Preliminary Programme

Wed 12 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Thu 13 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Fri 14 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Sat 15 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00

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Friday 14 April 2023 14.00 - 16.00
T-11 ETH16 Theory
Victoriagatan 13, Victoriasalen
Network: Ethnicity and Migration Chair: Brigitte Le Normand
Organizers: - Discussant: Brigitte Le Normand
Alison Fischer : Shadowboxing: ‘Minority Policy’ and Marginalization of Race in the Dutch Metropole
In the latter decades of the 20th century, the Netherlands was forced to confront evidence of racist violence and discrimination within its European borders. Inspired by UK and US examples, Dutch law professors, advocates and activists began working together to develop law and policies against racial discrimination. Unlike in Britain ... (Show more)
In the latter decades of the 20th century, the Netherlands was forced to confront evidence of racist violence and discrimination within its European borders. Inspired by UK and US examples, Dutch law professors, advocates and activists began working together to develop law and policies against racial discrimination. Unlike in Britain or the US, however, their work did not lead to wide-spread or lasting theorization of Dutch law’s role in constructing and perpetuating racial hierarchies; it did not lead to a Dutch Critical Race Theory (CRT). Instead, the resulting law and policy produced limited definitions of racism and ushered in colorblindness and assimilation as government priorities that last to the present day.

This paper explores the origins and afterlives of Dutch ‘minority policy’ from 1979-1999. Using interviews with former participants, and analysis of academic, policy and grassroots publications of the time, it challenges the prevailing narrative that these efforts represented the pinnacle (and ultimate failure) of benevolent Dutch multiculturalism. Instead, this article places ‘minority policy’ efforts in a broader historical and global context. First, it frames the Dutch state’s response as part of an ongoing process to obscure the connection between current Dutch society and its deeply racialized colonial roots. Second, it links legal efforts to combat racial discrimination in the Netherlands to concurrent developments in European and international human rights and explores how these regimes influenced each other. Finally, it addresses questions and challenges related to expanding and applying CRT outside the settler-colonial context. (Show less)

Stefan Manser-Egli : Shared Values as an Integration Requirement: the Complicity of Social Science
‘Respecting the values of the constitution’ is one of the most recent integration requirements in Switzerland. In this paper I show how, in the last decades, social sciences and narratives of modernity/development and of ‘cultural distance’ have contributed to the emergence of the requirement and the conceptualization of integration in ... (Show more)
‘Respecting the values of the constitution’ is one of the most recent integration requirements in Switzerland. In this paper I show how, in the last decades, social sciences and narratives of modernity/development and of ‘cultural distance’ have contributed to the emergence of the requirement and the conceptualization of integration in general. Culturalist and post/colonial integration imaginaries have shaped not only academic debates but also political discourse and, ultimately, legislation. Recent research has problematized the civic integration paradigm and aggressive integrationism, referring to (immigrant) integration as to be achieved by coercing, testing, penalizing and, ultimately, excluding. This paper studies integration as a category of practice in Switzerland, where naturalization and residency permits are increasingly predicated on integration requirements such as ‘respecting the values of the Federal Constitution’. The paper reconstructs the genealogy of the value criterion in Swiss integration law, starting from the most recent revisions and going back to its first mentions among expert commissions, in integration Leitbilder and academic contributions in the 1990s. A direct link is drawn between nowadays concrete examples and cases illustrating the ‘non-respect of the values of the constitution’, mainly targeting the Muslim minority, and ideas of ‘cultural distance’ to the ‘European cultural circle (Kulturkreis)’, concerning ‘colonial and postcolonial immigrants from the Third World’ with ‘incompatible cultures’. Tracing back the idea of ‘respecting basic values of the core culture’ to its origins in structural functionalist sociology – advocated for example by the famous migration scholar avant la lettre, Hans-Joachim Hoffmann-Nowotny – and social anthropology, the contribution of the paper to ongoing transnational debates is twofold. First, it carves out the colonial heritage of modernity and development narratives and imaginaries of Western superiority that have been at the heart of this integration requirement from its very beginning. Second, it highlights the role of social science in the production and reproduction of culturalized, gendered and post/colonial integration imaginaries, not only in the academic literature of that time but also, and more importantly, in subsequent revisions of integration law and policy. The paper attempts to write the genealogy of integration in Switzerland against the grain, not as a progressive, emancipatory concept that has slowly been seized and reappropriated by old-school assimilationism, but as being inherently conceptualized in culturalist, post/colonial and nativist terms from the outset. As such, the paper calls for decolonizing both integrationist policies and integration imaginaries at large, and, consequentially, for different, decolonized and de-migranticized social imaginaries of society, democracy and citizenship. (Show less)

