Borders, Displacement and Higher Education

By Rebecca Murray

What happens when universities become both sites of opportunity and extensions of the border?

The Higher Education Border (HEB) offers a new way of understanding the collective, multi-layered barriers that exclude forced migrants from university. It explores a central contradiction: universities are expected to enforce immigration borders while also widening access for underrepresented students, including sanctuary seekers.

The book also highlights migrant-led grassroots resistance as essential to understanding and challenging these structures. Built on empirical research from 2015-2019 and grounded in institutional practice across the UK and Sweden, the HEB is an enduring concept with growing relevance amid ongoing legislative change.

The book concludes with a manifesto for a radical, migrant-led (re)imagining of higher education.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1529243467
• ISBN13: 9781529243468
• Release Date: October 2027
• Publisher: Bristol University Press
• Length: 224 Pages