Expoloring Diversity Seminar Seriens Workshop

“Transnational(ism)” in IMER-research – Networks, boundaries and mobilisation.

In recent years there has been a general increase in empirical research and theoretical engagement with transnationalism and transnational networks. In regard to the field of international migration and ethnic relations, transnationalism has been hotly debated and a central concern for research. Some approaches have focussed on the more manifest, organizational aspects of relations between sending and receiving countries, such as studies of remittances, migration patterns etc. Others have focussed on phenomenological dimensions; transnational social imaginaries, the stretching of lifeworlds in time and in space. Another division is between research following a more traditional Diaspora-approach, exploring the networks and transactions between “mother”- and recipient countries, and research focussing on migrants’ “double consciousness” as a more persistent dimension in the migrant situation. Both approaches include the meaning and the politics of borders and boundaries, but in different ways. Whereas the first approach tends to centre nation and ethnicity as imperative identity-dimensions in transnational mobilisation, the second approach opens other venues for research on transnational imagination and action. This second approach is perhaps more clearly envisioned in Paul Gilroys work on the Black Atlantic. Gilroy’s transnationalism is one that looks beyond ethnicity and nation as identity-construction dimensions, and focuses on the potential transnational solidarity stemming from being reduced to the other within the nation-state framework. If the first, and traditional, transnationalism approach focuses on the positive aspects of national and ethnic identities, the second approach departs from the negative aspects of the very same identities. These different approaches can again be seen to lead to different research focuses and also to different forms of political mobilisation.

This workshop brings together scholars who work in the intersection between transnationalism research and IMER-research. The purpose is to critically discuss what is meant by the terms “transnational” and “transnationalism”, and to provide some theoretical, methodological and empirical guidelines to research. How do we distinguish between “transnational” and “postnational”, how is the conceptualisation of transnational(-ism) linked to debates in globalisation theory, and how do we incorporate material, political and cultural aspects in research on transnationalism and migration?

IMER-Bergen has at present three research projects in the field of transnationalism research. Two of these focus on transnational mobilisation among young adults of ethnic minority background, the third focuses on different forms of transnational relations and mobilities, their spatial logics and the politics of space/place.

WORKSHOP program

“Transnational(ism)” in IMER-research – Networks, boundaries and mobilisation –

Exploring Diversity SEMINAR SERIES

WORKSHOP

“Transnational(ism)” in IMER-research – Networks, boundaries and mobilisation –

In recent years there has been a general increase in empirical research and theoretical engagement with transnationalism and transnational networks. In regard to the field of international migration and ethnic relations, transnationalism has been hotly debated and a central concern for research. Some approaches have focussed on the more manifest, organizational aspects of relations between sending and receiving countries, such as studies of remittances, migration patterns etc. Others have focussed on phenomenological dimensions; transnational social imaginaries, the stretching of lifeworlds in time and in space. Another division is between research following a more traditional Diaspora-approach, exploring the networks and transactions between “mother”- and recipient countries, and research focussing on migrants’ “double consciousness” as a more persistent dimension in the migrant situation. Both approaches include the meaning and the politics of borders and boundaries, but in different ways. Whereas the first approach tends to centre nation and ethnicity as imperative identity-dimensions in transnational mobilisation, the second approach opens other venues for research on transnational imagination and action. This second approach is perhaps more clearly envisioned in Paul Gilroys work on the Black Atlantic. Gilroy’s transnationalism is one that looks beyond ethnicity and nation as identity-construction dimensions, and focuses on the potential transnational solidarity stemming from being reduced to the other within the nation-state framework. If the first, and traditional, transnationalism approach focuses on the positive aspects of national and ethnic identities, the second approach departs from the negative aspects of the very same identities. These different approaches can again be seen to lead to different research focuses and also to different forms of political mobilisation.

This workshop brings together scholars who work in the intersection between transnationalism research and IMER-research. The purpose is to critically discuss what is meant by the terms “transnational” and “transnationalism”, and to provide some theoretical, methodological and empirical guidelines to research. How do we distinguish between “transnational” and “postnational”, how is the conceptualisation of transnational(-ism) linked to debates in globalisation theory, and how do we incorporate material, political and cultural aspects in research on transnationalism and migration?

IMER-Bergen has at present three research projects in the field of transnationalism research. Two of these focus on transnational mobilisation among young adults of ethnic minority background, the third focuses on different forms of transnational relations and mobilities, their spatial logics and the politics of space/place.

Exploring Diversity SEMINAR SERIES

WORKSHOP program

“Transnational(ism)” in IMER-research – Networks, boundaries and mobilisation –

The workshop is organized by Mette Andersson, Associate Professor, Dept. of Sociology , UiB and Knut Hidle, Research Director, Agderforskning

Exploring Diversity SEMINAR SERIES

WORKSHOP

“The Crystallisation of National Identities in Contemporary Europe”

Open IMER/UiB Workshop

This workshop will deal with a trend in many European states which may be referred to with labels such as the ‘crystallisation’ of national identities or neo-nationalism.

