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This paper explores FGM-safeguarding in the UK through a decolonial lens. Based on an analysis of the development of law and policy relating to 'Female Genital Mutilation' in the UK alongside data collected in focus groups with people of ethnic Somali heritage living in Bristol, we argue that the current legislation and policies, as well as their delivery, are steeped in colonial Othering. We demonstrate that legislative and policy approaches operate through a gendered and generational binary in which non-White mothers are othered as migrants (regardless of citizenship status) for whom anachronistic culture is deemed determinative, whilst their daughters are claimed as British. In this construction, 'FGM' operates as the symbolic marker that designates un/belonging: the uncircumcised girl is rescuable and claimed as 'one of us', whilst the circumcised mother is considered a mutilated political subject for whom belonging is foreclosed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture always speaks to the history and meaning of place. Music festivals in particular carry considerable significance as they are produced through spatial and temporal processes that extend their symbolic and material meaning beyond their local settings. The onset of COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in Bristol intensified debates about festival diversity. Drawing on interviews with Bristol-based festival producers, this article examines popular music festivals and the places, communities and identities they represent. Rather than repeating the common criticism of festivals for being too white, we contribute to the debates by unravelling complex processes embedded within festival production. Using Lefebvre's concept of conceived space, we argue that (racial) diversity is a spatial conundrum for music festivals. We demonstrate this through the way festival space is conceived: culturally – as it is framed within established music festival discourses; economically – through entrepreneurial networks of independent producers within local music cultures; socially – their ideals (including diversity), tastes and lifestyles inadvertently organise and represent particular symbolic and material formations of (racialised) identities and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives This research documents the experiences of people with Somali heritage with female genital mutilation (FGM)-safeguarding services in healthcare and whether such services are considered appropriate by the people who encounter them. Design Six focus groups conducted with ethnic Somalis living in Bristol, during the summer of 2018, divided by gender and whether people had experienced FGMsafeguarding as adults or children. Setting Participants experienced FGM-safeguarding in primary and secondary care. Participants 30 people (21 women and 9 men), identified through local organisations or snowball sampling. All participants were of Somali heritage and aged over 18. Results Government priorities to support those who have experienced female genital cutting/mutilation (FGC/M) are being undermined by their own approaches to protect those considered at risk. Participants argued that approaches to FGM-safeguarding were based on outdated stereotypes and inaccurate evidence which encouraged health and other service providers to see every Somali parent as a potential perpetrator of FGC/M. Female participants described providers in a range of healthcare settings, including Accident and Emergency Departments (A&E), antenatal care and general practice, as ‘fixated’ with FGC/M, who ignored both their health needs and their experience as victims. Participants felt stigmatised and traumatised by their experience. This undermined their trust in health services, producing a reticence to seek care, treatment delays and reliance on alternative sources of care. Associated recommendations include developing more accurate evidence of risk, more appropriate education for healthcare providers and more collaborative approaches to FGM-safeguarding. Conclusion All the participants involved in this study are committed to the eradication of FGC/M. But the statutory approaches currently adopted to enable this are considered ill-conceived, unnecessarily heavy-handed and ultimately detrimental to this. Recognizing these common aims can enable the development of services better able to protect and support those at risk of FGC/M in ways which are culturally competent and sensitive [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

East Europeans are integrating into life in the UK. This entails learning to get along with their new neighbours, but it also involves not getting along with certain neighbours. Integration is not confined to benevolent forms of everyday cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism and conviviality; it can also include more pathological forms, like racism. Whilst integration is generally seen as desirable, the learning that it entails necessarily includes less desirable practices and norms. The aim of this article is to show how East Europeans in the UK have been acquiring specifically British competencies of racism. This doesn't mean all East Europeans are racist or they always use racism; it does mean, however, that racism is a part of the integration equation. We focus on the racist and racializing practices of Poles, Hungarians and Romanians in Bristol in the UK. These East Europeans are using racism to insert themselves more favourably into Britain's racialized status hierarchies. This is a kind of integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]