Calendar

Oct
22
Fri
RANDI GRESSGÅRD – MULTICULTURAL DIALOGUE. DILEMMAS, PARADOXES, CONFLICTS @ Det Akademiske Kvarter, Teglverket
Oct 22 @ 12:15 pm – 4:00 pm

GressgardMulticulturalAs 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…

 

Jan
21
Fri
JACOBSEN, OTTERBECK AND BENDIXEN – RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS AND MUSLIM YOUTH IN EUROPE @ Uni Rokkansenteret, Nygårdsgaten 5, 6. etg (5th Floor)
Jan 21 @ 1:15 pm – 4:00 pm

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)

SEMINAR POSTER

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

Apr
7
Mon
COMMUNICATION MIGRATION SEMINARS: IDA TOLGENSBAKK – Swedish migrants in Norwegian media and popular culture @ UNI Rokkansenteret 6 etg (5th floor)
Apr 7 @ 2:15 pm – 4:00 pm

Ida Tolgensbakk – Swedish migrants in Norwegian media and popular culture

In this seminar Ida Tolgensbakk will present some findings from her PhD research on young, Swedish labor migrants in Oslo. In everyday encounters in Norway, the young Swedes are identified as such primarily through linguistic characteristics, and not for instance skin color, phenotype, or dress. That is, they are audible rather than visible migrants. Tolgensbakk will discuss what kind of consequences this has on the lives of the young Swedes, as well as look into the related questions of how the young Swedes are presented in Norwegian media and popular culture.

Ida Tolgensbakkida-vdeld150

Department of cultural studies and oriental languages, UiO. Ida Tolgensbakk has a master in folklore studies from 2005 (on national identity in the Faroe Islands). She worked three years at the Norwegian Institute of Local history, mainly focusing on migrant’s life stories. She is now studying young, Swedish labor migrants moving to Oslo. Her research is based on life story interviews, fieldwork on a Facebook group, and texts from popular culture and the media.

Read more here: http://www.hf.uio.no/ikos/english/people/aca/idatol/

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.

Apr
30
Wed
HANS LUCHT – The Station Hustle: Ghanian Migration Brokerage in a Disjointed World
Apr 30 @ 1:15 pm – 3:00 pm

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Niger, Hans Lucht discusses how stranded migrants have become facilitators of the very journey they have failed to make themselves. These connection men, or ‘pushers’ as they say themselves, are now key actors in high-risk migration across the Sahara Desert via Libya to Europe. They have somehow turned all their misfortunes into a form of capital, while awaiting a new chance to go to Europe.

prt_www40Hans Lucht is a senior researcher and journalist at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) in Copenhagen. He holds a PhD in anthropology from the Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen. His book on undocumented migration from West Africa to Europe (“Darkness before Daybreak – African Migrants Living on the Margins in Southern Italy Today”) won the 2012 Elliott P. Skinner Book Award from the Association for Africanist Anthropology.

Seminar is held in cooperation between the Institute of Social anthropology and IMER BErgen.