Conference:

“Providing care in a globalising world: the role of markets and migration “

Time:	October 26 2009, 09.00-17.00
Place:	Aula Svea, Sveavägen 160, Department of Social Work, Stockholm

The conference Providing care in a globalising world: the role of markets and migration will look at the political and social economy of care in Sweden, Finland, Australia, Canada and the UK. The conference takes place in Stockholm, on October 26 2009.

This conference will focus on the roles of markets and migration in shaping the provision, funding, regulation and distribution of formal and informal care. It will situate recent developments in the Nordic and liberal welfare states in a broader international context, taking into account the increased movement of people (especially women) around the world and the ever-growing emphasis on private markets. Speakers will analyse similarities and differences between countries within and between welfare regimes as well as between different areas of care (child care, disability care and elder care).

At the conference, an interdisciplinary, international research team will explore contemporary trends in the political and social economy of care, including child care, elder care and disability care. These scholars are drawn from the disciplines of sociology, social policy, social work, political science and economics, and have all established international reputations for scholarly, policy-focused research and a keen interest in social policy in the Nordic countries.

The conference is open to researchers, students, policy makers and others interested in comparative perspectives on gender issues and care policies. The conference is free of charge but it is required to register before October 18 by sending an email with your name and affiliation to pasec@socarb.su.se

Organizers: the Nordic Centre of Excellence REASSESS (Reassessing the Nordic Welfare Model) together with Stockholm University, Department of Social Work and University of New South Wales, Social Policy Research Centre

Confirmed speakers:

Professor Anneli Anttonen, University of Tampere
Associate Professor Christina Bergqvist, Uppsala University
Professor Deborah Brennan, Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney
Professor Bettina Cass, Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney
Professor Sue Himmelweit, Open University, Milton Keynes
Professor Barbara Hobson, Stockholm University
Associate Professor Teppo Kröger, University of Jyväskylä
Professor Rianne Mahon, Carleton University, Ottawa
Professor Sonya Michel, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington
Professor Ito Peng, University of Toronto
PhD Tine Rostgaard, SFI – The Danish National Centre for Social Research, Copenhagen
Professor Marta Szebehely, Stockholm University
Professor Kari Wærness, University of Bergen
Professor Fiona Williams, University of Leeds
Professor Sue Yeandle, University of Leeds

More information

A PhD course, “Care of older people: comparative perspectives on policies, practices and outcomes”, will be arranged in connection with the conference. More information

CULCOM: Invitasjon til konferanse:

“Statsborgerseremonier i et komparativt perspektiv”

Tid:	19 oktober, 2010
Sted:	Oslo

Velkommen til konferansen “Statsborgarseremoniar i eit komparativt perspektiv”.

Bakgrunn og målsetning: Norge innførte i 2007 ein frivillig statsborgarseremoni. Ulike former for statsborgarseremoniar blir praktisert i mange land, men så langt er det publisert lite forsking om dette fenomenet. I Norden er det no fleire forskarar som arbeider med dette temaet gjennom feltstudier av seremoniar i dei nordiske landa, Australia, Storbritannia og USA. Målsetningen for denne konferansen er å presentere resultat frå denne forskinga og sette dei inn i ein komparativt kontekst. Vi vil også drøfte seremoniane i forhold til innvandringspolitiske problemstillingar og syn på statsborgarskap og integrasjon.

Nærmere informasjon om innhold og program her

NB! Konferansen krever påmelding. Påmelding foregår etter “førstemann til mølla”-prinsippet. Nærmere informasjon om påmelding finner du her

Arrangører: UiOs strategiske forskningsprogram Kulturell kompleksitet i det nye Norge (CULCOM) og Arbeids- og inkluderingsdepartementet (AID)

Konferansen er gratis

Gothenburg Research on Asylum-seeking Children in Europe (GRACE) konferens:

“Asylsökande barns välfärd, hälsa och välbefinnande”

Tid:	7-8 december 2009
Sted:	Nordiska högskolan för folkhälsovetenskap, Nya Varvet, Göteborg

