Foreign bodies: a conversation between Yasmin Gunaratnam and Ali Eisa

This text is the result of several online conversations and an a-synchronous shared file. A process taking nearly two years. The incremental pace and long stretches of silence were invariably shaped by our struggles with workload, while joining industrial actions taken by the UK’s University and College Union over equitable pay, working conditions and pensions. Despite the runaway marketisation of university life, our exchanges were something of a shelter, holding those lovely moments that mark scholarly camaraderie – energising, provocative, dimly lit. As we are both interested in drawing political commitments into formats, we have opted for a conversation rather an interview, which feels like a more democratising form.

Yasmin Gunaratnam is a sociologist and yoga teacher. She is author of Researching Race and Ethnicity: Methods, Knowledge and Power and Death and the Migrant: Bodies, Borders, Care (Gunaratnam, 2013) and co-author of Go Home? The Politics of Immigration Controversies (Jones et al., 2017). She has edited numerous collections and journal issues. Yasmin is Chair in Social Justice at the School of Education, Community and Society, King’s College, London.

Ali Eisa is an artist and educator based in London. He is a Learning and Participation Manager at Autograph1 a visual arts charity supporting photography and film exploring identity, representation, rights and social justice. Ali is a lecturer in Fine Art at Goldsmiths and has a long-term collaborative artistic practice called Lloyd Corporation2, working with sculpture, installation, performance and participation, often taking inspiration from informal and local economies.