The north-south divide is alive and well at Oxford’s railway station at the end of term. While students heading south crowd the opposite platform, those of us heading north have enough room on the other side of the tracks for a quick kick-about.

The University of Oxford suffers from a severe lack of representation of Northern students, with almost 50% of UK-domiciled undergraduate students coming from London and the South East, while students from the North-West, North-East, and Yorkshire and the Humber made up just 7.6%, 2.5%, and 5% of admissions, respectively, from 2022-2024. There appears to be an inbuilt bias, however unconscious, against the North, the implications of which can be felt in a plethora of ways. 

Accent prejudice in Oxford, for instance, has been well-documented in recent articles from Cherwell and other student newspapers. Bias can start even before the first day – a friend of mine was asked if all the mines were closed yet in the North-East during our offer-holder day. Not exactly a great first impression. These attitudes reflect an ingrained social prejudice that just won’t come unstuck. Nor are they confined to the University. When doing my research for this article, it didn’t take long before I was hit with blatant assumptions about people from the North in the byline of a 2021 Daily Telegraph article, synonymising “bright young things from the North” with “students from poorer backgrounds”.

So you can imagine the pleasant surprise that I felt when the recent careers emails were sent round proudly advertising the “over 50 exciting summer opportunities available across the UK” that were about to drop. A quick browse on Career Connect, though, brought me back down to the (southern) earth, as the claims of placements “across the UK” didn’t come into fruition.

Of the 60-odd opportunities advertised in the first round of domestic summer internships, only one was an in-person placement in the North (an opportunity in Newcastle seems to have slipped through the net – otherwise, the map seems to have been erased north of Watford).

We’re undeniably very lucky at the University of Oxford to have so many internships organised and shared by the careers service. It is heartening to see that many of the placements available are remote, widening opportunities and improving accessibility. It’s also good to see that three regional alumni groups (The Oxford University Society of Cornwall, East Kent, and East Sussex – all, unfortunately, in the south) are offering bursaries to support students from these areas to access internships, while there are also routes within colleges and the broader University to apply for financial support and travel grants. But the implication that I would have to commute to the south in order to conduct a worthwhile in-person internship seems to ignore the many interesting and insightful organisations doing important and varied work in the North. 

While an online placement is certainly better than nothing, the idea that just because I’m from the North, I can’t access the same in-person insights into a workplace as my Southern counterparts seems pretty unfair. Because even if commuting into London, or forking out for a place to stay, was an option (it certainly isn’t for me), at the end of the day, it is the careers office that is missing a trick here. Through failing to advertise placements in many of the hundreds of fantastic organisations that are doing wonderful things in the North, it is the University’s students who are missing out.

Given that Oxford is a southern university, it is both reasonable and to be expected that the domestic internships are therefore weighted towards the South. It would be fantastic, though, if there were even proportional representation, offering a similar percentage of placements in the North as there are northern students. 

In recent years, the University and individual colleges have been making a concerted and commendable effort to improve Northern representation in the student body, with programmes such as Oxford for North East, Oxford for North West, and Oxford for Yorkshire and the Humber offering “workshops, application support, mentoring, and residential visits” in order to boost intake. Through making connections with organisations based in the North, for instance, through linking up with the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, the University could go one step further, cementing relationships with the regions and, in doing so, taking a more holistic approach to boosting northern admissions. Offering internships in the North would demonstrate long-term support for northern students that goes beyond the application process, ensuring equal provision once students are in the door.

For now, though, I had best get back to my search for a placement in those seemingly little-known, off-the-map backwaters like Manchester, Liverpool, and Leeds. 

I never felt more at home than when I was living thousands of miles away from home. It is indeed a paradox that many Chinese people living abroad know too well. Distance does not dilute identity – it sharpens it. What once felt ordinary at home suddenly becomes important, deliberate, and worth defending when you surround yourself with a different culture, language, and rhythm of life. 