Konferensen utgår ifrån resultat från ett av Europeiska Flyktingfonden finansierat mångvetenskapligt forskningsprojekt om hur man kan förbättra asylmottagande och asylprocessen för barn och föräldrar i Sverige. Barnens och föräldrarnas beskrivningar av sina vardagsliv, skola, hälsa och välbefinnande lyfts fram ur olika perspektiv och de salutogena aspekterna betonas. Strukturer i asylsystemet och dess aktörer samt nationella och internationella regelverk vad gäller människor med flyktingbakgrund presenteras. Hur fungerar lagar och regler utifrån asylsökande barns och föräldrars behov? Hur upplever de asylsökande möten med olika personer och situationer i vardagsmiljön? Vilka faktorer befrämjar välbefinnande och välfärd och vilka kan verka nedbrytande under väntan på besked om framtiden? Hur kan vi stödja barn som befinner sig i asylprocessen?

Konferensen vänder sig till beslutsfattare, forskare och andra som i sitt arbete möter frågor som rör barn och familjer i asylprocessen.

Arrangör: Centrum för Europaforskning vid Göteborgs Universitet (CERGU) i samarbete med Nordiska Högskolan för Folkhälsovetenskap

Föreläsare:
* Charles Watters, Director of the European Centre for the Study of Migration and Social Care, Kent, UK
* Ulla Björnberg, Sociologiska institutionen, Göteborgs Universitet
* Henry Ascher, Migration och Hälsa, Nordiska Högskolan för Folkhälsovetenskap
* Hans E. Andersson, Institutionen för samhällsvetenskaper, Statsvetenskap, Södertörns Högskola
* Marita Eastmond, Socialantropologiska institutionen, Göteborgs Universitet
* Helena Holgersson, Sociologiska institutionen, Göteborgs Universitet
* Lotta Mellander, Avdelningen för Pediatrik, Sahlgrenska Akademin, Göteborgs Universitet
* Lisa Ottosson, Migration och Hälsa, Nordiska Högskolan för Folkhälsovetenskap
* Malin Svensson, Migration och Hälsa, Nordiska Högskolan för Folkhälsovetenskap
* Live Stretmo, Sociologiska institutionen, Göteborgs Universitet
* Mirzet Tursunovic, Sociologiska institutionen, Göteborgs Universitet

Anmälan senast 25. november 2009 via hemsidan

UDI:

Utlysning av nye forskningsmidler på www.doffin.no

Utlendingsdirektoratet ønsker å informere om at vi lyser ut i disse dager nye midler til et prosjekt om retur arbeid på www.doffin.no

En historisk gjennomgang og analyse av arbeidet med frivillig retur (i Norge) fra 2000 fram til i dag.

Frist for å levere anbud er midten av oktober.

Se utlysningen

Spørsmål om utlysningen kan rettes til Kate Chapman

Call for papers :

Between Recruitment, Integration and Return – Labour Migrants in the Federal Republic of Germany since the late 1950s

Time:	March 29.- 30. 2010
Place:	Nuremberg, Germany

Symposium on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the recruitment agreements with Spain and Greece.

Call for Papers

I. Background

The German-Spanish and the German-Greek recruitment agreements were
signed fifty years ago on 29/30 March 2010. They came after the first
such agreement between the Federal Republic and Italy in 1955 and led to
the conclusion of a series of other such labour recruitment agreements,
particularly with countries around the Mediterranean (Turkey 1961,
Morocco 1963, Portugal 1964, Tunisia 1965, Yugoslavia 1968). Between
1961 and 1973, the year in which official recruitment efforts were
stopped, roughly 14 million migrants from the “recruitment” countries
came to the Federal Republic of Germany; 11 million left it again to
return to their home countries. After the Federal Republic had stopped
looking for labour migrants, the German Democratic Republic started to
recruit so-called “contract workers”, albeit at a much smaller scale.
Since the beginning of the 1970s the GDR turned largely to European
COMECON member states as well as to Algeria, Cuba, Mozambique, Vietnam,
Mongolia, Angola and China.

