Forced Labour, Trafficking and Global Mobility (351D7)

30 credits, Level 7 (Masters)

Spring teaching

Barriers to mobility are increasing and opportunities for legal migration are shrinking. This module examines the causes driving forced labour and trafficking in our globalised and securitised world.

Labour is often needed across national boundaries, but restrictive immigration policies are making it more dangerous and expensive to cross borders. Meanwhile, forced migration is increasing as a result of political conflict, environmental factors and persecution.

On this course you examine how migrants navigate border controls through smugglers in the Global South. Among the topics covered are:

• globalised circuits of labour circulation
• racialised and feminised work
• segmented labour markets
• global and national policies to control human trafficking and smuggling
• labour market intermediaries, ethical recruitment and costs
• collective action, individual agency and the prospects for challenging power structures.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 300 hours of work. This breaks down into about 33 hours of contact time and about 267 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2022/23. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum. We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.