It started with something as simple as food. Back home in Hong Kong, I took good Chinese food (to be precise, “yum cha”) for granted. Pu-erh tea was just what we were used to. Sauces were just sauces. But abroad, I began to hunt for authentic flavours with an almost religious fervour. I developed a true appreciation for well-aged Pu-erh – the deep, earthy taste that reveals itself gradually, layer by layer. The first boil, of course, is just a gentle rinse to awaken the tea leaves. I, too, craved the exact balance of spiciness found in specific Hong Kong-style sauces, like the difference between “spicy oil and spicy sauce”. The way of eating “Siu Mai” has to be balanced with sesame oil, the specific chilli oil and the right amount of soya sauce. I wasn’t just eating – I was preserving a piece of home.

Even the tableware started to matter. I became genuinely disappointed when a waiter handed me a fork and knife instead of chopsticks and a spoon. It wasn’t snobbery – it was the small daily reminder that the most natural way I interact with food was being replaced by something foreign and inappropriate. I also found myself paying attention to the blue and white porcelain plates and bowls in Chinese restaurants – quietly assessing whether they were cheap modern replicas or carried the elegant simplicity of Yuan or Ming dynasty aesthetics.

Food became my daily act of cultural resistance and reconnection.

The same shift happened with language and communication. At home, we used Chinese proverbs casually, without much thought. Abroad, I started researching their origins and backstories so I could explain them properly to my international friends. I wanted them to understand not just the words, but the centuries of wisdom and humour packed inside. At times, my Chinese friends and I would banter in Cantonese, playfully roasting Chinese stereotypes in that affectionate, insider way that we could. These gatherings felt like warm, familiar bubbles in an otherwise chilly, misunderstood setting.

Living abroad made me acutely aware of how much I missed the cultural shorthand – the jokes, the references, the unspoken understandings that don’t need explanation among fellow Chinese. We sought each other out not out of exclusion, but out of a deep need for that “safe haven” where we could relax, be ourselves, and speak freely without translating our souls, as though we want a hot meal for lunch, not a Tesco meal deal.

Even something as simple as colour took on new meaning. Back home, wearing red during the Lunar New Year was mostly about tradition. Abroad, it became an act of joyful compliance. I started wearing red more often – not just during Spring Festival, but whenever I felt the need to inject some vibrancy and cultural warmth into grey, British winters, a good way to remind myself, and perhaps others, that we ought to look beyond and celebrate colour, luck, and renewal.

But it wasn’t merely about preserving tradition. Living abroad also made me appreciate my home city in a way I never had when I was immersed in it.

I am writing this piece after landing at Heathrow Airport, waiting at Paddington Station for a train that has already been delayed by 20 minutes. The contrast is almost comical. In Hong Kong, I had grown used to the seamless efficiency of the metro and rail networks, good public services, and perhaps, the general sense that things simply “work”. The punctuality, the convenience, the speed – I didn’t fully value them until I stood on a cold platform watching yet another departure board flicker with delays.

From afar, China’s rapid development no longer feels like background noise. It becomes something that any country can be proud of. The high-speed trains, the digital infrastructure, the sheer ambition and execution – these things look even more impressive when you experience the frustrations of less efficient systems elsewhere.

While writing this piece might risk me being told to either “go back to my country” or questioned about my motivations to be in Oxford pursuing my studies, I would urge those people to reconsider. It is indeed a great privilege and opportunity to go abroad, but this feeling is the unexpected underbelly that comes with just that. It forces you to see your own culture with fresh eyes – both its deep historical roots and its modern dynamism. You stop taking things for granted. The small rituals (the right tea, the right sauce, the right chopsticks) become acts of identity. The proverbs and banter become bridges rather than assumptions. The frustrations abroad become quiet reminders of how proud one ought to be about human progress and connections.

I became more Chinese while abroad because distance stripped away the complacency that familiarity breeds. It turned passive belonging into active appreciation. What used to be “normal” became “mine” – something worth comprehending more deeply, preserving more consciously, and promulgating more proudly.

And perhaps that is the hidden strength of living abroad. We don’t just carry our culture with us. In many ways, we rediscover it, refine it, and sometimes even love it more fiercely than we ever did at home.