In the 1970s and 1980s foreign workers’ recruitment and arrival in the
Federal Republic was the subject of “foreigners studies”
(“Ausländerforschung”) which had mostly a sociological or educational
studies focus. Since the 1990s historians have increasingly become
interested in the subject. By now, numerous results are available for a
broad range of topics – starting from the reasons for migration, going
on to political discussions on different types of recruitment and local
or regional consequences of migration and ending with the life-changing
experiences of migrants during the arrival and integration process.
The anniversary of the 1960 recruitment agreements is a good occasion to
bundle the results of the existing studies on labour migration to the
Federal Republic of Germany and to formulate new questions. At the
occasion of the 50th anniversary of the German-Italian recruitment
agreement an impressive range of conclusions was presented via a number
of exhibitions, conferences and book publications. However, historical
research has grown strongly again in the last few years. That is why the
research department of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees in
Nuremberg, the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural
Studies (IMIS) at the University of Osnabrück and the Departamento de
Historia Contemporánea of the Universidad Complutense in Madrid will
provide a new, international forum for discussions on 29/30 March 2010
in Nuremberg.

II. Topics

The aim of the symposium is to bundle the results of research on
different aspects of labour migration to the Federal Republic of
Germany. This includes topics such as
1 the political negotiations between the Federal Republic and the
different recruitment countries, the administrative implementation of
the agreements,
2 the effects of the recruitment on the labour markets in both Germany
and the recruitment countries,
3 the establishment and the effects of migration networks,
4 aspects of social and workplace integration, return and its economic,
social, political and cultural effects in the countries of origin and
for the migration networks.

Studies on the different countries of origin and comparative research
are very welcome, as are papers which analyse the historical events with
a view to current developments. Contributions which deal with contract
workers in the GDR are highly appreciated as well.

The symposium will be held in German and English. A conference volume
with key contributions shall be published.

III. Deadline and contact data
All interested participants are asked to present by 15 November 2009 a
proposal in German or English (max. 3,000 characters excl. spaces),
which gives a short overview of the topic, the reasoning and the
results. You will receive a reply by 30 November 2009.

Please e-mail your proposals to the organisers of the symposium:

Dr. Axel Kreienbrink, Federal Office for Migration and Refugees
More info

Prof. Dr. Jochen Oltmer, Universität Osnabrück, Institut für Migrationsforschung und Interkulturelle Studien (IMIS)
More info

Dr. Carlos Sanz Díaz, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
More info

Deadline for proposals: 15 november 2009

(University of Sunderland) Call for papers:

“Postcolonialism and Islam”

Time:	16 April 2010 – 17 April 2010
Place:	University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK

The Northern Association for Postcolonial Studies (NAPS) and The Sunderland-Nizwa Centre for Anglo-Arab and Muslim Writing are inviting abstracts and expressions of interest for a conference to be held at the University of Sunderland, UK, 16-17 April 2010.

Postcolonialism and Islam are two terms that frequently appear in tandem, however, the relationship between the two and the question of their compatibility has not been extensively investigated. The speed and intensity of the changes characteristic of late modernity under the pressures of cultural and economic globalisation has traumatised Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Hybrid identity formations, very often provisional, are generated in the articulations of difference marked by imaginary relations to faith, nation, class, gender, sexuality and language. Postcolonialism might seem to provide a framework for approaching the experiences of not only formerly colonized subjects but émigrés, exiles and expatriates and their host societies.
However, Muslim writers and intellectuals have both adopted and rejected postcolonial theory as an effective tool for analysing and accounting for the experience of Muslims in the modern world.

This multidisciplinary conference will be relevant to specialists in postcolonial theory, and cultural, historical, political, sociological, literary, and religious studies who seek to problematise both the terms themselves and their juxtaposition. It will mainly focus on these six main themes:

– Muslim identity and its connection to race, cultural politics, integration – The experience of Muslim communities in Britain and elsewhere in the West particularly as representative site(s) of settlement, networking and diasporic mobility
– Terms such as multiculturalism, citizenship, secularism, ethnicity – The way in which Muslim culture(s) become(s) embedded in and thematised by Muslim and non-Muslim writers in English and other literatures in translation – The connection between Muslim women and the activities of western orientalism – The conditions and possibility of ‘Islamic’ feminism; its response to the way in which Muslim women have often been represented and theorised according to western, Christian and white feminist versions of female experience

Other related topics will also be considered. The intention is to publish an edited volume based on the theme of the conference to which a selection of participants will be invited to contribute.

