Nando Sigona – The politics of refugee voices: representations, narratives and memories

This paper reflects on existing debates surrounding the politics of ‘refugee voices’ by examining the relationship between representations, narratives, and memories of refugees’ experiences. Drawing on literature framed by post-structuralist and critical theories, the chapter problematizes assumptions regarding the existence of ‘a refugee voice’ on the one hand, and the extent to which academic and policy discourses often fail to listen to or to hear such voices on the other. It does so by identifying different configurations of the production and consumption of emic narratives of forced migration and displacement (that is, produced by forced migrants themselves), exploring the factors shaping these narratives and the embedded power relations that permeate them. In particular, the paper explores the practices and spaces which refugees enact and embody to contest the processes which lead to the silencing and marginalization of their narratives and experiences. To do so, the chapter is divided in three main sections which in turn address different yet interlinked manifestations of the ‘refugee voice’.

Nando Sigona is a lecturer and Birmingham Fellow at the University of Birmingham. He is also Research Associate at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) and Refugee Studies Centre, both at the University of Oxford. His research interests include: statelessness, diasporas and the state; Romani politics and anti-Gypsyism; ‘illegality’ and the everyday experiences of undocumented migrant children and young people; and governance and governmentality of forced migration in the EU.
His work has appeared in a range of international academic journals, including Sociology, Social Anthropology, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Identities and Ethnic and Racial Studies. He is one of the editors of the Oxford Handbook on Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (Oxford University Press 2014),  Associate Editor of Migration Studies, a refereed journal by Oxford University Press, and co-author of Sans Papiers. The social and economic lives of undocumented migrants (Pluto Press, 2014).

Rolf Halse: Muslim characters in the television serial 24

The presentation will centre on my PhD thesis – a thesis that I according to plans will defend 7 November this year at the University of Bergen. The thesis presents an examination of the US television serial 24’s representation of Muslim characters, and it explores to what extent the perception of these characters can be determined by the cultural and ethnic belonging of the audience. The main reason for choosing to study 24 exclusively is that after 9/11 the serial played a central role in the public debate about whether Muslims are being stereotyped in US television entertainment. Hence, I will discuss whether the critics of 24 have a valid point with regards to the show’s portrayal of negative stereotypes. I will also assess to what extent the serial’s effort to introduce Muslim counter-stereotypes proved to be an adequate response to the criticism.

Rolf Halse is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, at the University of Bergen. His research interests lie in popular culture, media audiences and the politics of representation. Halse has published his work in renowned media studies journals such as Critical Studies in Television: the International Journal of TV Studies, Journal of Arab and Muslim Media Research and Nordicom Review.

Contact: Rolf Halse, Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen, Box 7802, 5020, Bergen, Norway. E-mail: rolfhalse@infomedia.uib.no

Plural policing and the safety–security nexus in urban governance

Based on a study of policy frames in urban politics in Sweden, Malmö in particular, this article discusses the safety–security nexus in urban governance. It argues that perceived safety figures as an index of order and integration, and security becomes part and parcel of an expanded cohesion agenda which chain-links criminal justice, immigration control and civic integration. The expanded cohesion agenda in urban governance involves plural urban policing enabled by partnership agreements between the police and local authorities. The article demonstrates how force-based, pre-emptive crime-fighting is intertwined with preventative empowerment programmes; the ‘will to power’ is embedded in ‘the will to empower’. The preferred solution to social problems is extended force-based policing in combination with more police involvement in ‘social’ governance. It is argued that the expanded social cohesion agenda works to ‘criminalize’ specific subpopulations by replacing ‘social’ welfare politics with crime prevention programmes. Under an expanded cohesion agenda, crime prevention has less to do with preventing people from violating the law and more to do with securing the social order. Moreover, it is argued that security politics relates to a broader urban politics aimed at nurturing prosperous diversity considered to benefit the city as a whole, at the cost of problematic difference. In conclusion the article argues that urban security politics lends itself to old welfare state structures, even as responsibility for social crime prevention is devolved ‘downwards’ and distributed across and array of agencies. The social democratic legacy – the revised welfare state – seems to offer favorable conditions for plural policing of minority groups in the city.

Randi Gressgård is professor at the Centre for Women’s and Gender Research (SKOK), and affiliated with the research unit International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER), University of Bergen. Her research interests include migration & minority studies, gender & sexuality studies and urban studies. Among her recent publications are Multicultural Dialogue: Dilemmas, Paradoxes, Conflicts (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010/2012) and ‘The power of (re)attachment in urban strategy: Interrogating the framing of social sustainability in Malmö’ (Environment and Planning A 2014, vol. 46).

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.

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.

IMER Lunch: Astrid Ouahyb Sundsbø – Social mixing policies: What You Want and What You Get

In the public debate and contemporary social policies in Norway as well as in other countries, concentrations of “immigrants” in certain areas of a city are considered to be unfortunate and something which needs to be fought against (see i.e. Gakkestad 2003; Akerhaug 2012). It is anticipated that spatial concentrations of “immigrants” enforces the social isolation of “immigrants” and triggers criminal activities, among other aspects. This becomes very obvious when a “high percentage of immigrants” in an area serves as basis for referring to that area as a “ghetto” or “insecure” (see i.e. Sæter 2005; Vassenden: 2007; cf. Akerhaug 2012).

