Sanctioned discrimination: asylum seekers and the UK’s hostile environment

Abstract

This article explores how the UK asylum system creates a sanctioned discrimination that racializes and marginalizes asylum seekers through legal, economic and moral exclusion. Using ethnoproduction, a visual, practice-based methodology developed to ethically engage with vulnerable participants, the research centres on the lived experiences of asylum seekers. Through the collaborative creation of the feature script Between, the study reveals how restrictions on work, housing and legal status intersect with racial capitalism and neoliberal governance to produce a liminal existence marked by waiting, dependency and dehumanization. This article argues that asylum policy operates as a covert form of racism, legitimized through state narratives of legality and moral worth. By foregrounding composite fictional characters, the research challenges dominant representations and offers a critical lens on how race, migration status and economic precarity are entangled in the UK's hostile environment.