Introduction

Welcome to Law and the Framing of Migrants and Migration, and the start of your learning journey on Critical International Migration Law brought to you by the University of Kent.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Sian Lewis-Anthony; I am Senior Lecturer in Law at Kent Law School, University of Kent. I designed this course and you will get to know my voice via the audios. I hope you enjoy this ExpertTrack.

Sian Lewis-Anthony, Senior Lecturer in Law at Kent Law School, University of Kent.

Over the next three courses, you’ll explore how the media and law have roles in framing crises, how millions of migrants are not protected by law, and how states go to great lengths to prevent migrants from reaching their territories.

Courses are organised in sequence, and for the best learning experience we suggest you follow this order:

• Law and the Framing of Migrants and Migration
• Freedom of Movement, Refugees, Traffickers, and Smugglers
• Law’s Absence and Law’s Failings

We expect the entire ExpertTrack should take at least 12 weeks to complete. That said, everyone’s different, and you may find yourself working at a different pace, and that’s fine – one of the benefits of online learning is you can work at a pace that suits you.

However, we strongly encourage you to work through all aspects of the ExpertTrack. You need to mark over 90%+ of steps as complete across the entire ExpertTrack, attempt every test question, and score an average of at least 70% across all your assessments, to be eligible to gain certificates at both individual course level, and overall ExpertTrack level.

Deepen your learning

But there’s more to engagement than gaining certificates: we are confident that if you engage fully in all parts of this ExpertTrack you’ll likely maximise your learning, encounter other perspectives and ideas, and have a richer learning experience:

• Working through the component courses in the suggested order – they’re arranged for a reason, and each course has been designed with a logical sequence. Jumping ahead without completing what came before may give you a disjointed learning experience.
• Reading, watching and listening across a variety of steps – some of which are text based, some with rich media.
• Sharing and discussing your learning with course peers – keep an eye out for the prompts which follow many steps, and get ready to spend a little more time on the Discussion steps.
• Developing your ideas through conversation – Educators will not be able to respond directly to comments in this ExpertTrack. We encourage learners to support one another, share personal experiences, and see new perspectives through the comments.

You can find out more about ExpertTracks on our Community support site.

The video on this step introduces the context, the subject matter and the course instructor for this 12-week ExpertTrack, Critical International Migration Law. Each of the three four-week courses in this ExpertTrack has a separate Big Question.

The Big Question for this course is: How do discourses and law frame migrants and migration?

The Big Question for this week is: What is meant by a critical approach to international migration law?

This week’s objectives

By the end of this week you should be able to:

• describe the overall elements of the ExpertTrack
• investigate the history and varied reasons for migration
• be aware of some of the critiques of migration law.