In this lunch seminar, the idea of social mixing, which is not just common in the general public debate but also a manifested major urban policy and planning goal (Sæter & Ruud 2005; Huse, Sæter & Aniksdal 2010; cf. Musterd 2005) will be discussed. By using some illustrations both from the academic debate as well as own empirical work, it is shown that it is necessary to be critical about this concept.

It is referred to literature arguing that there is a lack of empirical evidence showing that the residential segregation of “immigrants” has any effect at all, for instance on “integration” and crime (for instance Musterd 2005; Galster 2007; Lees 2008). Furthermore, it is discussed that the imagination of social mixing as an ideal way to tackle the “multicultural challenge” might be founded on a highly problematic understanding of “immigrants“ and their norms and values as inherently “bad” (cf. Eriksen 1996: 51). This is shown by drawing on statements from interviews with members from the majority population residing in Oslo.

Astrid Ouahyb Sundsbø

Astrid Ouahyb Sundsbø (PhD) is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Georg-Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies in Berlin. She holds a doctoral degree in sociology from the Humboldt-University of Berlin (2012). From 2012-2014 she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for a Sustainable University at the University of Hamburg. Her main fields of research compromise: Social inequality, residential segregation in cities, migration and interethnic relations. Her most recent publication is Grenzziehungen in der Stadt. Ethnische Kategorien und die Wahrnehmung und Bewertung von Wohnorten (Springer VS, 2014) where it is discussed whether ethnic boundary making on the side of the majority population could be a possible explanation for the residential concentration of immigrants in Berlin and Oslo.

Lisa Kings: Contesting urban management regimes: The rise of urban justice movements in Sweden

Addressing segregation, racism and welfare transformation, a new form of grassroots mobilization among young adults is emerging in the peripheries of Swedish cities. The common denominator is that they define themselves as urban justice movements– with place as the social ground for mobilization. Witha Gramscian perspective, the article analysis the rise of urban justice movements in relation to contemporary urban policies in Sweden. We argue that Swedish urban policies during the last 20 years have created a hegemonic urban management regime underpinned by area based programs with a focus on network steering and new forms of partnership between civil society and public institutions. The emergence of urban justice movements is here understood in relation to firsthand negative experience of– and later active revulsion from– having participated in activities and issues related to the urban management regime. These experiences and the later proclaimed autonomy of the movements have been a key condition for the beginning of a broader struggle that merges local rootedness with wider structural-institutional conditionality. (co-authored by Aleksandra Ålund (Linköping University) and Nazem Tahvilzadeh (KTH Royal Institute of Technology).

LISA KINGS holds a PhD in Sociology at Søderthorn University College. Her researh interests are urban theory, social movements, inequality and everyday life.  (lisa.kings@sh.se)

Vanja Lozic: Problematizing parents, governing troubled youth

The paperfocuses on current debate on troubled youth, living in socio-economically deprived suburbs in Sweden, and particularly discourses on problems of alienation, crime, arson and anti-social behaviour among youth. In the paper, interviews with the representatives of different organisations involved in managing the youth problem are analysed. One recurring theme in the interviews is problem discourses representing the parent as a problem. Departing from Foucault´s understanding of governmentality and the formation of subjectivity, we analyse the construction of problems, problematization, and conceivable solutions, as depicted by the interviewees. The problematizations recurring in the interviews are the deficiency of urban space, dysfunctional family relations and parents as being passive and culturally different. On the basis of such problematizations the interviewees propose solutions in various ways fostering the parents to become responsible and active subjects, who have internalised current norms and values. Other central solutions emerging in the interviews are the development of various forms of communicative skills as well as a range of pre-emptive measures targeting the parents. An important conclusion in the paper is that this way of developing possible solutions to the problems of suburban youth tends to focus on the transformation of individual parents, while structural dimensions get out of focus. What appears is a desire to foster parents and thus to produce a certain kind of subject, namely an active, responsible and cooperative individual, involved in the local community. (The paper is co-authored with Magnus Dahlstedt.)

Vanja Lozic holds a PhD in history and issenior lecturer in Science of Education at Kristianstad University, Sweden. His research deals with issues in education from the perspectives of ethnicity, multiculturalism, gender, disability, youth cultures and work integrated learning. At present, he is participating in a research project “Cooperation, education and inclusion in multi-ethnic urban settings”, which concerns the connections between institutional restructuring, youth resistance and strategies for social inclusion. The aim is to investigate the measures for social inclusion within schools, local institutions and civil society actors in socioeconomically deprived areas of large cities in Sweden

Sara Kohne: The experience of change in culturally diverse urban areas. Examples from two districts in Berlin and Oslo.

During the last two decades, central inner city areas have constantly become more attractive to the middle class as places for living and leisure. It is especially because of their history and cultural diversity that these urban districts gain ”new” popularity. This development is, among other things, connected to larger processes of economic and societal change, such as globalisation and de-industrialisation, and it is often called gentrification – a process of urban transformation that results in the physical, sociocultural and economic upgrading of city districts.

In taking a qualitative oriented approach on two culturally diverse urban areas that are partly experiencing the process which has just been described, Kohne´s aim is to identify challenges and assets that are experienced by the residents living and working in such districts.

In her presentation, Kohne will present selected findings from her work with the areas Kreuzberg SO36 in Berlin and Grønland-Tøyen in Oslo. She will discuss them in a comparative context.

Sara Kohne is a PhD candidate in the discipline of Cultural Studies at the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion at the University of Bergen. Her research interests lie within the areas of cultural understandings of place, processes of change, and inequality in urban contexts.