As cross-cultural migration increases democratic states face a particular challenge: how to grant equal rights and dignity to individuals while recognizing cultural distinctiveness. In response to the greater number of ethnic and religious minority groups, state policies seem to focus on managing cultural differences through planned pluralism. This book explores the dilemmas, paradoxes, and conflicts that emerge when differences are managed within this conceptual framework. After a critical investigation of the perceived logic of identity, indicative of Western nation-states and at the root of their pluralistic intentions, the author takes issue with both universalist notions of equality and cultural relativist notions of distinctiveness. However, without identity is it possible to participate in dialogue and form communities? Is there a way out of this impasse? The book argues in favor of communities based on nonidentitarian difference, developed and maintained through open and critical dialogue.
Randi Gressgård is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Women’s and Gender Research (SKOK) at the University of Bergen. She is also affiliated with the research unit International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER) in Bergen. Her research interests focus on minority research, gender studies, and philosophy of science. Her publications include Fra identitet til forskjell [From Identity to Difference] (Spartacus/Scandinavian Academic Press, 2005) and Kjønnsteori[Gender Theory] (co-ed., Gyldendal Akademisk, 2008). Read more…
Religious traditions and muslim youth in europe
Christine M. Jacobsen (UiB/Uni Rokkansenteret)
Jonas Otterbeck (University of Lund)
Synnøve Bendixsen (SKOK/Uni Rokkansenteret)
A major question regarding Islam in Europe concerns the religiosity of “Muslim youth” – a category currently epitomizing both the fears and hopes of multicultural Europe. At this seminar, researchers working in 3 European countries look at how Islamic traditions are engaged and reworked by young people, born and educated in European societies, and discuss the modes of religiosity that are shaped in a context of international migration, globalization, and secular modernity.
Christine M. Jacobsen launches her new book Islamic Traditions and Muslim youth in Norway in conversation with Jonas Otterbeck, the author of Samtidsislam: unga muslimer i Malmö och Köpenhamn and Synnøve Bendixsen, the author of “It’s like doing SMS to Allah” Young Female Muslims Crafting a Religious Self in Berlin.
Seminar and book launch.
Organised in collaboration with Department of Social Anthropology, UiB.
Time: Friday 21 January, 13.15-16.00.
Venue: Uni Rokkansenteret, Nygårdsgaten 5, 6. etg (5th Floor)
PROVIR closing conference: “Exceptional welfare: Dilemmas in/of irregular migration”
Wednesday 19th of November
Venue: Det Akademiske Kvarter
18.00-19.30: Letter to the king
Film by Hisham Zaman
Letter to the King portrays five people on a day trip from a refugee camp to Oslo, a welcome change in an otherwise monotonous life. But we soon realize that each and every one of them has an agenda for their trip. All five will make decisive choices on this day, as they discover happiness, humiliation, love or fulfill a long-awaited revenge. The five stories are tied together by a letter, written by eighty-three year old Mirza. Mirza wants to hand over the letter to the King personally.
19.30-21.00: Mediating irregular migration
Researchers, artists, authors, journalists and others contribute to the proliferation of images of the lives, and deaths, of those who migrate without proper authorization from the state. While stereotypical accounts of victims/criminals proliferate in mainstream media – (counter) representations that challenge such stereotyping also exist. The speakers in this panel discussion have all participated in producing and/or analysing images of irregular migration. Taking as their point of departure the film “Letter to the King”, they will discuss the poetics and politics of mediating irregular migration. What (im)possibilities does such mediation offer for current border struggles?
Plenary panel discussion with:
Mehmet Aktas, co-producer and scriptwriter, Letter to the king
Shahram Khosravi, Associate Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Stockholm
Synnøve N. Bendixsen, Post-doctoral fellow PROVIR and Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen
Film and panel discussion organized in cooperation with Studentersamfunnet i Bergen (http://samfunnet.sib.no/)
Thursday 20th of November
Venue: Faculty of Law, Magnus Lagabøtes plass 1, University of Bergen
09.30-10.00: Tea, coffee and registrations
10.00-10.15: Welcome address
10.15-11.45: Precarious inclusion: Provision of welfare to irregular migrants in Norway
Presentation of PROVIR research findings by
Christine M. Jacobsen, Karl Harald Søvig, Synnøve Bendixsen, Andrea Sussman and Marry-Anne Karlsen
11.45-12.00: Coffee break
12.00-13.00: Care Beyond Welfare?
