Calendar

Nov
10
Tue
CANCELED: Emerging Urbanities Lunch Seminar: Håvard Haarstad – More information about eventual replacement will be available soon. @ UNI Rokkan centre (6 etg)
Nov 10 @ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

CANCELED  More infoermation about eventual repacements will be available sook

 

Dec
1
Tue
IMER LUNCH SEMINAR: Marte Knag Fylkesnes – From the parents point of view: Child welfare and social justice in Norway @ UNI Rokkansenteret (6 etg)
Dec 1 @ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

Child welfare services in Norway are currently internationally debated. A key question relates to multicultural challenges, whether services are sensitive to cultural differences and ethnic minority families specific challenges. As part of a larger research project, we interviewed parents with refugee backgrounds about their experiences of contact with child welfare services in Norway. Despite parents describing both positive and negative experiences, and trust as well as distrust, we found that fear of the child welfare services was a central theme. The paper will focus on the representations of the child welfare services that fear was related to. The theoretical framework will be Axel Honneth and Nancy Fraser’s understandings of recognition and social justice.

Marte Knpassbildeag Fylkesnes is a PhD student, working at the HEMIL-center UiB. In her thesis she discusses multicultural challenges in relation to the Norwegian child welfare system, from the perspective of service users.

Dec
15
Tue
Emerging Urbanities Lunch Seminar: Bjørn Bertelsen – Predatory security: Reshaping the city and the state in Mozambique @ UNI Rokkan centre (6 etg)
Dec 15 @ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

Predatory security: Reshaping the city and the state in Mozambique

Notions and practices of security colonise both state and urban contexts across Africa. Arguably, these notions and practices are also integral to wider global political formations where urban formations in Africa are often cast as pre-figuring the shape of future global cities more generally. Based on fieldworks in the Mozambican cities of Maputo and Chimoio, this paper sees security there as related to violent crime and capital accumulation in ways that undermine policy-oriented representations of security provision as solely undertaken by state police supplemented by neoliberal assemblages of security firms. Rather, and more specifically, the paper shows how security is not only subjected to a spatialized logic of race and social control but also renders violence – in all its forms – central to its exercise and cosmologies. This point will be emphasised by analysing how various forms of policing must be understood beyond the security-development nexus. These forms of policing increasingly involve a gradual emergence of what I call ‘predatory security’ that is central to violent modes of capital accumulation that shape African urban landscapes as well as define the contours of the state. The paper suggests that as a configuration of accumulative violence such predatory security has consequences for how we should approach calls for rights to the city as well as the state in urban African orders and beyond.

Bjørn_enge_bertelsen_pressebilde_UiB_mars_2010Bjørn Enge Bertelsen, associate professor, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen, has researched issues such as state formation, violence, poverty and rural-urban connections in Mozambique since 1998. Bertelsen has published extensively internationally and is publishing the monograph Violent Becomings: State Formation, Culture and Power in Mozambique (Berghahn Books, 2016) and has co-edited the anthologies Crisis of the State: War and Social Upheaval (with Bruce Kapferer, Berghahn Books, [2009] 2012) and Navigating Colonial Orders: Norwegian Entrepreneurship in Africa and Oceania, ca. 1850 to 1950 (with Kirsten Alsaker Kjerland, Berghahn Books, 2015).

Feb
9
Tue
IMER lunch seminar series Migration responses: Cathrine Moe Thorleifsson (UiO) – Nationalist responses to the crisis in Europe: Old and New Hatreds @ Sosiologisk institutt, ground floor
Feb 9 @ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

The populist radical right has emerged as the spearhead of a larger renationalization process directed against positions of global and European integration. Based on anthropological fieldwork in the postindustrial towns of Doncaster (South Yorkshire, UK) and the Hungarian town of Ózd in 2015, the paper examines the various historical, material and socio-economic factors in the rise of Ukip (United Kindom Independence Party) and the extreme right-wing Jobbik (Movement for a Better Future).

In their politics of fear, minorities and migrants are marked as posing cultural-religious threats to communal harmony and the nation-state. Through participant observation and interviews with Ukip and Jobbik politicians and supporters, the paper examines how knowledge about ‘threatening others’ is produced, circulated and contested.

Cathrine Moe ThorleifssonDr. Cathrine Thorleifsson holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political Science (2012). Her chief theoretical interests lie in anthropological approaches to the study of nationalism, migration, borders and xenophobia.

