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

Friday 13.03.15 12.00-13.30 @ UNI Rokkan centre, Nygårdsgaten 5, Bergen (6 etg)

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).

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Next IMER Seminar: Susanne Bygnes: Mistillitens migrasjon – Europeisk sør-nord mobilitet i kjølvannet av krisa

Tuesday 3rd March at 12.00 to 13.00 at UNI Rokkansenteret, Nygårdsgaten 5 (6 etg.), Bergen

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.

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First IMER Lunch Spring 2015

Randi Gressgård: Plural policing and the safety–security nexus in urban governance.

Tuesday 17.2. 2014 @ UNI Rokkan centre Nygårdsgaten 5, Bergen (6 etg)

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.

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IMER Seminar: Maja Janmyr – “Returnmania”, A seminar on Norway´s readmission agreements

IMER seminar in collaboration with Centre on law and social transformation (Note time: 12.15- 14.00 Tuestday 25th of November – UNI Rokkansenteret)

For Norway, deporting irregular migrants is currently among the highest political priorities, and never before have so many deportations taken place – with 7100 forced returns an all-time high is expected to be reached in 2014. In this presentation, Janmyr will discuss one of the oldest instruments used by states to control migratory flows – readmission agreements. Such agreements typically assist in overcoming bilateral difficulties by setting out reciprocal obligations on the contracting parties to facilitate the return of persons who do not fulfil the Continue reading →

Open events PROVIR conference: Film, panel discussion and presentation of research findings

Film and panel discussion on the dilemmas of mediating irregular migration

Wednesday 19^th of November @ Tegleverket, Det Akademiske Kvarter, Bergen.

18-00 to 19.30 Letter to the King portrays five people on a day trip from a refugee camp to Oslo, a welcome change in an otherwise monotonous life. But we soon realize that each and every one of them has an agenda for their trip. All five will make decisive choices on this day, as they discover happiness, humiliation, love or fulfill a long-awaited revenge. The five stories are tied together by a letter, written by eighty-three year old Mirza. Mirza wants to hand over the letter to the King personally. (Film by Hisham Zaman) Continue reading →

Communicating migration closing conference

The conference is open: No registration

The IMER seminar series for 2014 have covered how migration and ethnic relations are communicated in every-day encounters, in mass and social media, in art, in politics and in research and 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 relate to other topics and theories in the social sciences, and how do results from migration research inform public debate and policy development? What are the challenges we encounter in communicating migration? Continue reading →

IMER SEMINAR: Katrine Mellingen Bjerke: Elderly migrants in Norway

October 14th 2014, 2:15 – 4:00 pm UNI Rokkan centre, Nygårdsgaten 5, Bergen (6. etg.)
Aging of the population raises a series of different challenges for the Norwegian elderly care system. One of the challenges is related to user differentiation, that is, the understanding that services should be adapted to each user’s individual needs. Related to this emphasis on user differentiation is an increasing cultural diversity amongst the elderly population as cohorts of labour migrants and refugees that came in the 1960s and 1970s are facing old age. This necessitates more knowledge about how these elderly migrants perceive of old age, and particularly how they experience and perceive Norwegian care services. This paper addresses how elderly immigrants with a Pakistani and Polish background perceive of aging in Norway, and how they experience and relate to the Norwegian welfare and care regime. What are their expectations? How do they go about covering their assistance needs, both formally (within the public welfare system) and informally (within their family and/or the community).

Katrine Mellingen Bjerke is a PhD candidate at the Department of Sociology, at the University of Bergen. She is also associated with IMER Bergen. Her PhD project explores how elderly migrants perceive of the public elderly care services in Norway.

IMER SEMINAR: Rolf Halse: Muslim characters in the television serial 24

Rolf Halse: Muslim characters in the television serial 24

Sept 30th 2014, 2:15 – 4:00 pm Rokkan centre, Nygårdsgate 5, Bergen (6 etg)

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 Continue reading →