PROVIR Kick-off Conference

IMER Bergen, in collaboration with the Faculty of Law, UoB and Nordic Migration Research (NMR), is organizing a 2 days kick-off conference for the research project “Provision of Welfare to ‘Irregular Migrants’” (PROVIR).

PROVIR will investigate the Norwegian welfare system’s assessment of irregular migrants’ rights and their actual social and health situation from a combined legal and social science approach, examining the complex relationship between law, institutional practice, and migrants’ lived experience.

The conference fee is Nok 400,- and includes lunch and coffee/tea both days.

The conference has a limited number of spaces. Please register as soon as possible to
Hanna Skartveit

PROGRAM:

Thursday 12 May

09:30: Welcome and introduction by Christine M. Jacobsen (IMER Bergen, Uni Rokkan Centre).

10:00-12:00: Conceptualizing Irregular Migration 
• BRIDGET ANDERSON (COMPAS): 
“A Chrysalis for Every Species of Criminal”: Illegal immigration, Benefit Scrounging and Criminality 
• TRINE LUND THOMSEN (Aalborg University): 
Reconceptualizing Irregular Migration – Between Legal Status and Social Practices

Moderator: Mette Andersson (University of Bergen)

12:00-13:15: Lunch

13:15-15:30: Rights Discourse and Vulnerability 
• KIRSTEN KETSCHER (University of Copenhagen):
Irregular Immigrants – a Challenge to Traditional Legal Concepts Embedded in the Nordic Welfare States
• ODIN LYSAKER (University of Oslo): 
Vulnerable yet Inviolable: Recognition of the Bodily Vulnerability of ‘Irregular Migrants’
• MARIT SKIVENES (Bergen University College): 
“There’s a Lot of Barriers”: How Child Protection Case Workers in the United States Deal with Service Barriers for Undocumented Immigrant Families

Moderator: Karl Harald Søvig (University of Bergen)

15:30-17:30 : PROVIR partner meeting

19:30: Conference dinner

Friday 13 May

10:00-12:00: Legal Regimes and Welfare to Irregular Migrants
• HENRIETTE ROSCAM ABBING (Emeritus Professor of Health Law):
Legal Regimes and Health Care for Irregular Migrants in the Netherlands
• KARL-HARALD SØVIG (University of Bergen): 
Regulation of Welfare to Irregular Migrants: A Multi-Level Approach

Moderator: Henriette Sinding Aasen (University of Bergen)

12:00-13.00: Lunch

13:00-15:00: External and Internal Borders of the Scandinavian Welfare State 
• VIBEKE ERICHSEN (University of Bergen):
The Noncitizen: on Political Exclusion
• SHAHRAM KHOSRAVI (Stockholm University):
‘Undan-tagna’ People: Undocumentedness in Sweden

Moderator: Synnøve Bendixsen (IMER Bergen, Uni Rokkan Centre)

Venue: Faculty of Law (Dragefjellet, Magnus Lagabøtes plass 1), Auditorium 4, Bergen. 
Date: 12-13 May 2011