Confirmed Keynote speakers so far include:

– Dr. Tahir Abbas, FRSA, currently principle analyst at Deen International – Prof. Ceri Peach, Emeritus Professor and Research Associate at the Oxford School of Geography – Prof. Patrick Williams, Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies, Nottingham Trent

Deadline for submission of papers: 30 October 2009

If you wish to present a paper, please submit a proposal (maximum 300 words) by the due date to the conference organizers: Dr. Sarah Hackett or Dr. Geoff Nash, Faculty of Education, University of Sunderland, UK.

More information

University of Avignon:

“Cultural Minorities: Expressions and Territories”

Time:	10-12 June, 2010
Place:	University of Avignon, France

On 10-12 June 2010, the University of Avignon will be hosting a multidisciplinary colloquium on “Cultural Minorities: Expressions and Territories”, focusing on cultural minorities and their manifestations in Canada.

Cultural minorities are groups that explicitly set themselves apart from the dominant majority culture, thanks to their attitudes, their modes of action and expression and the way they choose to present themselves publicly. The question is whether they fall within the scope of larger international movements. To what extent can they be considered as specifically Canadian? What are their links with similar groups in Europe and the United States, for example? Are they nourished by elements from traditional/indigenous cultures, and, if so, can they give them a new lease of life? Do they give rise to specific stances on identity? Minorities express themselves through different art forms, notably through music and the visual arts, but also through literature and theatre, the latter being a particular focus of the conference.

What are the different languages in which they express themselves, what are their codes, their distinguishing features, their affiliations? What is the history of such groups and what are their claims? How are they seen by the dominant culture through the media and within public space? Are they tolerated, encouraged, recuperated? Are they subject to limitations imposed on them? Are they confined to certain territories, connected to certain social spaces or even to specific ethnic groups? Papers may be given in English or in French.

Deadline for submission of abstracts (150 words maximum) is 31 October 2009.
Please send enquiries and proposals for papers to patrice.brasseur@univ-avignon.fr.

More information

Call for Papers:

Megacities / Urban Subjects: Geographies of Knowledge and Spatial Forms in the Global South

The Center for Back Diaspora (DePaul U.) and WISER – Wits Institute for
Social and Economic Research (University of Witwatersrand, South Africa)

This year marks the 15th year of the publication of Robert Kaplan’s
influential essay “The Coming Anarchy” in the Atlantic Monthly (1994)
which provided a terrifying portrait of megacities in Africa, Asia and
Latin America where chaos has become the order of the day. Borrowing an
image from Thomas Fraser Homer-Dixon, Kaplan positioned his Western
readers as passengers in a comfortable limousine cruising the streets of
the megacities of the South filled with the wretched poor and violent
criminals resembling the Victorian cities of the 19th century. In his
view, these allegedly dangerous classes pose a serious threat not only
to those who are inside the limousine, but also to the millions of
middle and upper classes in North America, Europe and pacific Rim.
Kaplan warned his readers that “. a rundown and overcrowded planet of
skinhead Cossacks and juju warriors, influenced by the worst refuse of
western pop culture and ancient tribal hatreds” are going to destroy
Western civilization. This dystopian vision of the “Coming Anarchy” is
repeated by other writers who claimed that the dawn of a new post- cold
war era was leading to “Clash of Civilizations” (Samuel Huntington,
1993) and the “End of History” (Francis Fukuyama 1992). In this
arrestingly simplistic and nightmarish vision, the social, environmental
and political crises facing the globe in the new millennium will gestate
and mature in the megacities of the South (Mike Davis 2004).

In the contemporary context of global neoliberalism, the megacities of
the South face new challenges characterized by stymied urban economic
development, unprecedented urban poverty, crumbling infrastructure,
massive rural to urban migration, environmental degradation and bitter
social and ethnic strife of varying intensity and state violence
directed to control massive social movements struggling for the “right
to the city”(UN 2002). They also face a range of problems associated
with externally imposed schemes of structural adjustment programs,
privatization of state-owned industries, rising urban unemployment, and
withdrawal of the state from already limited and circumscribed social
welfare functions and provisions of basic infrastructure and services.
Despite the proliferation of a considerable number of descriptive
accounts and dystopian narratives of megacities of the South, they
remain under theorized.

