Migration Seminar Series, Fall 2010
The DIIS migration seminar series will during the fall semester 2010 focus on new approaches to migration-development and migration-security debates. Please see the detailed programme below:
The Migration Industry: Brokers, Buses and the Business of International Mobility
Tuesday, 7 September, 14:00-16:30
Rubén Hernández-Leon
Why do migrants—legal and unauthorized alike—use the services of intermediaries and brokers to cross borders, conduct long-distance travel, access jobs abroad and remit resources home? Who are these brokers and why are they conspicuously present in all kinds of international migratory flows regardless of the legal status, social class and skills of migrants and the duration of their migration? How do these intermediaries, their behavior and interests and the myriad services they offer affect the process and experience of migration? This seminar provides answers to these questions by building on the concept of the migration industry. The migration industry consists of a matrix of private and specialized services that facilitate and sustain international human mobility and its related behaviors, including settlement, mobility, communication and resource transfers. Migration entrepreneurs render these services for a fee with the main objective of turning a profit. The migration industry encompasses formal and informal services as well as legal and illegal activities, including those that straddle the line between clandestine existence and official recognition. Instead of attempting a general theory, this presentation interrogates the concept, advance different interpretations and provide the necessary historical background to understand the heart of the migration industry: the heterogeneous complex of migration entrepreneurs, their activities and the social and economic infrastructures they create to make international mobility possible.
DIIS’ migration unit has invited Professor Rubén Hernández-Leon from the University of California in Los Angeles to present the analysis outlined above with regard to migration to the United States. Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Ninna Nyberg Sřrensen will give shorter presentations on their work on the Migrant Rescue Industry and Markets for Migration Control.
Revisiting the Migration-Security Debate and Transnationalist Approaches
Tuesday, 12 October, 14:00-16:30
Riina Isotola
Two important trends have characterized research in migration and migration policies during the past two decades. One has looked into how migration has become increasingly ‘securitized’ in countries of immigration where fear of the consequences for national identity and culture, and later for old fashioned national security has led to the development of exceptional measures and the use of force in the attempts to control and contain migration.
The other trend, taking the perspective of migrants and refugees, has focused on how these have engaged in building or maintaining transnational social spaces rather then just integrating in countries of immigration. This trend has fed into policy initiatives that have taken mobility and transnational relations as a resource for development – such as programs of migration-development and the formalization of remittance flows – or for the inclusion of diaspora populations in processes of peace building and reconstruction.
It has however been argued, among others by Riina Isotalo, that the research in transnationalism has been politicized and used in the neo-liberal agenda. Thus, migration researchers have neglected the study of the security-migration nexus which has been left to security studies specialists who lack the analytical tools for engaging with the migrants’ perspective.
DIIS’ migration unit has invited Dr. Riina Isotalo from the University of Helsinki to present her analysis at the public seminar, where also Rens van Munster (DIIS) and Finn Stepputat will give presentations.
Political Asylum in the 21st Century
Tuesday, 19 October, 14:00-16:30
Few issues have remained as politicized as asylum in the past few decades. Most nations recognize the moral and legal obligation to accept people fleeing from persecution, but political asylum applicants in the twenty-first century face restrictive policies and cumbersome procedures. Competing discourses of protection and control are predominant in present day asylum rhetoric. Governments need to address the conflicting needs of the state to protect their citizens from terrorists and the influx of hordes of unwelcome economic migrants, while at the same time adhering to their legal, moral and treaty obligations to provide safe haven for those fleeing persecution. Satisfying these conflicting goals at the same time may ultimately prove impossible, yet states continue to struggle to find ways to appear to meet both. How do they do it?
This seminar will attempt to answer that question and illustrate the sometimes absurd effects of this process. The seminar will further compare different policy approaches, notably the cases of the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and Denmark.
DIIS’ migration unit has invited Professor Carol Bohmer from Dartmouth College, United States to present her research on the above topics in regard to the policies pursued by the United States and the United Kingdom. Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen will further give a presentation relating the questions raised to the cases of Denmark and the EU.
Carol Bohmer is currently visiting associate professor at the Department of Government, Dartmouth College. She has published a number of books and articles on issues relating to asylum, gender, public policy and law. In her most recent book, Rejecting Refugees: Political asylum in the 21st century (with Amy Schuman, Routledge, 2007) she investigates the asylum procedure in the US and UK and asks whether current practices of states reflect the moral and legal obligations to genuine refugees.
Clandestine – Documenting Undocumented African Transit Migration
Tuesday, 30 November, 14:00-16:00
Christian Vium
In recent years, the images of young Africans in ramshackle boats on the Spanish or Italian shores have reached the European public. However, the crossing of the sea is the second leg of a longer and even more perilous journey where estimated 120,000 sub-Saharan Africans cross the Sahara each year to reach the Maghreb countries and – maybe – venture towards Europe. While African transit migration has been the object of considerable journalistic interest, there is only limited research on this aspect of the journey, as most studies have focused on the situation of irregular migrants in sending and receiving contexts.
This DIIS seminar presents an anthropological and photographic account of the cross-Saharan route. It explores the emotional dimension of undocumented migrant’s life worlds during the journey, discussing how the immediate drama of the actual crossing is mirrored in a profound psychological and symbolic journey, as a rite of transition. Likewise, it discusses methodological and ethical dilemmas of photo documenting undocumented migration.
DIIS’ migration unit has invited Christian Vium, anthropologist at Copenhagen University and award-winning photographer, to reflect on his project CLANDESTINE – an ongoing anthropological documentary project about undocumented transit migration from West Africa to Europe. Nauja Kleist will introduce the seminar.
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