Key note lecture by Miriam Ticktin, Associate Professor of Anthropology, The New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College (US)
13.00-14.00: Lunch
14.00-16.00: Workshops
16.00-16.15: Coffee break
16.15-17.15: Wrongs, Rights and Regularization
Key note lecture by Linda Bosniak, Distinguished Professor of Law, Rutgers School of Law–Camden (US)
19.00: Conference dinner
Nøsteboden
Friday 21st of November
Venue: Faculty of Law, Magnus Lagabøtes plass 1, University of Bergen
09.15-10.15: Limiting Health Care as a Tool of Immigration Policy: Ethnographic Insights into Deservingness and Responses by Civil Society
Key note lecture by Heide Castañeda, Associate Professor and Graduate Director, Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida (US)
10.15-10.30: Coffee break
10.30-12.30: Workshops
12.30-13.30: Lunch
13.30-15.30: Excepted, excluded or precariously included? Dilemmas in/of irregular migration
Roundtable discussion by PROVIR research team and international partners:
Bridget Anderson, Professor of Migration and Citizenship and Deputy Director of Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford (UK)
Milena Chimienti, Professor, University of Applied Science Western Switzerland – Social Work, Haute Ecole Fribourgeoise de Travail Social (HETS) (Switzerland)
Henriette Abbing, (Emiratus) Professor of Health Law, University of Utrecht (the Netherlands)
Christine M. Jacobsen, Professor, PROVIR project leader and Director of Center for Women’s and Gender Research (SKOK), University of Bergen (Norway)
Karl Harald Søvig, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Bergen (Norway)
Workshop Porgram:
Download workshop program here
Film and panel discussion on the dilemmas of mediating irregular migration
Wednesday 19th of November
Venue: Tegleverket, Det Akademiske Kvarter, Bergen
18.00-19.30: Letter to the king
Film by Hisham Zaman
Letter to the King portrays five people on a day trip from a refugee camp to Oslo, a welcome change in an otherwise monotonous life. But we soon realize that each and every one of them has an agenda for their trip. All five will make decisive choices on this day, as they discover happiness, humiliation, love or fulfill a long-awaited revenge. The five stories are tied together by a letter, written by eighty-three year old Mirza. Mirza wants to hand over the letter to the King personally.
19.30-21.00: Mediating irregular migration
Researchers, artists, authors, journalists and others contribute to the proliferation of images of the lives, and deaths, of those who migrate without proper authorization from the state. While stereotypical accounts of victims/criminals proliferate in mainstream media – (counter) representations that challenge such stereotyping also exist. The speakers in this panel discussion have all participated in producing and/or analysing images of irregular migration. Taking as their point of departure the film “Letter to the King”, they will discuss the poetics and politics of mediating irregular migration. What (im)possibilities does such mediation offer for current border struggles?
Plenary panel discussion with:
Mehmet Aktas, co-producer and scriptwriter, Letter to the king
Shahram Khosravi, Associate Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Stockholm
Synnøve N. Bendixsen, Post-doctoral fellow PROVIR and Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen
Film and panel discussion is organized by IMER Bergen in cooperation with Studentersamfunnet i Bergen (http://samfunnet.sib.no/) and is part of the PROVIR-project’s closing conference.
Precarious inclusion: Provision of welfare to irregular migrants in Norway
The IMER Bergen-project Provision of welfare to irregular migrants (PROVIR) will present its research findings at this open event.
PROVIR combined legal and anthropological approaches to investigate the complex relationship between law, institutional practice, and irregular migrants’ lived experience. The research project aimed to cast light on living conditions and access to welfare of irregularized migrants.