 

Welcome! A light lunch will be served.

 

About the Seminar series:

Migration responses

Debating the current refugee crisis in Europe

The IMER Bergen Seminar series for the spring of 2016 will discuss a wide range of responses in the wake of the current migration crisis. How can the theoretical and empirical research currently being conducted on migration, ethnic relations, peace and conflict contribute to understanding the multi-faceted landscape of politics, boundaries and everyday lives of the refugee crisis?

Feb
16
Tue
Åpent møte: Lista til Listhaug @ Litteraturhuset i Bergen
Feb 16 @ 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Åpent møte: Lista til Listhaug @ Litteraturhuset i Bergen | Bergen | Hordaland | Norway

Bilde: klartale.no

Lista til Listhaug- hva betyr den egentlig?

Som svar på økninga i asylankomster presenterte innvandrings- og integreringsminister Sylvi Listhaug (FrP) i romjula en liste med forslag som skal bidra til å stramme inn asylpolitikken i Norge. IMER Bergen og CMI inviterer til debattmøte om innstramningsforslagenes praktiske konsekvenser.

Hvis lista over forslag blir gjennomført vil den gjøre Norge til et av de strengeste landene i Europa når det gjelder asyl. Forslagene inkluder innstramning i reglene om familiegjenforening, økt bruk av midlertidig opphold, krav til selvforsørgelse og krav å bestå prøver i norsk og samfunnsfag for å få permanent opphold.

For mange kan forslagene til tiltak virke abstrakte. Hva betyr egentlig innstramningsforslagene i praksis?

IMER Bergen og Christian Michelsens Institutt inviterer til et åpent arrangement der fire eksperter gir innsikt i innstramningsforslagenes praktiske konsekvenser.

Terje Einarsen (UiB): Professor i jus, ekspert på asylrett
Helga Eggebø (KUN): Doktorgrad på tema familiegjenforening
Anita Rathore (OMOD): Nestleder i Organisasjonen Mot Offentlig Diskriminering
Cecilie Hamnes Carlsen (VOX): Ekspert på norsk- og samfunnsfagstester

Marry-Anne Karlsen (IMER Bergen) leder møtet

Tid og sted: Litteraturhuset i Bergen 16. februar klokka 19:30

Seminaret er åpent for alle og gratis

Velkommen!

Åpent møte: Lista til Listhaug @ Litteraturhuset i Bergen
Feb 16 @ 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Åpent møte: Lista til Listhaug @ Litteraturhuset i Bergen | Bergen | Hordaland | Norway

Bilde: klartale.no

Lista til Listhaug- hva betyr den egentlig?

Som svar på økninga i asylankomster presenterte innvandrings- og integreringsminister Sylvi Listhaug (FrP) i romjula en liste med forslag som skal bidra til å stramme inn asylpolitikken i Norge. IMER Bergen og CMI inviterer til debattmøte om innstramningsforslagenes praktiske konsekvenser.

Hvis lista over forslag blir gjennomført vil den gjøre Norge til et av de strengeste landene i Europa når det gjelder asyl. Forslagene inkluder innstramning i reglene om familiegjenforening, økt bruk av midlertidig opphold, krav til selvforsørgelse og krav å bestå prøver i norsk og samfunnsfag for å få permanent opphold.

For mange kan forslagene til tiltak virke abstrakte. Hva betyr egentlig innstramningsforslagene i praksis?

IMER Bergen og Christian Michelsens Institutt inviterer til et åpent arrangement der fire eksperter gir innsikt i innstramningsforslagenes praktiske konsekvenser.

Terje Einarsen (UiB): Professor i jus, ekspert på asylrett
Helga Eggebø (KUN): Doktorgrad på tema familiegjenforening
Anita Rathore (OMOD): Nestleder i Organisasjonen Mot Offentlig Diskriminering
Cecilie Hamnes Carlsen (VOX): Ekspert på norsk- og samfunnsfagstester

Marry-Anne Karlsen (IMER Bergen) leder møtet

Tid og sted: Litteraturhuset i Bergen 16. februar klokka 19:30

Seminaret er åpent for alle og gratis

Velkommen!

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.

