Calendar

Nov
29
Fri
NEW RESEARCH TOPICS WITHIN IMER BERGEN @ UNI Rokkansenteret, Nygårdsgaten 5, 6. etg (5th Floor)
Nov 29 @ 1:15 pm – 3:00 pm


Halvar A. Kjærre
: “Politics and Mobilities”

Tarje I. Wanvik: “Migration and Social Inequalities”

Halvar A. Kjærre (Department of Social Anthropology, UiB) and Tarje I. Wanvik (Department of Geography, UiB) have recently been recruited to the IMER Bergen research unit as PhD candidates.
In this seminar they will present their PhD projects. After the presentation there will also be a presentation of IMERS new webpages.

Skjermbilde 2013-11-13 kl. 23.02.09

Feb
24
Mon
COMMUNICATING MIGRATION SEMINARS – LISE W. ISAKSEN – Mobility, Moral and Migration: “Familism” in Norwegian and Italian Contexts. @ Rokkansenteret 5th floor (6 etg)
Feb 24 @ 2:15 pm – 4:00 pm

«Mobilitet, moral og migrasjon:  familisme – begrepet i norske og italienske kontekster.»

Seminaret tar for seg hvordan middelhavslandenes familisme – begrep konstrueres og erfares i migrasjons-kontekster blant nordmenn i Italia og italienere i Norge. Dagens familisme utfordres både av «post-moderne” endringer i familie-strukturen, slik som lav fertilitet og stigende skilsmisse-rater, og av finanskrise og migrasjon.I Sør-Europa eksisterer lav fertilitet side om side med tradisjonelle omsorgs-organiseringer og parallelt med kontant-tunge velferdsprogrammer og begrenset produksjon av tjenester for de unge og de eldre. Den sentrale oppfatningen i komparative studier av relasjonen mellom familie og velferd er at velferdsstatene baserer politikken på en «tatt-for-gitt» holdning til en kjønnstradisjonell familie-institusjon, og denne kulturelle forutsetningen sementerer de tradisjonelle familie-strukturene. Men i hvilken grad er familiestrukturer og kulturelle og sosiale normer og verdier bundet sammen med idealtypiske regimer og nye migrasjonsmønstre?Nyere forskning viser til at sør-europeiske kvinner drømmer om den nordiske velferdsstaten eller en stat som organiserer familie -og arbeidsbalansen bedre. De vil ha tilgang på flere og bedre offentlige omsorgstjenester. Nordiske velferdsstater framstår som reneste paradiser for kvinner i Italia, og definitivt som et ideal, hevder samfunnsforskere. På den andre siden ser vi at mens italienere drømmer om velferd og arbeid, drømmer nordmenn om mer familieliv. En av de norske informantene i mitt prosjekt sier at hennes drøm er «å få til et italiensk familieliv kombinert med et norsk arbeidsliv». Hvordan er forbindelsen mellom familie-strukturer og familie-verdier? Hvordan er de relatert til mobilitet, moral og migrasjon?

LiseWLise Widding Isaksen er professor i sosiologi på Universitetet i Bergen. Hun jobber for tiden med prosjektene 1) «Mobilitet, moral og migrasjon: en studie av familiekulturer i Norge og Italia» , 2) «Polish Female Migrants and Their Families: A Study of Care Deficits» og 3) «Welfare Models, Demographic Patterns and Family Strategies in the Context of the Financial Crisis in Spain»

 

Siste publikasjoner:

Lise Widding Isaksen, 2010 (ed): Global Care Work. Gender and Migration in Nordic Societies. Nordic Academic Press, Lund, Sverige

Lise Widding Isaksen (2012) “Transnational Spaces of Care: Migrant Nurses in Norway.” In Social Politics, International Studies in Gender, State and Society, vol. 19, number 1, spring 2012, p.58-78, Oxford University Press, Oxford

“Children Left Behind” i samarbeid med Uma Devi og Arlie R. Hochschild i  Hochschild, Arlie R., 2013: «So How’s the Family» and other essays», University of California Press, Berkeley

Communicating Migration Seminar Series IMER Bergen spring and autumn 2014

The IMER seminar series for 2014 will cover how migration and ethnic relations are communicated in every-day encounters, in mass and social media, in politics and in teaching at the universities.  Has the way people talk about migration and migrants in different social contexts changed over time, and in which ways has it changed? How does migration theory and research fit in with other topics and theories in the social sciences, and how do results from migration research inform public debate and policy development? Communicating migration will be discussed from various angles in our seminar series on international migration and ethnic relations during spring and autumn 2014. We welcome papers that touch upon this broad theme from different angles.  Historical analyses of change over time in regard to politics and public debate, research foci and disciplinary concerns are specifically welcomed.  The seminar series will end with a two-day conference in October/November 2014.

 

Mar
24
Mon
COMMUNICATING MIGRATION SEMINARS: CAROLINE KNOWLES – The Children of the Revolution: Reflections on Chinese London and how to Theorise these New Forms of Migration @ Rokkansenteret (5th floor, 6 etg)
Mar 24 @ 2:15 pm – 4:00 pm

The Children of the Revolution: Reflections on Chinese London and how to Theorise these New Forms of Migration

This paper explores some of the London data from a three-city investigation of migration. The other two cities are Beijing and Hong Kong, and in each city we are exploring young (23-39) graduate migrants from the other two cities in order to understand how global mobility features in young professionals’ life and career planning. Little has been written about UK migrants in Hong Kong and Beijing, and the existing literature on Chinese migrants in London is centred on long-term (often depicted as poor and illegal) migrants from Hong Kong. Such studies do not begin to capture the lives of the new young migrants, many of whom are from Mainland Chinese cities, who must navigate new border restrictions favouring the wealthy and the highly talented. The paper will explore some of the challenges to existing migration theory these young urban migrants pose.