“The Coalition and STAR are quite unique in the emphasis on trying to bridge the gap between students and the community”.

This is how Faye, the President of Oxford Student Action for Refugees (STAR), the university branch of an organisation that describes itself as “[t]he national network of students building a society where refugees are welcomed”, characterises the society’s support of the Coalition to Close Campsfield. Caught within the often insular Oxford bubble, where student concerns are easily geared towards their colleges, the existence of Campsfield House has seemingly been erased from the map. 

A student campaign for the rights of refugees

“I think students at Oxford can be quite myopic at times”, said Faye. She wishes more would get involved with local causes, focusing on matters beyond student-related issues: “I think sometimes people can get caught up in trying to improve conditions in this kind of very narrow sense, for themselves and other people in their degree, rather than thinking about how we are in such a place of incredible privilege. Why do we get to benefit from that privilege, while those who face the disadvantages of that privilege?” Students face additional logistical barriers: the eight-week terms and academic workload mean missed meetings and protests. But members of Oxford STAR have put their books down in favour of active participation. With 39 groups across the country, Student Action for Refugees filed a joint petition with City of Sanctuary, VOICES Network & SolidariTee for university students, and staff in response to the Illegal Migration Bill. 

As a student society, Oxford STAR brings unique advantages to the refugee rights movement. The society has been unafraid to exert pressure on the institution’s actions. Recently, they released an open letter condemning the University of Oxford’s Centre on Migration, Policy & Society (COMPAS)’s invitation to Sean Donnelly, Editor in Chief of Frontext, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, and Eddy Montgomery, Senior Director of Enforcement, Compliance and Crime at the Home Office. These events are a part of the “Immigration Enforcement in Practice” seminars convened by Rob McNeil. Written by a group of “current Oxford students and alumni, migrants’ rights campaign groups and academics”, they highlight the “much-needed critical commentary on border enforcement in the EU and UK” that is missing in COMPAS’ series of events. The intervention reflects a broader willingness among student activists to challenge not only government policy, but also the university’s relationship to institutions involved in border enforcement.

Awarded the University of Sanctuary status in 2023, Oxford joined a group of 25 Universities of Sanctuary. Founded by the City of Sanctuary UK, “this network has been developed through the integration of Article 26 Project resources with City of Sanctuary UK, and collaboration with Student Action for Refugees, Refugee Education UK, and others”, with the aim to “develop a culture and a practice of welcome within institutions”. Oxford appears proud of its University of Sanctuary status and its City of Sanctuary Organisation Pledge. The University “is committed to being a place of welcome for people who have been forcibly displaced around the world, and supports students and academics who have been forced to flee conflict or persecution”. 

To satisfy the minimum criteria for a University of Sanctuary award, the institution must “support the establishment of a student-led awareness group on campus (such as a STAR group)”. On the University website, explicit support is indeed given to Oxford STAR: “We encourage our students to learn about sanctuary and to create an inclusive culture of welcome. As part of this, the University supports the Oxford branch of Student Action for Refugees in recruiting new members for the academic year.” In order to demonstrate sufficient support to “student-led awareness group[s]”, a member of the university must be in contact with the head office team at STAR. Examples listed on the application form include forms of logistical support, including the facilitation of meetings and financial assistance. This empowers Oxford STAR, Faye argues, with an “institutional leverage over the university where we are able to sit in on University of Sanctuary subcommittee meetings and talk to people in the university who are involved with the award.”

In the context of a growing far-right presence in the city, Oxford STAR has used their “pathway in the University” to focus on exerting their influence on the institution: “We do try to focus more on things that the University is doing that we can address, because we think that’s the advantage that we have as a student organisation, so that includes things like any kind of departmental talks that platform voices which we think are quite anti-immigration and contribute to this toxic environment.” St George’s and Union Jack flags erected by “Raise the Colours Oxfordshire” around St Aldates and the Headington roundabout, alongside protests by the Oxfordshire Patriots, speak to this “broader rhetoric and environment” that Oxford STAR resists.