Anna-Lisa Müller : Constructing Migration and Otherness. Understanding the Social Power of Classifications and Statistics
In my paper I will discuss the social power of classifications and statistics for constructing migration in particular and otherness in general. Coming from reflexive migration studies, I shed light on historical and current modes of ‘knowing migration’ with the help of classifications, quantitative data and statistical evidence. Thus, my ... (Show more)
In my paper I will discuss the social power of classifications and statistics for constructing migration in particular and otherness in general. Coming from reflexive migration studies, I shed light on historical and current modes of ‘knowing migration’ with the help of classifications, quantitative data and statistical evidence. Thus, my contribution is dedicated to the modes of knowledge production within social sciences, more specifically: migration studies. The key assumption is that scientific knowledge about something – about something that is described, named, classified and typified, categorized – goes hand in hand with a specific form of ‘othering’. Knowledge about ‘the other’ is then also a construction of ‘the other’ and ‘the others’ with particular effects on and in society.
By using examples from historical and current data sets, I show what kinds of classifications and underlying assumptions on the social – e.g. on so-called migrants, immigrants, emigrants or repatriates – are entailed in these data sets and in what ways these in turn contribute to bringing about the social in its particular, historically specific, forms – e.g. as an immigration society. Migration research serves as example for me. Acknowledging the reflexive turn in migration studies, I intend to highlight how the very data that migration research produces on migration plays a key role in bringing about the phenomenon. This holds equally true for qualitative as well as for quantitative data and for historical and current empirical research. I take three very specific examples from Germany and trace their development from introduction over implementation to adjustment/replacement/extinction: (1) the racial category of ‘the jew’ in German statistics during the Nazi regime, (2) the socio-demographic category of ‘migration background’ in Germany in the beginning of the 2000’s, and (3) the category of ‘anti-black racism’, formulated by critical researchers and activists as self-affirmative category. For each of the cases, I discuss (a) how the category and related classifications come into being and take specific developments and careers, e.g. from science to law and administration or from politics to science, and (b) what effects they have on how societies ‘know’ the phenomenon in question.
Ultimately, the analysis of these three different kinds of classifications shows, by taking into account the different social and political contexts in which these classifications are situated, how both the classifications and the statistics in which they are used unfold social power and co-produce the social world around us. (Show less)

Silvia Pedraza : Transnationalism among Immigrants: Economic, Political, Cultural
More than anyone else, immigrants live their lives in a transnational social field. They typically develop subjectivities, engage in communication, take actions, and live many aspects of their social lives across two or more nations. Focusing on immigrants to the United States, in this paper I first review the ... (Show more)
More than anyone else, immigrants live their lives in a transnational social field. They typically develop subjectivities, engage in communication, take actions, and live many aspects of their social lives across two or more nations. Focusing on immigrants to the United States, in this paper I first review the major approaches to understanding why people migrate and how they assimilate. I also evaluate the major concepts that arose over time – from assimilation to incorporation to transnationalism. I argue that while immigrants have always been transnational, the advent of modern communications qualitatively changed the immigrant experience in the last half century. Today’s immigrants routinely live their lives across two or more nations; they also, at once, live life in the past and the present. I strive to show that transnationalism has a three-fold impact: on the societies of origin, the societies of destination, and the immigrants themselves.

Through myriad examples from the history of many immigrant groups to the United States from the 19th to the 21st centuries, I give evidence of the three major types of transnationalism: economic, political, and social, while highlighting the role that gender plays in all three. Long ago I made a call to incorporate gender into the study of migration, as doing so would not only fill the void regarding our knowledge of women as immigrants but would also “elucidate those aspects of the process of migration that were neglected by the exclusive focus on men” (Pedraza, 1991, p. 304). As research on gender and migration has matured, now we can see its many contributions.