Caroline Knowles

IMG_0305Caroline Knowles is Professor of Sociology and former director of the Centre for Urban and Community Research (CUCR) at Goldsmiths, University of London.  She is known for her work with artists and photographers exploring the intersections between art and sociology in urban social research. Following her interest in materials and translocality she has just completed the biography of a pair of flip-flop sandals funded by the Leverhulme Trust with Singapore artist Michael Tan. Flip-Flop: A Journey Through Globalisation’s Backroads will be published in May by Pluto Press. Following her interests in migration she is also currently researching the Beijing, London, Hong Kong circuit travelled by young migrants in these three cities in collaboration with Ho Wing Chung at the City University of Hong Kong. She is the author of many books and papers on cities, ethnicity, migration and mobilities including Hong Kong: Migrant Lives, Landscapes and Journeys (2009) University of Chicago Press with US photographer and Sociologist Douglas Harper.

Communicating Migration Seminar Series IMER Bergen spring and autumn 2014

The IMER seminar series for 2014 will cover how migration and ethnic relations are communicated in every-day encounters, in mass and social media, in politics and in teaching at the universities.  Has the way people talk about migration and migrants in different social contexts changed over time, and in which ways has it changed? How does migration theory and research fit in with other topics and theories in the social sciences, and how do results from migration research inform public debate and policy development? Communicating migration will be discussed from various angles in our seminar series on international migration and ethnic relations during spring and autumn 2014. We welcome papers that touch upon this broad theme from different angles.  Historical analyses of change over time in regard to politics and public debate, research foci and disciplinary concerns are specifically welcomed.  The seminar series will end with a two-day conference in October/November 2014.

 

Jun
2
Mon
COMMUNICATIONG MIGRATION SEMINARS: CHRISTARD HOFFMANN – Lessons from the past: framing post-war immigration in Germany by historical analogies @ UNI Rokkansenteret 6 etg (5th floor)
Jun 2 @ 2:15 pm – 4:00 pm

Lessons from the past: framing post-war immigration in Germany by historical analogies

In many West European countries, the experience of mass immigration after 1945 was perceived as something basically new and unprecedented. In the lengthy process of coming to terms with the new situation and of developing a self-understanding as countries of immigration and of ethnic pluralism, historical arguments often played an important role. By placing present-day immigration into a historical perspective, by constructing narratives of continuity (and discontinuity) and not least by presenting persuasive historical analogies, historians (and others) introduced arguments that informed the debates of the day and allowed the experiences of immigration and multi-ethnicity to be integrated into (national) narratives of identity. The German case is particularly interesting in this respect, since a tradition of tolerance and successful integration had to be invented in spite of the fresh memories of the Nazi-past that were witness to the contrary.

personbilde_Copy_of_hoffmannChristhard Hoffmann (born 1952 in Luneburg, Germany) is a German historian and professor of modern European history at the University of Bergen. In the period 2007-2013 he was Head of the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion.

Hoffmann defended in 1986 his doctoral dissertation on German Antiquity historians’ representation of Jews and Judaism in the 19th and 20th centuries [1] at the Technische Universität Berlin, where he also worked as a researcher for many years. From 1994 to 1998 he was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and since 1998 he has worked at the University of Bergen.

Hoffmann has an extensive list of publications in the fields of German-Jewish history and cultural history, history of anti-Semitism and migration history.

Communicating Migration Seminar series

The IMER seminar series for 2014 will cover how migration and ethnic relations are communicated in every-day encounters, in mass and social media, in politics and in teaching at the universities.  Has the way people talk about migration and migrants in different social contexts changed over time, and in which ways has it changed? How does migration theory and research fit in with other topics and theories in the social sciences, and how do results from migration research inform public debate and policy development?

Communicating migration will be discussed from various angles in our seminar series on international migration and ethnic relations during spring and autumn 2014. We welcome papers that touch upon this broad theme from different angles.  Historical analyses of change over time in regard to politics and public debate, research foci and disciplinary concerns are specifically welcomed.

Mar
3
Tue
IMER Lunch: Susanne Bygnes – Mistillitens migrasjon: Europeisk sør-nord mobilitet i kjølvannet av krisa @ UNI Rokkan centre (6 etg)
Mar 3 @ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

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.

SusanneBygnes

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.

Apr
12
Thu
Lunch seminar: Diaspora Mobilization – Syrian Activism in the West @ Meeting room at 2nd floor, Adm. org
Apr 12 @ 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm

In recent years, a large number of Syrian refugees have settled in Europe. In the media, most of  the debate concerning these refugees has been about how they impact their host societies. But how does this large Syrian diaspora impact politics in Syria itself?

For this IMER lunch seminar, we will be joined by Amany Selim and Espen Stokke, PhD candidates at sociology and comparative politics at UiB. They both do research projects where they explore the engagement of Syrian diaspora activists, and how these activists try to make a difference in the homeland. With their work on the Syrian case, they are hoping to contribute to the growing body of literature that attempts to bridge social movement theory and diaspora politics.

In the presentation, Selim and Stokke will give a brief overview of the field: What do we know about the activism of the Syrian diaspora? They will also present their own projects, and what they wish to add to the field.