Category Archives: anthropology

IMER Seminar 21.03: The Patriarchal Management of what to keep and what to give of oneself in the Making of Lebanon’s Diasporic Modernity

Diasporic culture is the culture of Lebanese modernity. Like all modernities, it involves a splitting of the subject between a driven self and a homely self. This can be a painful split of the self, and in some instances, it can be dealt with through a splitting of the married couple rather than a splitting of the self. In this process, it is men who aim to monpolize the possession of what is worthy of being kept and what can be allowed to be given away. The paper examines ethnographically how this logic is integral to the making of diasporic culture.

Light refreshments will be served after the seminar!

 Ghassan Hage is the University of Melbourne’s Future Generation Professor of Anthropology and Social Theory and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

The event is organized by IMER, SKOK, and the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen.

Time: Thursday 21th of March 2019, 14.15 – 16.00

Place: Seminar room, 9. floor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Fosswinckels Gate 6

 

Lunch seminar 16.01: Birthday parties as a test of belonging in Norway

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. Time: 16.01, from 12.30 to 14.00.

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

Hilde Danielsen is research professor at Uni Research Rokkansenteret.

Lunch seminar 23.05: The im/mobility of Afghan migrants in Europe

What happens with Afghan migrants after they have received a negative decision on their asylum application in Norway? This is the topic of our next IMER seminar, with Halvar Andreassen Kjærre.  For several years, Kjærre has followed a group of Afghan migrants around Europe. After their asylum application was rejected in Norway, he sought them out in Italy, Greece, France, Germany, Denmark and Sweden.

This approach makes it possible to understand how various aspects of the migrant’s lives change over time, and between different places in their migration trajectories. Identity, living conditions, social status, legal status, social relations, and desires and hopes are not constant. All of this changes along with their journeys. Following mobile people over time also gives insights into their migratory tactics, and the burden that is imposed upon them by different sovereign states.

The seminar takes place at the seminar room at the ground floor of Sosiologisk institutt, Rosenberggaten 39 the 23rd of may 2017 at 12.30. A light lunch will be served.

 

IMG_7137Halvar Andreassen Kjærre is a PhD candidate at IMER Bergen / Department of social Anthropology (UiB). His main field of interest is irregular migration, asylum regimes, migration control and mobility studies. The topic of his PhD thesis is the intra-European mobility of Afghan migrants in Europe.

Lunch seminar – Times of migration: Un/documented lives in Europe

Migration has most often been studied as a spatial process – some people move from one place to another place. But recent research also points to the dimension of time as crucial to the experience of migration. Christine Jacobsen, head of the Centre for Women’s and Gender Research at UiB, is now leading the WAIT-project (Waiting for an uncertain future: The temporalities of irregular migration). This research project aims to unpack the temporalities of ‘irregular migration’. Particular attention will be paid to the socially produced condition of prolonged waiting. The project also looks into how migrants encounter, explore and resist such waiting experiences.

In this seminar Jacobsen will present the WAIT project, and also present preliminary findings from ethnographic fieldwork in Marseille. Based on this, she will offer some initial theoretical reflections on waiting, hope and uncertainty.

The seminar takes place in the Seminar Room at the Department of Sociology, Rosenberggata 39, on the 4th of April from 12.30 to 14.00.

A lunch will be served. Welcome!

Christine JacobsenChristine Jacobsen is head of the Centre for Women’s and Gender Research at UiB.

Seminar – Ordinary Icons: Public discourses, policy worlds and everyday lives

In what ways do public discourses shape everyday lives, and how can we research these connections? For this seminar, Anouk de Koning comes to IMER to present findings from fieldwork in Amersterdam and Antwerp, through the concept ‘ordinary iconic figures’. Such iconic figures can be the US “welfare queen”, white Dutch “Henk and Ingrid”, or the Belgian “Flemish Interest voter”. Such iconic figures are part and parcel of public discourses, but are also taken up in policy worlds and everyday interactions. Tracing how such figures resurface in policy practices and urban lives provides insight into the connections between public discourses and everyday lives.

Coffee and tea will be served.

20161122_154709_0447Anouk de Koning is Assistant Professor at the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies, Radboud University.

Lunch seminar 17.01: Migrant care workers in Norwegian nursing homes

It’s time for IMER’s first lunch seminar in 2017! This time, we will be joined by Mai Camilla Munkejord who will present findings from a pilot study on migrant care workers in Finnmark from 2015.

Migrant care workers are becoming increasingly numerous and important as staff members in Norwegian nursing homes. This is not least the case in rural areas such as Finnmark, where the out-migration of younger people is more pressing than in urban areas. How do the immigrant care workers experience their situation?

In her presentation, she will draw on Floya Anthias’  ‘translocational’ perspective. How do interconnections between social divisions such as gender, ethnicity, class, mobility and geography shape the experiences of the immigrant care workers?

The seminar will take place at the seminar room at the ground floor of Sosiologisk institutt, Rosenbergsgt. 39, from 12.30 to 14. A lunch will be surved.

 

Mai Camilla MunkejordMai Camilla Munkejord works as a Research professor (forsker I) at the Uni Research Rokkan Centre in Bergen and as a Professor at the Dept of Child Welfare and Social Work at UiT, the Arctic University of Norway (UiT AUN).

 

 

Booklaunch: Eksepsjonell velferd? Irregulære migranter i det norske velferdssamfunnet.

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Vi minner om at PROVIR boken Eksepsjonell velferd? Irregulære migranter i det norske velferdssamfunnet er ute i butikkene og at det blir en slippmarkering tirsdag 23. juni kl. 12.00 til 14.00 ved UNI Rokkansenteret (Nygårdsgaten 5 (6 etg), Bergen). Det vil bli forfriskninger og lett servering, og bokens redaktører vil holde korte innlegg.

Om boken: Irregulære 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.

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.

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

Monday 16th of June at 14.15 – 16.00 – UNI Rokkansenteret, Nygårdsgaten 5. Bergen, 6 etg.

personbilde_Espen_HelgesenSeveral 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, Continue reading

COMMUNICATING MIGRATION SEMINAR SERIES: Hans Lucht – The station hustle

Based on ethnogrprt_www40aphic fieldwork in Niger, this 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. Continue reading