Sep
20
Thu
Lunch seminar: Managing Diversity in the City @ Sampol, 2nd floor
Sep 20 @ 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm

The city of Bergen has become increasingly ethnically diverse. Refugees have settled here, and labor migrants have come here to seek work. How does this impact the city of Bergen? What are the benefits, and what are the challenges? How does the municipality of Bergen manage this increasing diversity?

In this presentation, Sølve Sætre from the municipality of Bergen will present how the city of Bergen attempts to approach diversity. For several years, Sætre has been the main responsible for developing diversity policy at the municipality. Among other things, he has initiated a dialogue project together with the mosques in Bergen, he has been working with issues related to Roma migrants, and written the plans for diversity and inclusion. How has this approach worked?

The seminar takes place at the seminar room at the 2nd floor at Sampol, Christies gate 15, from 12.30 to 14.00 on Thursday 20th of September. A light lunch will be served at the seminar.

Welcome!

Sølve Sætre is an advisor at the Municipality of Bergen, tasked with developing diversity policy. He has a master’s degree in Comparative Politics from UiB.

Oct
18
Thu
IMER Lunch Seminar: Staying in Norway or Staying in the Closet? Sexual Orientation and Refugee Status in Norway @ Sampol, Seminar Room, 2nd Floor
Oct 18 @ 12:30 pm – 2:30 pm

If a LGBTI person can “stay in the closet” in the country of origin, should she then be denied asylum as a refugee? This is currently a thorny issue for several European countries, when facing asylum seekers who apply for protection on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. For this IMER seminar, Andrea Grønningsæter from the faculty of law at UiB will discuss how this is currently practiced in Norway.

Research has shown that that LGBTI people (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people) often face specific legal and procedural challenges when applying for refugee status. In a number of jurisdictions, including Norway, LGBTI asylum seekers have been denied refugee status with reference to the fact that they can abstain from behavior that may result in a risk of persecution. A gay person can live as a gay within the confines of the home, for example, but not on the streets – and may thus not be granted protection. It is then concluded that the requirement in refugee law of establishing a ‘well-founded fear’ of persecution is not fulfilled, because concealment will mean that the asylum seeker is not revealed to potential persecutors.

In 2012 the Norwegian Supreme Court considered the right to refugee status based on sexual orientation (Rt. 2012 s. 494). In the court’s decision it was stated that a gay person may not be required to hide their sexual orientation in the country of origin to avoid persecution. In cases where it is concluded that the asylum seeker will choose to conceal their sexual orientation, the court established a step-by-step approach for assessing whether the asylum seeker is entitled to refugee status.

For her PhD project, Grønningsæter looks at how the approach that was established by the Supreme Court in 2012 for assessing asylum cases based on sexual orientation or gender identity is interpreted by the courts and the immigration authorities. She explores how the courts and immigration authorities establish the asylum seeker’s reason for concealment, as well as how concepts such as ‘being open’ or ‘discreet’ about sexual orientation or gender identity is understood.

A light lunch will be served. Welcome!

Andrea Grønningsæter is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Law, Bergen University.

Nov
15
Thu
IMER Lunch Seminar: What does it mean to be an “active citizen” in Scandinavia? @ Sampol, Seminar Room, 2nd Floor
Nov 15 @ 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm

In current debates about multicultural societies, ideas about active citizenship sometimes play a part. The increase of ethnic, cultural and religious diversity in Scandinavia has led to integration and naturalization policies that focus on social cohesion and stress the need for a shared set of values, identities and commitment to active participation in society. What kind of engagement is seen as good and legitimate, and what kinds of engagement are seen as illegitimate? For this IMER lunch seminar, Noor Jdid from PRIO and SKOK will present insights from her PhD project, which explores active citizenship in Norway and Denmark, among both minority and majority populations. She draws on ethnographic fieldwork in five different neighbourhoods in Oslo (Tøyen, Holmlia, Røa) and Copenhagen (Østerbro, Sydhavn), consisting of 69 life history interviews and 13 focus group discussions with residents of these neighbourhoods, as well as expert interviews and participatory observation. The analysis shows that the intersection of place, gender, class and ethnicity often shapes citizens’ understandings of their own civic engagement. When determining what ‘counts’ as a legitimate and valuable contribution to society, the research participants drew gendered and racialized discursive boundaries between the public and the private spheres.

 Noor Jdid is a Doctoral Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and Center for Women’s and Gender Research (SKOK). Her PhD is part of the larger SAMKUL-project “Active Citizenship in Religiously and Culturally Diverse Societies”.