Calendar

May
22
Thu
IMER Abroad: PROVIR Seminar – Precarious migrants and access to welfare: Between policy, law and practice @ COMPAS Oxford
May 22 – May 23 all-day

IMER Abroad: PROVIR Seminar – Precarious migrants and access to welfare: Between policy, law and practice

This workshop will discuss the legal and experienced dilemmas found in the encounter between migrants living in a legally precarious situation and the welfare state in which they reside. Participants will present ongoing empirically based research on migrants’ access to welfare in policy, law and practice in various European countries. They will also discuss the particular position of youth and children in vulnerable situations. The program is available here.

Jun
16
Mon
COMMUNICATING MIGRATION SEMINARS: ESPEN HELGESEN – “Your dad is looking for you” – Children’s perspectives on state intervention in immigrant families in Norway @ Rokkansenteret (5th floor, 6 etg)
Jun 16 @ 2:15 pm – 4:00 pm

 

COMMUNICATING MIGRATION SEMINARS: ESPEN HELGESEN – “Your dad is looking for you” – Children’s perspectives on state intervention in immigrant families in Norway

Several recent international news stories have described state-initiated forced separation of children and parents in Norway, illustrating how local decisions in the Child Welfare Service can have widespread ramifications outside the families involved. In this paper I draw on ethnographic fieldwork among immigrant families in Kristiansand, Norway, to show how a group of children responded when one of their friends suddenly disappeared. The secrecy surrounding the inner workings of the Child Welfare Service led the children to frame the incident as a “kidnapping”, and several children expressed fear that they, too, would be separated from their families. Frustrated with the lack of an explanation of what had happened to their friend, the children turned to online worlds, where they could express their fears and concerns by sharing artwork with friends outside the adult gaze.

personbilde_Espen_HelgesenEspen Helgesen is a PhD candidate at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen, currently finishing his thesis on technology-mediated sociality and self-formation among children of immigrants in Norway.

 

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.

Sep
16
Tue
IMER Seminar: Elaine Chase and Jenny Allsopp: The ‘tactics’ of time and status: Young people subject to immigration control making the transition to ‘adulthood’ in the UK
Sep 16 @ 2:15 pm – 4:00 pm

IMER Seminar:

Elaine Chase and Jenny Allsopp: The ‘tactics’ of time and status: Young people subject to immigration control making the transition to ‘adulthood’ in the UK

Young people who arrive in the UK from outside Europe without a parent or legal guardian are institutionally categorised according to a range of possible legal statuses and usually afforded time-limited Leave to Remain in the UK. These categorisations are associated with specific welfare entitlements which tend to diminish over time and become particularly uncertain as young people transition into ‘adulthood’.  Situated within a broader research programme examining the link between migration, ‘wellbeing’ and ‘futures’, this paper examines the multiple transitions imposed on young people subject to immigration control as they approach the age of 18 and beyond, (from child to ‘adult’, from being accorded a temporary residence permit to more permanent leave to remain or from legality to ‘illegality’) and the implications for their access to various dimensions of welfare provision. The paper shows how different components of the ‘state’ have time limitations at their disposal to control access to welfare and state support according to chronological age.  From young people’s perspectives, such ‘tactics’ fundamentally control their trajectories and future prospects unless they can formulate strategies of their own to counter such tactics.

Read more about Elaine Chase here

Read more about Jenny Allsopp here

Oct
1
Wed
Deadline: Registration for PROVIR Closing Conference
Oct 1 @ 2:00 pm

PROVIR closing conference: Registration deadline 01.10.2014:

Conference registration deadline is 1st of October. Send abstract and registration details to Marry-Anne.Karlsen@uni.noMore information about the PROVIR-project is available at http://rokkan.uni.no/sites/provir/ To register and pay registration fee, please use the following link: https://provir.hoopla.no/sales/#1609368930/

Closing conference PROVIR: “Exceptional welfare: Dilemmas in/of irregular migration”

How do states respond to the physical presence and needs of people it officially has excluded? To what extent do international human rights provide protection? How does migration control and welfare policy affect irregular migrants’ experiences and subjectivities?Physically present, but legally excluded, irregular migrants’ present societies with particular dilemmas relating to both sovereignty and human suffering. European countries increasingly involve welfare services in migration control, either by restricting access, or by using welfare services to detect/expose irregular migrants. This raises important questions concerning not only how migrants’ legal status influences their capacity to access services, but also the practical and ethical implications for service providers. Furthermore, it challenges the extent to which human rights actually limit the exclusionary powers of states and as such whether human rights are viable outside the confines of citizenship.

Provision of Welfare to Irregular Migrants (PROVIR) will be organizing its closing conference at the University of Bergen, 19th – 21th of November 2014. As an interdisciplinary project, the PROVIR research group and its international partners have combined a legal and social science approach to the provision of welfare to ‘irregular migrants’ in Norway, and comparatively in Europe, looking particularly at health care and education. The aim of the project has been to investigate the complex relationship between law, institutional practice, and migrants’ lived experience.