Despite the society’s influence, there is a careful move to make space for the experience and three-decade-long history of the Coalition movement by the students: “I think by having this campaign that is led by local community members and having students kind of support them, rather than trying to lead the campaign themselves, I think that helps make a difference.” 

Bill, a founding member of the Coalition in 1993, extends the same appreciation to the students who he deems are “more integral to the coalition than they have been in the past”. One example of the “energy and new ideas” of students includes public, visual statements. He recalls, for instance, in 2009, “when the statues of emperors’ heads outside the Sheldonian were masked to show how people in detention were silenced”.

Protest safety is another area where students can bring fresh perspectives and contribute to the Coalition. Just a few years ago, Faye remembers feeling “fairly safe” when volunteering to support refugee rights, but a more antagonistic climate has spurred growing anxieties.

Protesters at Campsfield are now more frequently met with counter-protests by far-right organisations: “There’s more cases where there’s threats of far-right protests right outside the centre”, observes Faye. “I’m an international student myself and a lot of other international students are involved in the protests…it’s just a more precarious situation where we don’t want to lose our student visas through protesting”. For international students in particular, political participation can carry risks extending beyond arrest or disciplinary action, including apprehension around immigration status and visa security.

Even with these fears, she emphasises the significance of “individual participation and contribution” that “makes movements like this so powerful”. Faye recognises the strategic impact of introducing protest strategies – such as masking up and hosting protest safety workshops – to local campaign members: “I think there’s been one quite big contribution from the student side, bringing this kind of protest safety to the Campsfield movement as well.”

This is particularly relevant to the shifting dynamics with the police. A current obstacle, Bill explains,  facing the Coalition involves the location of their demonstrations: “There is an issue at the moment about our right to demonstrate at the gates of Campsfield as opposed to the road away from Campsfield, and we are trying to reestablish our right to demonstrate at the gate.” He stresses the non-violence of their action: “We’re quite happy without [the police] being there because we’re not actually cutting the fence…we’re just expressing an opinion.”

A spokesperson for Thames Valley Police told Cherwell: “We have a legal obligation to facilitate peaceful protest, but this must be balanced against the rights of others and the need to maintain access and safety. We will continue to work with partners and the local community to manage this appropriately.”

History of Campsfield House

As a former youth detention facility, Campsfield House was established in 1993 as an immigration detention centre. Campsfield was far from a ‘home’ despite its name. Here, asylum seekers and children have been held, immobilised within the secured walls, in a limbo of indefinite and uncertain detention. While immigration detention is often imagined through the imagery of U.S. border enforcement and ICE facilities, Campsfield represents a distinctly British system of confinement operating on Oxford’s doorstep.

Nearly 30,000 migrants were detained in Campsfield House before 2018. A history of resistance and abuse marked the centre’s 25 years before it closed. What was widely reported as riots and arson at Campsfield in 2007-08, alongside the escape of 26 detainees, exposed an internal history of revolt. 

A language of criminality tainted the reporting of Campsfield House; yet, most detainees have committed no criminal offences. Between 2023-24, there were 834 cases of unlawful detention, forcing the Home Office to pay nearly £12 million in compensation. Although immigration detention is an administrative process rather than a criminal justice procedure, the conditions behind the barbed-wire fence were uncannily similar to those of a prison. The contradiction remains central to criticisms of the detention system: people are confined in prison-like conditions without a criminal conviction or a fixed sentence.

Condemned for its treatment of detainees and deplorable conditions by human rights groups, the centre’s history is marred by hunger strikes and suicides. In 2005, more than 30 Zimbabwean detainees went on hunger strike. With no judicial oversight, a man who had been denied bail and detained for over four months died by suicide in the same year. Under the threat of deportation to Iraq, further hunger strikes were undertaken by 13 Kurdish asylum seekers in 2008, which escalated to 60 participants. The same pattern continued in 2010, where over half of the centre’s inmates went on hunger strike over the inhumane conditions. A second suicide occurred in 2011, a man was found dead in the shower. Between 2012 an 2013, a 16-year old-child was held in detention for 62 days.  Facing an unfixed sentence of detention, migrants in Campsfield Houseexisted in a prolonged state of uncertainty and suspension.

