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.

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

Seminar 15.02: Acculturation of South Asian Families in Three Diasporic Films

How are diaspora populations from South Asia portrayed in popular culture? Sándor Klapscic explores this question by looking at three autobiographical films: East is East, Bend it like Beckham, and West is West. To what extent do the characters hold on to their original culture, and to what extent do they accept the new culture and the host community’s values? Through a detailed analysis of these films, Klapscik argues that filmic analysis can help us to shed light on acculturation processes in diaspora communities.

The seminar takes place in the Seminar Room at the Department of Sociology, Rosenberggata 39, on the 15th of February from 14.15 to 16.00.

Sándor Klapcsik is assistant professor at the Technical University of Liberect. He is a guest researcher at IMER Bergen in February.

Lunch seminar 14.02: Transmission of values between generations

Are values transmitted from one generation to the other, or do they change? Are there differences between groups in how values are transmitted between generations? For this lunch seminar, Rebecca Dyer Ånensen will present findings from her PhD-project, which is part of a larger study on the transition to adulthood in Norway and the UK. The broader study looks at three-generation families, and investigates the transmission of values between these generations. Ånensen’s project adds an immigrant perspective, by investigating inter-generational value transmission in families of immigrant origin (from Pakistan and Vietnam). How does the transmission of values look in these families, and how does it compare with the transmission of values in families from majority population?

The seminar takes place at the seminar room at Sosiologisk institutt, Rosenberggata 39, from 12.30 to 14.00. A lunch will be served.

Rebecca Dyer Ånensen is a PhD candidate at the Department of Sociology, UiB.

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 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).

Lunch seminar 13.12: Studying public debate on immigration

How is immigration covered in the media? In public debates, different narratives can be found. Are the media focusing on problems and scapegoating minorities? Or are they rather painting a rosy and “politically correct” picture of migration and multicultural society? Is one of these narratives more correct than the others, or do both hold a grain of truth?

Such questions – and many more – will be explored in the ambitious new research project SCANPUB: The Immigration Issue in Scandinavian in Scandinavian Public Spheres 1970-2015. This projects attempts to describe how immigration has been discussed in Norway, Sweden and Denmark since the 70s. Futhermore, it attempts to explain why the media in the Scandinavian countries have covered this issue in different ways. For our last lunch seminar in 2016, head researcher Jostein Gripsrud is coming to IMER in order to the present the project, together with his associates Hilmar Mjelde and Jan Fredrik Hovden.

The seminar takes place in the seminar room at the ground floor of Sosiologisk Institutt, Rosenbergsgt. 39, on the 13th of December, from 12.30 to 14.00.

A lunch will be served. Welcome!

Jostein Gripsrud is professor at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies. He has led several large researched projects, and has published a wide range of books on media and culture.

IMER lunch seminar 29.11.16: Polish labor migrants and undeclared work in Norway

How does labour migration from the EU-countries affect the labor market – for example participation in undeclared work? This has become a contentious issue in public debates on intra-EU migration. Cornelius Cappelen and Ragnhild Muriaas from the Department of Comparative Politics are coming to the IMER lunch seminar to present findings from a recent study where they delve into this issue. For their study, they performed 74 qualitative interviews with Polish labor migrants in Norway. Their findings imply that the experience of living transnational lives can be a motivator for participating in undeclared work.

The seminar takes place at “Styrerommet” at Institutt for administrasjon og organisasjonsvitenskap, Christies gate 17, from 12.30 to 14.00. A light lunch will be served.

Welcome!

Bergen MigrationWeek 24-28 October

Join us for a week of migration related discussions and events in Bergen!

24 okt 16 19:30 – 28 okt 16 17:00,

Join us for a week full of events on Migration.

The week is organised by CMI, IMER, SKOK and the Faculty of Law at the University of Bergen in cooperation with Bergen Resource Centre.

The world is in a migrant crisis. Millions of people are displaced. People are fleeing war, poverty and oppression in the largest movement of peoples since WWII. The policing of the EUs outer boundary has broken down. Treaties regulating movement, work and asylum have crumbled.

In response, Europe erects new fences and introduces stricter immigration policies. What is at stake and how can it be solved?

Academics, journalist and filmmakers will meet and discuss migration challenges in panels and roundtables in the Migration week in Bergen 24-28 October.

All events are free, open to the public and represent some of the most exiting scholarship on migration aimed at the general audience.