The workshop will examine questions like: is there a particular encompassment of globalisation by the European nation-states, generating neo-nationalism or the crystallisation of national identities? Are neo-nationalism and crystallisation inherent results emanating out of emerging European state-forms influenced by globalisation? Is the historical European national diversity generating something specific European which manifests itself in these contemporary phenomena? Or are there, at the level of generation, a restructuration of political universes and modes of citizenship where neo-nationalism and/or crystallisation of national identities are concomitants? If so, which are the key structurating forces? What (new) (world) order would such neo-nationalism and/or crystallisation imply? To whom would it give more power and legitimacy?

Workshop programme :

Wednesday September 17. :
13.15 – 16.30
1. Yngve Lithman: Welcome and Introduction
2. Bruce Kapferer: Globalization and the Nation State.
3. Mette Andersson: The social imaginary of first generation Europeans.

Thursday September 18. :
09.15 – 12.15
1. Andre Gingrich: “National Identity Inc.”: Uncertainties, politics of emotions, and the fading of European visions.
2. Sigalit Ben-Zion: The problem of the crystallization of national identity in Europe in the post-multiculturalism era.
3. Yngve Lithman: Nationalism, Chrystallization: observations from Scandinavia.

13.15 -17.00
1. Christian Joppke: Changes in the conceptual of citizenship in contemporary Europe: Liberalism and the nation.
2. Elisabeth Ivarsflaten: The anti-racism norm in Western European immigration politics: Why we need to consider it and how to measure it.
3.Hakan Sicakkan: Tracing the de-crystallization of European national identities: humanitarian sovereignty sharing, alternative public spaces and invented belongings.

WORKSHOP

Migration in Nordic societies: Recent perspectives

The workshop is organised as a collaboration between IMER Bergen and the Department of Sociology, UiB. It is open for all interested researchers and students.

Program:

09.00: Welcome by Lise Widding Isaksen (Dept. of Sociology, UiB).
09.15: Helle Stenum (Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen): “Bane and Boon, Gains and pains; Dos and Don’ts. Moral economy and flexible citizens in au pair migration”.
09.45: Coffee break.
10.00:  Lise Widding Isaksen (Dept. of Sociology, UiB): “Domestic Workers and Political Agency”.
10.30:  Mariya Bikova (Dept. of Sociology, UiB): “Au pair Migration Norway – Philippines”.
11.00: Discussion. Discussant: Christine M. Jacobsen (IMER Bergen and Dept. of Social Anthropology, UiB).

12.00 – 13.00: Lunch break.

13.00: Anna Gavanas (Institute for Future Studies, Stockholm): “Migration, in/formalization and the expanding domestic service sector in Sweden”.
13.30: Vera Galindabaeva (European University, St. Petersburg): “The Effects of Rural-Urban Migration on Transformation of Child Care Arrangemenst in Buryat Rural Families in Post-Soviet Russia”.
14.00: Coffee break.
14.15: Synnøve Bendixsen (IMER Bergen and Uni Rokkan Centre): Ethiopian Irregular Migrants’ demonstration in Oslo Cathedral.
14.45 -15.30: Discussion. Discussant: Lise Widding Isaksen (Dept. of Sociology, UiB).

Friday 7 October, 09.00-15.30.
Faculty of Law, Seminar room 1, Magnus Lagabøtesplass 1.

WORKSHOP POSTER

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.

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.

Hans 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.

Sans-papiers into workers: how historic strikes changed the public face of undocuemented migrants in France

From 2008 to 2010, with the support of a coalition of trade unions and immigrant rights groups under the leadership of the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), thousands of France’s undocumented migrant workers conducted strikes and occupied their workplaces, demanding that their employers sponsor their regulatisation applications. Unheard of in French migration and labour history, the mobilization was based on a recent change in legislation allowing employers to solicit the regularisation of a migrant by providing a formal job offer. While the French government’s original intent was to make access to legal status contingent on employer decision alone, union action broadened its scope by bringing the whole employment relationship into the process, including the stakeholders and labour rights built into it by decades of social struggles, such as the right to strike and the right for striking workers to occupy their company without police intrusion. Based on three years of extensive participant observation and more than a hundred in-depth interviews with migrant workers, union and civil rights organization staff and activists, employers in the restaurant, cleaning, temporary staffing and construction industries, and French national and local government officials, our paper considers the strategic challenges encountered by this innovative movement which broke simultaneously with the more traditional repertoires of both French trade unions and the ‘sans-papiers’ movements of the preceding decade.