We are interested in papers that address the following topics and themes:

. Floating Lives and Urban livelihoods

The phenomenon of informal urbanization has been the single most
pervasive element in the production of megacities of the South. Large
scale migration fueled by rural poverty, economic insecurities, agrarian
crisis, draught, war and political conflicts, and the physical violence
of the state have swelled the ranks of already over burdened
postcolonial cities. Unable to find shelter, work and livelihood, many
of the new migrants join millions of squatter settlers and the urban
poor in the informal settlements to fashion a social and material world
beyond the logics of the postcolonial city. The imposition of neoliberal
policies through the state has led to a proliferation of ingenious local
responses of survival strategies among a wide section of the urban
population. We invite papers that examine the floating lives of the
urban poor and urban livelihoods in the informal settlements of
megacities of the South which are connected to political upheavals,
economic deregulations and migratory movements.

. Spaces of Consumption and Exclusion

In the last three decades, megacities in the South have witnessed major
a transformation as a result of their further integration into the
global economy through neoliberalism, resulting in a new form of
urbanism characterized both by spatial fragmentation and disaggregation
into separate “micro-worlds” where hyper-consumption, crime, segregation
and social exclusion are recasting the urban cultural fabric and
reordering everyday life. We invite papers which focus on the city as a
site for the intersection of global networks, hyper-consumption
practices and social exclusion.

. Urban Restructuring

In recent decades, megacities of the South have played a crucial role in
the rescaling of the state and the decentralization of government
apparatuses under the direction of the World Bank and IMF as part of the
broader strategy to rejuvenate the productive capacity of the market and
reduce the role of the state. New set of rules were imposed across a
broad range of megacities to remove institutional constraints, legal
barriers, state control apparatuses as a condition to make the market
function efficiently through deregulation, privatization,
decentralization and increase urban productivity and efficiency. We
invite papers that examine the role of the state and its various agents
in the spatial restructuring of megacities ostensibly and the recasting
of the state-civic society relations.

. Contesting the City

The imposition of neoliberalism has given rise to a multitude of urban
social movements in the megacities of the South, challenging the “rule
of law” regarding private property by squatters, poor peoples’ movements
and others. We invite papers that explore the multitude of ways in which
popular groups contest the city.

Abstracts should be 400-500 words in length. Authors should send their
material with the abstract attached as a Word document. Please be sure
to include the following: full name, university affiliation, and the
title of your abstract.

Abstracts and quires should be sent to Fassil Demissie

Deadlines: submission of abstracts: October 30, 2009.
Authors of accepted proposals will be asked to submit articles in final form by April 30, 2010.

Papers will be published in Journal of Developing Societies (March 2011)

CALL FOR PAPERS:

“The Enigma of the Homeland”

Editors Catherine Gomes & Olivia Guntarik from RMIT University, Australia invites contributions for an edited collection of reflective essays, creative writings and poems that reflect on the meaning of home.

The notion of ‘the homeland’ connotes soothing images of a place deeply rooted in the past. It can refer to the nation as a ‘home’ or a domestic space through the use of familial tropes. The homeland is inextricably tied to the discourse of diaspora and exile – and to ideas of loss, longing and nostalgia. The homeland is one’s birthplace, one that you were uprooted from and perhaps still desired, but could never truly return. Salman Rushdie writes about the idea of ‘imaginary homelands’ to evoke the concept of home in terms of displacement and its instability. Homeland also implies a complex historical connection, a shared memory of the past tied to the land itself. Indigenous cultural knowledge, for instance, often emphasizes a relationship with place and the ancestral beings that created it.

The homeland is an enigma and has become a fluid concept which is not necessarily exclusively associated with country of birth due to the transnational movements of people. Such movements of individuals occur for a variety of reasons that include work, business, lifestyle, study, family, trauma, humanitarian and human rights. Both permanent and temporary migrants have been subject to a wealth of experience that confuses the concept of ‘home’. The fluidity of the concept of home usually lies with the experiences of the migrant both in the home and host country. Some migrants are forced to leave their birth countries because of personal or national trauma (eg. human rights violations, politics, war and natural disasters), while others leave out of choice and for less traumatic reasons (eg. lifestyle, work, study and family). While some migrants settle in their host countries with minimal discomfort, others encounter challenges in settlement such as hostility and suspicion. Some migrants more easily integrate into their host society by perhaps assimilating into already established ethnic or cultural communities. Others find assimilation more difficult because of the lack of community support. However, joining an established ethnic or cultural community can also result in less assimilation into the wider community, therefore creating a dissonance in the concept of home for the migrant.

