcements suggest (e.g. Kyambi & Kay 2025), and this discourse of progressiveness often serves regional nation-building projects (Edwards & Wisthaler 2023, Wisthaler 2023). Again, this context raises normative questions worthy of greater philosophical attention—for instance, the extent to which advocates seeking meaningful material support for migrants should support or oppose such rhetoric. 

This one-day workshop aims to explore how a distinctively philosophical voice might be added to the existing scholarly literature on migration and asylum in Scotland in particular, and in sub-state regions more generally.

This workshop is sponsored by the Scots Philosophical Association, the Society of Applied Philosophy, and CEKAS at the University of Aberdeen.

References

Arrighi, Jean-Thomas, ‘Managing Immigration in a Multinational Context. Border Struggles and Nation-Building in Contemporary Scotland and Catalonia’, in The Politics of Immigration in Multi-Level States: Governance and Political Parties ed. by ed. by E. Hepburn and R. Zapata-Barrero (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014), 108-129.

Brand Scotland, ‘Scotland Welcomes Refugees’ (accessed Jan 2026). Available here.

Buxton, Rebecca, ‘The State by Philip Pettit’, Mind (2024), 1-7.

Carens, Joseph, The Ethics of Immigration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

De Schutter, Helder and Lea Ypi, ‘Mandatory Citizenship for Immigrants’, British Journal of Political Science 45:2 (2015), 235-251.

Edwards, Catrin Wyn and Verena Wisthaler, ‘The Power of Symbolic Sanctuary: Insights from Wales on the Limitations and Potential of a Regional Approach to Sanctuary’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 49:14 (2023), 3602-3628.

Galandini, Silvia, Gareth Mulvey, and Laurence Lessard-Phillips, ‘Stuck Between Mainstreaming and Localism: Views on the Practice of Migrant Integration in a Devolved Policy Framework’, Journal of International Migration and Integration 20 (2019), 685-702.

Gibney, Matthew J., ‘The Ethics of Refugees’, Philosophy Compass 13:10 (2018), 1-9.

Hepburn, Eve and Ricard Zapata Barrero, The Politics of Immigration in Multi-Level States: Governance and Political Parties (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Kyambi, Sarah and Rebecca Kay, ‘Attitudes to Immigration in Scotland: Changing, complex, contradictory’, Migration Policy Scotland (2025). Available here.

Miller, David, Strangers in Our Midst (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2016).

Mulvey, Gareth. ‘Refugee Integration Policy: The Effects of UK Policy-Making on Refugees in Scotland’, Journal of Social Policy 44:2 (2015), 357-375.

–––––., ‘Social Citizenship, Social Policy and Refugee Integration: a Case of Policy and Divergence in Scotland?’, Journal of Social Policy 47:1 (2018), 161-178.

Sager, Alex, ‘Methodological Nationalism, Migration and Political Theory’, Political Studies 64:1 (2016), 42-59.

SNP, ‘First Minister John Swinney addresses the nation about Scotland’s right to decide – Full Speech’. Available here.

Wisthaler, Verena, ‘Migrants, New Citizens, Co-Citizens and Citizens by Adoption – Regionalist Parties’ Framing of Immigrants in the Basque Country, Corsica, South Tyrol, Scotland and Wales’, in Revising the Integration-Citizenship Nexus in Europe ed. by Roxana Barbulescu, Sara Wallace Goodman, Luicy Pedroza (Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2023), 91-109.