The event is co-hosted by the International Migration and Ethnic Relations Research Unit Bergen (IMER), Centre for Women’s and Gender Research (SKOK), the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) and the Faculty of Law at the University of Bergen.

Programme

Den store flukten: Film, fakta og fiksjon

When: Monday 24 October, 19.30-21.00

Place: Litteraturhuet, Auditoriet

Presenters: Lars Petter Gallefoss (Pandora Film), Christina Pletten (Aftenposten), Frøy Gudbrandsen (BT, debattleder).

Seige systemer og ville ideer: Nytenkning på flyktninge- og integreringsfeltet

When: Tuesday 25 October, 19.30-21.00

Place: Litteraturhuet, Olav H. Hauge

Presenters: Thomas Hylland-Eriksen (UiO), OPEN Transformation, Susanne Bygnes (IMER, debattleder)

Journeys

When: Wednesday 26 October, 13.00-15.00

Place: Bergen Resource Centre for International Development

Presenters: Luigi Achilli (European University Institute), Daniela Debono (Malmö University), Sine Plambech (DIIS)

Sites

When: Thursday 27 October, 10.00-12.00

Place: Bergen Resource Centre for International Development

Presenters: Nando Sigona (University of Birmingham), Kamel Dorai (Institut français du Proche-Orient), Evthymios Papataxiarchis (University of the Aegean)

Arrivals

When: Friday 28 October, 10.00-12.00

Place: Bergen Resource Centre for International Development

Presenters: Michel Agier (EHESS), Ilse van Liempt (Utrecht University), Dallal Stevens (University of Warwick)

A more detailed programme will come soon.

Welcome!

IMER lunch seminar series: Ivar Eimhjellen om Frivillig innsats under flyktningsituasjonen 2015/2016

Ivar Eimhjellen fra UNI Rokkansenteret presenterer en fersk rapport om frivillig innsats i Norge under flyktningsituasjonen 2015/2016.

Basert på en spørreundersøkelse om frivillig innsats gjennomført før og etter de økte flyktning- og aslylankomstene høsten 2015, ser han nærmere på nordmenns bidrag i forbindelse med flyktningsituasjonen. Hvordan ble folk rekruttert, hvem bidro og hva gjorde de? Hvilken rolle spilte nye, uformelle initiativer sammenlignet med de tradisjonelle organisasjonene?

Vi møtes i 4. etasje. En lett lunsj blir servert.

Velkommen!

IMER LUNCH SEMINAR – Noor Jdid: Re-examining meanings of citizenship and participation through life experiences

CANCELLED!!! TUESDAY 23.08.2016, 1200-1330, NB!! CANCELLED EVENT!!!

A light lunch will be served

Abstract: “People are accepted, they have their citizenship, they go to school but the people that you live together with, you don’t know them”

Across Europe, participatory citizenship ideals are being promoted politically as part of a set of policy ideas within a neo-liberal as well as new center-left approach. We witness that especially in integration, immigration and social cohesion policies that emphasize a shared commitment to active participation in society.

In other words, there are in political discourse certain ideas about what active citizenship is, where it should take place, and who is expected to be active. This one-size-fits-all model of active citizenship obscures the way in which differentials in citizenship identities and experiences, whether through axes of gender, class, race or age, or even place, shape how people define and access participatory opportunities.

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

IMER lunch seminar series: Comparative study of assisted return from Norway. By Arne Strand (CMI) and Synnøve Bendixen (UiB)

Picture: refugee-action.org.uk

Comparative study of assisted return from Norway

Place: Department of Sociology, ground floor
Time: 31.05.2016, from 1200-1330

Event details here

Norway encourages assisted return for persons without legal residence permits in Norway and for those who wish to return to their country of origin. Those who apply for assisted return receive help with the application process, with transport back to their country of origin and, once returned, a cash grant and material reintegration support.

A comparative study commissioned by UDI has examined motivation for signing up to assisted return in Norway, and to what extent the returnees have succeeded in reestablishing themselves and sustain their return in their country of origin. The country cases are Afghanistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, Ethiopia and Kosovo.

Arne Strand Political Scientist focusing on peace, conflict and aid, with a particular emphasis on Afghanistan. He has a PhD in Post-war Recovery Studies where he studied coordination of humanitarian assistance in complex emergencies.

Synnøve Bendixen is Post doctoral fellow at department of Social
Anthropology,UiB. Her project: Denaturalizing difference: Challenging the production of global social inequality