Migrant Information Packs and the Colonisation of Civility in the UK

In response to the immigration of migrant workers, especially from the European Union accession states, the UK government has engaged in a particular form of civilising project within a wider attempt to inculcate civility and respect amongst citizens and non-citizens realigned to ‘British’ values. Drawing on the work of Elias, this article explores the role of information packs provided to recent migrants as a means of codifying required values. The article argues that elements of these information packs are based on the spatial imagining of national communities and the cultural assumptions underpinning them and that civility in public space is used as a mechanism for constructing increasingly conditional forms of citizenship.