The closing conference aims to bring together researchers from various disciplines who are interested in the interplay between migration control and welfare policy. At the conference, findings from the PROVIR-project will be presented by the research team. In addition to presentations by key note speakers, the PROVIR research team also welcomes papers to be presented at workshops. The topics adressed will be:

  • Irregular migrants’ legal situation regarding access to welfare provisions, either in national or international law.
  • Institutional practices and responses by service providers.
  • Migrants’ experiences, agency and embodiment.

PROGRAM:

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

The phenomenon of irregular migration is inextricably linked to its forms of mediation. 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:

Hisham Zaman, Director (To be confirmed)

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

10.30-13.00:   Workshops

13.00-14.00:   Lunch

14.00-16.00:   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:

Skjermbilde 2014-09-09 kl. 08.49.18

Skjermbilde 2014-09-09 kl. 08.49.32

 Download  workshop program here

Nov
19
Wed
PROVIR CLOSING CONFERENCE – EXCEPTIONAL WELFARE
Nov 19 – Nov 21 all-day

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

Skjermbilde 2014-11-12 kl. 23.19.50

Skjermbilde 2014-11-12 kl. 23.19.57

 

 

Open PROVIR event: Film and panel discussion @ Teglverket, Det akademiske kvarter Bergen
Nov 19 @ 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm

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.

Nov
20
Thu
Open PROVIR event: Presentation of research findings @ Facultyr of Law, Auditorium 4
Nov 20 @ 10:00 am – 11:45 am

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

Jun
23
Tue
Boklansering: Eksepsjonell velferd? Irregulære migranter i det norske velferdssamfunnet @ Will soon be available
Jun 23 @ 12:00 am – 2:00 pm

Redigert av Christine Jacobsen, Synnøve Bendixsen, Karl Harald Søvig

omsl.PMTO-2Irregulære immigranter har på noen områder full tilgang til velferdsytelser, men på mange områder er tilgangen svært begrenset enten i form av rettsregler eller andre barrierer. Denne antologien undersøker forholdet mellom rettslig rammeverk, institusjonell praksis og hvordan irregulære migranter selv erfarer sin situasjon. 
I salg fra 09. juni 2015 for 399 kroner

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.

Sep
30
Wed
Emerging Urbanities Seminar: Susanne Wessendorf and Thomas Hylland Eriksen – Pioneer migrants in a super-diverse context @ Uni Rokkansenteret (6 etg)
Sep 30 @ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

Susanne Wessendorf: Pioneer migrants in a super-diverse context

Urban areas in Europe and beyond have seen significant changes in patterns of immigration, leading to profound diversification. This diversification is characterized by the multiplication of people of different national origins, but also differentiations regarding migration histories, religions, educational backgrounds, legal statuses and socio-economic backgrounds. This ‘diversification of diversity’ is now commonly described as ‘super-diversity’. Despite an increasing number of studies looking at how people live together in such super-diverse contexts, little is known about new patterns of immigration into such contexts. What are the newly emerging countries of origin which add to the diversification of already super-diverse areas? Where do recent migrants from unusual source countries, who cannot draw on already existing migrant or ethnic ‘communities’, find support? And what kinds of social networks do they form? This paper discusses pathways of settlement among recently arrived migrants from non-traditional countries of origin in the London Borough of Hackney. Drawing on earlier migration literature and the notion of ‘pioneer migration’, the paper addresses the challenges of analysing increasingly fragmented migration stories and pathways of settlement in super-diverse contexts.

Thomas Hylland Eriksen: The tension between superdiversity and cultural reproduction

From a bird’s eye perspective, Alna borough in eastern Oslo definitely looks superdiverse. Scores of languages are spoken in its population of 40,000, and its inhabitants come from about as many countries. Yet at the local level, social and cultural reproduction takes place to a great extent at the ethnic or community level. As one of our informants says, ‘I sometimes feel as though I am in Pakistan’. Had it not been for the strong presence of the Norwegian state, the suburb would have resembled the plural societies described in the mid-20th century by Furnivall and Smith, where ethnic groups, like pearls on a necklace, lead parallel lives but meet in the marketplace. How comprehensive is the influence of the state; in what ways does diversity in public affect the private sphere, and what are the main elements in the cultural reproduction of minority groups?

Jan
16
Tue
Lunch seminar: Birthday parties as a test of belonging in Norway @ Lauritz Meltzers hus (SV-bygget), room 212
Jan 16 @ 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm

Kicking off a new semester with IMER lunch seminars, our first seminar this year is building on exciting fieldwork from Bergen. Hilde Danielsen from Uni Research Rokkansenteret is giving a presentation about the symbolic value of birthday parties in contemporary Norway.

Danielsen argues that birthday celebrations have become more than a private family matter, and are increasingly seen as a socially charged question in Norwegian society. Many parents with and without migration background, as well as teachers and other actors, claim that birthday parties have the potential to create social inclusion. They are especially concerned that children with migrant background should celebrate and attend. Celebrating birthdays has seemingly become one of the litmus tests of whether an immigrant individual or an immigrant group is integrated into Norwegian society.

Note the place: Lauritz Meltzers hus (SV-bygget), room 212.

As usual, a light lunch will be served. All are welcome!