These different notions of home and homeland constitute salient and evocative spatial metaphors, illustrating the ways our lexicon can produce a range of meanings, interpretations and political uses around these concepts. While such ideas and tropes remain pertinent, the extent to which the homeland provokes counter discourses around deterritorialisation, displacement, dispossession, travel, migration and mobility, remain less certain. Such uncertainty invites an urgent call to re-evaluate the meanings attached to the concept of the homeland or what constitutes ‘home’ for people today.

This collection aims to highlight the often ignored intersections between issues of home and host country, the foreign and the familiar, and imaginary and concrete homelands. State-centred views of what constitutes the homeland continue to dominate, but what is apparent is that these limit our perspectives to understanding the connections between home, citizenship, displacement, migration, belonging and identity.

We invite reflective essays, which may address questions such as the following in order to develop new perspectives on concepts of home and homeland:

* What are the cultural connotations and semantic implications of the word ‘homeland’?
*In what ways is the concept of ‘the homeland’ an enigma?
*What does it mean to think of our respective nations/countries of citizenship or birthplaces in the current context of mobility and flux?
* What does it mean to desire a lost homeland?
* In what ways does homeland embody a sense of nostalgia?
*In what ways does the homeland provide a new paradigm of national identity?
*What does homeland mean when it is threatened or destroyed by military occupation, invasion, war, genocide, terrorism or natural disaster?
*In what ways has travel shaped new ideas about ‘self’ and ‘home’?
*If dispossessed people share pasts that are fragmented, is a classical notion of ‘home’ necessary to sustain who they are?
*Where is there room for migrants in the space of the homeland as a site of indigenous origins or ethnic homogeneity?
*How do migrants find inclusion in the homeland? How are they excluded from the discourses of homeland?
*How do migrants and their families identify with their adopted homeland, even if they relocate their homelands elsewhere?
*What does it mean to go back and forth between two homes?
*How have indigenous, migrant, refugee or settler communities conceptualised the notion of homeland?

We also encourage a variety of types of contributions, including creative submissions, such as storytelling, poems and other alternative formats. Creative submissions may include reflections on the above or following questions:

*What is the meaning of home?
*Is home associated with the birth country or is it associated with the place of settlement?
*What does it mean to return home?
*What does it mean to live in exile?
*What are your experiences when you return home?
*What does it mean to be connected to different cultural spaces?
*What are the experiences that you face in terms of identity and belonging when you return to your birth country?
*Can you identify with the culture of the place that you left upon returning?
*Why leave or choose not to leave home?
*Why return or choose not to return home?

A 300-word abstract for academic papers, along with a short biography, should be sent by 30 November 2009 to Catherine Gomes

Please send all completed submissions by 1 June 2010.

Publications:

*Betts, Alexander(2009)Forced Migration and Global Politics .Wiley-Blackwell

More information

*Davies, John (2009) ‘My Name Is Not Natasha’ How Albanian Women in France Use Trafficking to Overcome Social Exclusion (1998-2001), Amsterdam University Press.

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*Gellner, David(2009)Ethnic Activism and Civil Society in South Asia (Governance, Conflict and Civic Action) Sage Publications.

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*Grillo, R., R. Ballard, A. Ferrari, A.J. Hoekema, M. Maussen & P. Shah (eds.) (2009) Legal Practice and Cultural Diversity. Aldershot: Ashgate.

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*Hinz, Bronwyn (2009) Many Hopes, One Dream: The Story of the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria

Many Hopes, One Dream: The Story of the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria by Bronwyn Hinz is the first book to be written on the united ethnic movement in Australia. It traces the untold story of Australian multiculturalism – how it was shaped from the ground up by ethnic communities through their peak organisations.
It is published by Australian Scholarly Publishing and was launched this week by former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and the Victorian Minister for Multicultural Affairs, James Merlino to a crowd of over 300.