Campsfield House has been under the management of Mitie, a private-for-profit company, whose aim is “to treat those in our care with dignity, decency and respect, delivering a safe and healthy establishment which stands up to public scrutiny” since2011. Although 80% of the detainees found most staff were respectful, 41% of the detainees reported “feeling unsafe” in the centre in an inspection carried out in 2019. Further reports of use of excessive force and unsanitary conditions colour the centre’s history under the company.

The reopening of Campsfield House

“We thought it was a victory for us and the national movement against detention”, explains Bill, a founding member of the Coalition to Close Campsfield, when the centre was shut down following more than two decades of campaigning and monthly protests. 

But when Boris Johnson announced an expansion in the government’s use of immigration detention facilities in 2022, this triumph proved to be temporary. Under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which facilitated the Rwanda Plan, the Home Office increased its use of detention centres. On 28 June 2022, they announced their decision to reopen Campsfield House.

The Home Office’s plan was met with fierce opposition. In a statement by AVID, Keep Campsfield Closed and Border Criminologies addressed to the former Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, 50 organisations were represented with 82 signatures. Such condemnation has also been expressed on an international level: the UN Refugee Agency is a vocal critic of the widespread use of immigration detention facilities, echoed by the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner. Opponents of Campsfield’s reopening, therefore, situate the issue within a broader international debate over the legality, ethics, and effectiveness of immigration detention.

The upwards trend of the detention of migrants since 2021 reflects an increasingly expansionist and hostile policy, fuelled by the Illegal Migration Act passed in July 2023. In 2025,22,661 people were detained, a figure up by 17% when compared to the previous year. When Campsfield reopened, Mitie received a new six-year contract worth £140 million. With plans of expansion, adding up to 400 new beds in the centre, Campsfield symbolises the national shift in immigration policy. For campaigners, the reopening is not an isolated local development but part of a wider hardening of Britain’s border regime.

Phase 2 of the development of Campsfield will be facilitated by a Crown Development Order. “This is a huge issue with central government overriding democratic procedure”, Bill explains. By using this order, the government bypasses local opposition, preventing the decision to be made by the local planning authority, Cherwell District Council. Demanding a public inquiry, this application is more than just an expansion strategy but also serves as “a challenge to democracy”, according to Bill.

Over time, the Coalition has in many ways become a unifying force. Bill told Cherwell: “It’s become much more, in some ways, deep-rooted.” The collaboration between Oxford STAR and the Coalition appears to have brought town and gown together. “The stance of opposition to Campsfield has spread throughout the community” to the students behind the limestone walls and spires. 

Despite Oxford STAR’s work, Faye reminds us that “left-wing student organisations are vastly under-resourced in terms of just the kind of institutional capacity that [they] have”. Yet, “fruitful collaboration”, such as the creation of Oxford Student Social Action Coalition, uniting Turl Street Homeless Action (TSHA), Food Rescuers, and New College Curry Runners, can multiply the resources available. In spite of these barriers, Faye urges students to think beyond their colleges: “What I do hope for is that more students do try to engage with these kind of things, rather than staying limited within their colleges or their specific student societies, [so] that they do try to engage with these broader, local and potentially regional, national issues, and offer their efforts where they can.” It took 25 years of internal and external resistance and over three hundred demonstrations to close Campsfield House for the first time. All hope, however, has not been lost: “You’ve got to be hopeful, haven’t you? So I’m hopeful”, Bill told me. 

There were 82,100 applications for asylum in 2025. By the end of 2024, over 123 million people were forced to flee their homes. As global conflicts increase, the need for student organisations like Oxford STAR is indispensable.  “It is quite inspiring to see that there are still so many students every year who are willing to get involved”, Faye said. “I think that is something that keeps my spirits up.”