The analysis highlights the immigrants’ contrasting processes of incorporation, focusing on: their timing of arrival in the U.S.; regional concentration; type of migration and legal status; gendered experiences; social class, and race; generational consciousness; and political life. It relies on examples from myriad immigrant/ethnic/nationality groups that immigrated to the United States from the 19th to the 21st century, underlining the sharp contrasts in their social histories and processes of incorporation in America.

TRANSNATIONALISM AMONG IMMIGRANTS:
ECONOMIC, POLITICAL, AND CULTURAL.
Silvia Pedraza
University of Michigan
Department of Sociology and
Department of American Culture
More than anyone else, immigrants live their lives in a transnational social field. They typically develop subjectivities, engage in communication, take actions, and live many aspects of their social lives across two or more nations. Focusing on immigrants to the United States, in this paper I first review the major approaches to understanding why people migrate and how they assimilate. I also evaluate the major concepts that arose over time – from assimilation to incorporation to transnationalism. I argue that while immigrants have always been transnational, the advent of modern communications qualitatively changed the immigrant experience in the last half century. Today’s immigrants routinely live their lives across two or more nations; they also, at once, live life in the past and the present. I strive to show that transnationalism has a three-fold impact: on the societies of origin, the societies of destination, and the immigrants themselves.

Through myriad examples from the history of many immigrant groups to the United States from the 19th to the 21st centuries, I give evidence of the three major types of transnationalism: economic, political, and social, while highlighting the role that gender plays in all three. Long ago I made a call to incorporate gender into the study of migration, as doing so would not only fill the void regarding our knowledge of women as immigrants but would also “elucidate those aspects of the process of migration that were neglected by the exclusive focus on men” (Pedraza, 1991, p. 304). As research on gender and migration has matured, now we can see its many contributions.

The analysis highlights the immigrants’ contrasting processes of incorporation, focusing on: their timing of arrival in the U.S.; regional concentration; type of migration and legal status; gendered experiences; social class, and race; generational consciousness; and political life. It relies on examples from myriad immigrant/ethnic/nationality groups that immigrated to the United States from the 19th to the 21st century, underlining the sharp contrasts in their social histories and processes of incorporation in America. (Show less)

Dorota Praszalowicz : Poles in Seattle 1890-2020: toward a Conceptualization of Immigrant Experience
The paper presents the initial results of the study conducted in Seattle in 2022. It deals with the Poles and Polish Americans in Seattle, WA; their immigrant experience and their ethnic community building. So far, there is no comprehensive study on the topic, despite the fact that the local Polish ... (Show more)
The paper presents the initial results of the study conducted in Seattle in 2022. It deals with the Poles and Polish Americans in Seattle, WA; their immigrant experience and their ethnic community building. So far, there is no comprehensive study on the topic, despite the fact that the local Polish American community is dynamic and well organized. It embraces all Polish immigration streams, the pioneer settlers in the Pacific Northwest of the turn of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, WWII refugees and Solidarity refugees, and the recent inflow of the high skilled specialists attracted by the IT & high-tech industry (Microsoft, Google, Boeing). The community differs significantly from the other centers of the Polish Diaspora in the US. There has never been a Polish neighborhood in Seattle, and the local Polish parish was launched only in 1989. The descendants of the earlier immigrant generations participate in the Polish activity on the web platforms (launched by the Polish newcomers), and the recent immigrants became leaders of the well-established (1918) Polish Home Association.

In order to capture these phenomena it is necessary to challenge the traditional patterns of the diaspora and ethnic studies, and to seek a new way of conceptualizing the complex patterns of mobility influencing traditional, rooted in primordial understanding of ethnic identity expressions. No doubt, Poles in Seattle revitalized the immigrant community, but at the same time they claim they do not belong to the (old fashioned) Polish diaspora. They have created a stable and effectively operating net of (institutionalized) ethnic relations, but they often reject a notion of belonging. One of the aims of the study is to deconstruct the traditional notion of the Polish diaspora, that has been openly rejected by most of the recent migrants, not only in Seattle, but everywhere. (Show less)



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