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*Kartal, Filiz (2009): Changing concepts and practises of citizenship: experiences and perceptions of second-generation turkish-germans . VDM Verlag

This book has two dimensions: first it is concerned with the changing concept of citizenship in the liberal polities with respect to increasing diversity within these societies -with special reference to the impact of immigration on diversity. Second, it tries to explore the impact of immigration on the conceptualization of citizenship from the standpoint of individuals. The purpose is to explore the challenges of immigration on the modern concept of citizenship by interpreting the perceptions of individuals. It tries to reveal the ways in which citizenship practices and conceptualizations of second-generation Turkish-Germans support and/or diverge from the theoretical approaches that attempt to explicate the immigration/citizenship problem.

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Liempt, Ilse van(2009)Ethics of Migration Research Methodology: Dealing with Vulnerable Immigrants. Sussex Academic Press.

The recent increased attention given to qualitative research, and
especially research involving vulnerable persons, has not yet been
adequately translated into corresponding research on the methodological
and ethical challenges researchers face. The relative scarcity of such
scholarship reflects the dilemma of the multidisciplinary nature of the
study of migration. The aim of this book is to present the difficulties
that researchers working with migrants in precarious situations have to
contend with, and to contribute to the development of methodological and
ethical discussions relevant to the topic of migration as an
interdisciplinary field of research. The contributors to the volume do
this through a threefold approach: discussion of methods and ethics in
institutional settings; a rethinking of basic research methods; and,
defining the role of the researcher. Earlier research – focusing on
document analysis (police files and court cases), expert interviews and
narrative interviews with smuggled migrants – indicated that there is a
strong need for a deepened debate on methodology when researching human
smuggling, trafficking and other forms of irregularity. Subsequent
workshops (in Geneva and Toronto) on the topic of interviewing
vulnerable migrants confirmed the necessity of finding solutions for the
methodological challenges encountered. This book is essential reading
for all persons and organisations dealing with vulnerable migrants.

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*Renteln, A.D. & M.-C. Foblets (eds.) (2009) Multicultural Jurisprudence: Comparative Perspectives on the Cultural Defense. Oxford: Hart Publishing.

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*Tsuda, Takeyuki(2009) Diasporic Homecomings: Ethnic Return Migration in Comparative Perspective . Stanford University Press.

In recent decades, increasing numbers of diasporic peoples have returned to their ethnic homelands, whether because of economic pressures, a desire to rediscover ancestral roots, or the homeland government’s preferential immigration and nationality policies. Although the returnees may initially be welcomed back, their homecomings often prove to be ambivalent or negative experiences. Despite their ethnic affinity to the host populace, they are frequently excluded as cultural foreigners and relegated to low-status jobs shunned by the host society’s populace. Diasporic Homecomings, the first book to provide a comparative overview of the major ethnic return groups in Europe and East Asia, reveals how the sociocultural characteristics and national origins of the migrants influence their levels of marginalization in their ethnic homelands, forcing many of them to redefine the meanings of home and homeland.

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*Watson, Scott D.(2009) The Securitization of Humanitarian Migration: Digging Moats and Sinking Boats (Routledge Advances in International Relations and Global Politics)

This book examines how western liberal states are progressively restricting access to refugees and asylum seekers, even though these states have signed international agreements obliging them to offer protection to those fleeing persecution and to advocate the spread of human rights and humanitarian principles. Watson examines how refugees and asylum seekers have come to be treated so poorly by these states through the use of policies such as visa requirements, mandatory detention and prevention/return policies. Providing extensive documentary analysis of debates on ‘restrictive’ refugee policies in Canada and Australia, the author addresses the relationship between security and migration, an issue of increased importance in the aftermath of 9/11 and the war on terror. He then examines hotly-contested policies such as detention and the forceful return of asylum seekers to demonstrate how attempts to securitise these issues have been resisted in the media and by political opposition. Given the importance of providing refuge for persecuted populations, not only to ensure the survival of targeted individuals, but also to maintain international peace and security, the erosion of protective measures is of great importance today. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of international security, international relations, migration and human rights

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