Related to the topic Chavin has also worked on a documentary film that he will bring with him:
http://www.vezfilm.org/comingforavisit/
http://vimeo.com/53048336

Sébastien Chauvin is assistant professor of Sociology at the the University of Amsterdam and a researcher at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science
Research. He was a visiting lecturer at the University of Chicago from 2003 to 2006 and a
lecturer in sociology at the Université Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne from 2006 to 2008. He
conducted in-depth ethnographic fieldwork with mostly undocumented Hispanic immigrant
day laborers in the Chicago region, including the staffing industry that employed them, and
the social movements in which they mobilized, as part of his PhD dissertation (EHESS Paris,
2007). Since late 2007, he has been working on a collective study exploring the labor market
experience and following the union-supported mobilization of undocumented immigrant
workers in France. His main research deals with the relationship between civic inequality and
precarious work. He also keeps an active interest in gender and sexuality studies, social capital
and the sociology of elites, social theory, and the sociology of knowledge. He is the author
of a number of articles and book chapters, as well as Les agences de la précarité. Journaliers à Chicago (Paris: Le Seuil, 2010), Introduction aux études sur le genre (with L. Bereni, A. Jaunait, and A.Revillard ; Brussels : De Boeck, 2012, 2nd edition), and On bosse ici, on reste ici: La grève des sans-papiers: une aventure inédite (with P. Barron, A. Bory, N. Jounin, and L. Tourette ; Paris : La découverte, 2011).

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.

Note: Venue has changed: Anthropology, not Rokkansenteret.

OUT-reach! – Kommunikasjon av «frivillig retur» til irregulære migranter i Norge.

Hvordan kan en stat på best mulig måte gi informasjon om ”frivillig retur” til irregulære migranter? Bør ikke-statlige organisasjoner delta i denne oppgaven, eller vil det å påta seg slike oppgaver undergrave andre funksjoner disse organisasjonene har? Hvordan kommuniseres frivillig retur i dag, og finnes det alternative bedre måter å gjøre dette på?

”Frivillig retur” har fått sterk kritikk av forskere, migranter og organisasjoner for at deltagelse i slike program ofte mangler nettopp det frivillige elementet. Innen forskningen har ‘frivillig retur’ blitt sett som tett knyttet opp til tvangsretur, deportasjon og institusjoner som opprettholder statens grenser. I et slikt perspektiv blir tilbud om «frivillig retur” gjerne sett på som ikke mer enn en mildere variant av tvangsretur og i beste fall en form for obligatorisk retur. «Frivillig retur» er altså tett knyttet opp mot mye av elementer som ikke-statlige organisasjoner ofte har stilt seg kritiske til. Hva er da rasjonale som ligger bak at ulike ikke-statlige hjelpe- og advocacyorganisasjoner eller ulike diaspora- og migrantorganisasjoner tar på seg ansvaret for å formidle ”frivillig retur”? Og på den annen side, er overnevnte årsaker den eneste grunnen til at enkelte organisasjoner ikke velger å gi slik informasjon?

Basert på forskning tilknyttet en kommende UDI rapport i regi av Uni Rokkansenteret vedrørende informasjon om ”frivillig retur” til irregulære migranter utenfor mottak i Norge utforsker Bendixen og Kjærre det etiske og moralske grenselandet som er konteksten for informasjon om frivillig retur, hvordan ulike aktører stiller seg til slikt informasjonsarbeid, og til slutt hvordan de irregulære migrantene selv ser på denne informasjonen i lys av deres livssituasjon i Norge.

Synnøve Kristine Nepstad Bendixsen er postdoktor ved sosial antropologisk institutt i Bergen, og forsker på Uni Rokkansenteret hvor hun er tilknyttet prosjektet Provision of Welfare to Irregular Migrants (PROVIR). Hun har tidligere studert på London Scool of Economics og har en PhD fra Humboldt universitetet (Berlin) og Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris). Hennes forskningsfelt er religiøsitetsutforming blant unge Muslimer i Berlin, samt flere forskningsprosjekter innen tema returmigrasjon og irregulær migrasjon, og hun har flere publikasjoner innen disse feltene.

Halvar Andreassen Kjærre er PhD stipendiat ved IMER/Sosialantropologisk institutt i Bergen og har publisert artikler og deltatt på flere forskningsprosjekter innen temaet irregulær/illegalisert migrasjon. Han er også tilknyttet prosjektet PROVIR og jobber for tiden med sin PhD om mobilitet blant irregulære migranter i Schengen/Europa. Tidligere prosjekter har vært ved NTNU samfunnsforskning i Trondheim, Sosiologisk institutt i Oslo, og han jobber nå sammen med Synnøve på overnevnt prosjekt ved Uni Rokkansenteret.