You can find more information about the project at PROVIRs website: http://rokkan.uni.no/sites/provir/
Date: November 20th
Time: 10.00 to 11.45
Venue: Auditorium 4, Faculty of Law, University of Bergen
Mistillitens migrasjon: Europeisk sør-nord mobilitet i kjølvannet av krisa
Tema for innlegget er den nye Europeiske sør-nord migrasjonen. Den empiriske analysen er basert på dybdeintervjuer med noen av dem som har reist fra Spania til Norge etter kriseåret 2008. Innlegget vil belyse hvordan sør-nord migrasjonen i kjølvannet av krisa er mer enn en desperat flukt fra arbeidsledighet i hjemlandet. Den vidtrekkende mistilliten til det politiske systemet og følelsen av en dyptgripende håpløshet i hjemlandet er viktige migrasjonsfaktorer i tillegg til jobbmuligheter for dem som kommer til Norge.
Susanne Bygnes (phd) er postdoktor ved universitetet i Bergen. Hun leder det fireårige prosjektet Labour Migration in Uncertain Times: Migration from Spain to Norway after 2008, finansiert av forskningsrådets VAM-program. Hun har publisert en rekke internasjonale artikler på tema som mangfold og likestilling, blant annet Ambivalent Multiculturalism (2012) i tidsskriftet Sociology.
IMER Lunch: Astrid Ouahyb Sundsbø – Social mixing policies: What You Want and What You Get
In the public debate and contemporary social policies in Norway as well as in other countries, concentrations of “immigrants” in certain areas of a city are considered to be unfortunate and something which needs to be fought against (see i.e. Gakkestad 2003; Akerhaug 2012). It is anticipated that spatial concentrations of “immigrants” enforces the social isolation of “immigrants” and triggers criminal activities, among other aspects. This becomes very obvious when a “high percentage of immigrants” in an area serves as basis for referring to that area as a “ghetto” or “insecure” (see i.e. Sæter 2005; Vassenden: 2007; cf. Akerhaug 2012).
In this lunch seminar, the idea of social mixing, which is not just common in the general public debate but also a manifested major urban policy and planning goal (Sæter & Ruud 2005; Huse, Sæter & Aniksdal 2010; cf. Musterd 2005) will be discussed. By using some illustrations both from the academic debate as well as own empirical work, it is shown that it is necessary to be critical about this concept.
It is referred to literature arguing that there is a lack of empirical evidence showing that the residential segregation of “immigrants” has any effect at all, for instance on “integration” and crime (for instance Musterd 2005; Galster 2007; Lees 2008). Furthermore, it is discussed that the imagination of social mixing as an ideal way to tackle the “multicultural challenge” might be founded on a highly problematic understanding of “immigrants“ and their norms and values as inherently “bad” (cf. Eriksen 1996: 51). This is shown by drawing on statements from interviews with members from the majority population residing in Oslo.
Astrid Ouahyb Sundsbø
Astrid Ouahyb Sundsbø (PhD) is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Georg-Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies in Berlin. She holds a doctoral degree in sociology from the Humboldt-University of Berlin (2012). From 2012-2014 she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for a Sustainable University at the University of Hamburg. Her main fields of research compromise: Social inequality, residential segregation in cities, migration and interethnic relations. Her most recent publication is Grenzziehungen in der Stadt. Ethnische Kategorien und die Wahrnehmung und Bewertung von Wohnorten (Springer VS, 2014) where it is discussed whether ethnic boundary making on the side of the majority population could be a possible explanation for the residential concentration of immigrants in Berlin and Oslo.
Redigert av Christine Jacobsen, Synnøve Bendixsen, Karl Harald Søvig
Med en unik kombinasjon av juridisk og antropologisk blikk, går boken regelverket nærmere i sømmene, drøfter gatebyråkraters utfordringer og hverdagslivet til irregulære migranter og deres barn.
Hvilke regelverk får konsekvenser for irregulære migranters levevilkår? Hvordan blir dette regelverket forstått og etterfulgt av gatebyråkrater? Og hvordan blir hverdagslivet til irregulære migranter og deres barn påvirket av regelverket og dets fortolkning?
Denne boken er aktuell for velferdsprofesjoner som møter irregulære migranter som en del av sin yrkesutøvelse. Både leger, sykepleiere, helsesekretærer, lærere, helsesøstre, skolerådgivere, sosialarbeidere, sosionomer og barnevernspedagoger vil ha god nytte av Eksepsjonell velferd? Irregulære migranter i det norske velferdssamfunnet. Boken retter seg også mot frivillige organisasjoner som jobber med ulike aspekter ved migranters situasjon i Norge og andre som er engasjert i temaet.