Leeds academic sheds light new Channel 4 documentary and media portrayal of refugees
School of Sociology and Social Policy’s Dr Roxana Barbulescu has been quoted in the French newspaper Libération in response to the reality show ‘Go back to where you come from’.
The latest Channel 4 reality show "Go back to where you come from" features six people who experience what life is like for refugees coming to Britain today. Sent to Syria and Somalia, the candidates have to return to Britain, by following the journeys refugees make to reach UK including crossing the Channel. The producers suggest the experience would put normal people in the shoes of refugees and thus create a bridge of understanding and solidarity with the people fleeing violence.
Associate Professor in the School of Sociology and Social Policy Dr Roxana Barbulescu gave an interview to the French daily newspaper Libération. As she says, “‘Go Back to Where You Came From’ only reinforces and reproduces stereotypes.”
Solidarity should be with the people who are already here and who are waiting for a decision. Why do you need to go to Syria or Somalia to be have solidarity?
Libération, colloquially known as Libé, is a French daily newspaper of record founded in 1973 by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in the aftermath of the student protest movements of 1968. Dr Barbulescu gave an interview to the journalist Margot Sanhes which informed the article published in the paper and online version on 12 February 2025. The controversial Channel 4 reality show has gained media attention due to criticism at its lack of realism and concern over the candidates’ views of refugees.
Viewers are transported into the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia and Syria (seventh and fifth highest prevalence of terrorism acts respectively according Global Terrorism Index) – where the haunting chords of Smells Like Teen Spirit Nirvana set the tone as three Brits, clad in bulletproof jackets, navigate the streets under the watchful presence of an overwhelming security detail. Their interaction with the reality around them is securitised: they are protected by armed forces that take them to visit the city in bulletproof jackets assisted by private security. “People who escape areas of conflict and who are under the threat of personal danger, do not have access to the same level of security and protection,” says Dr Barbulescu.
Dr Barbulescu shares the opinion of several commentators that GBTYC is more reality show than documentary and reproduces and reinforces the beliefs of the anti-immigration and progressive Brits we are following – demonstrating once more than immigration is a highly politicised and polarised issue.
Tackling the asylum and humanitarian crisis
The UK is still processing the summer riots and attacks on refugee camps which led to prosecution of 460 cases in 575 charges. The Met Police referred to the unrest as ‘one of the worst spates of violent disorder in the last decade’ with violence erupting at numerous sites across UK, including a children’s library, mosques, supermarkets and hotels housing asylum seekers. After a failed and removed Rwanda Plan, parties on the left and right struggle with what new solutions to put forward for addressing the asylum and humanitarian crisis.
Dr Barculescu’s argument is that to open a conversation on immigration and asylum, the show could focus on the relationships and links that are established with the domiciliated refugees in the UK. A show focused on telling the stories of the takeaway or car wash around the corner run by refugees, the overseas nationals doctors and cleaners in the NHS or migrant workers in construction, would tell the story about how refugees can contribute and build up a better and fairer country for all.
Dr Barbulescu’s research is focused on recently arrived migrant and refugee communities. In her earlier work, she has published on rights-led approaches to refugee protection in the humanitarian crisis following the Arab Spring and the Syrian War published in Mediterranean Politics; refugee settlement for unaccompanied minors also known as ‘children refugees’ on the implementation of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child in Migration Studies (with Professor Jean Grugel, University of York) and the lived experiences of refugee children with disability published in Disability Experiences (with Professor Angharad Beckett also in the School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds). Recently, Dr Barbulescu has led an ESRC-funded project, Feeding the Nation on temporary seasonal migration for UK farming and states that, ‘the UK’s food security risk is increased if we don’t protect and seek to understand the problems our migrant workers face.’
Dr Barbulescu’s latest book Revising the Integration-Citizenship Nexus in Europe: Sites, Policies, and Bureaucracies of Belonging can accessed here.
