Paper short abstract:

Based on ethnographic fieldwork with North Koreans living in Seoul, we argue that North Korean celebrity defectors who publicly condemn their country perpetuate a logic of exclusion and contribute to narratives that reinforce a binary of 'good citizen'/'North Korea sympathiser' in South Korea.

Paper long abstract:

Despite holding South Korean citizenship, North Korean defectors describe themselves as feeling excluded from full membership of South Korean society. While some isolate themselves to avoid public scrutiny, this paper conversely considers the celebrity North Korean defector, individuals who gain public profiles and social status by speaking publicly about their lives. Following long-term ethnographic fieldwork with North Koreans living in Seoul, we suggest that there are both pragmatic and symbolic motivations behind the decision to speak publicly, whether on reality television or at human rights events. Accepting payment to perpetuate certain narratives is a strategy for people who often struggle to integrate into the South Korean employment market. We argue that the decision to publically identify as North Korean also marks their entry into a space in which inclusion and exclusion are negotiated. Denouncing North Korea's human rights abuses performs the dual function of highlighting both personal distance from the North Korean state and alignment with the 'good' discourse of human rights - in doing so, celebrity North Koreans signal their allegiance to a moral 'community of value' (Anderson 2013). By reproducing particular discourses as a condition of acceptance, North Koreans may gain in social status as a result of direct payment, educational opportunities, or social prestige. However, their actions reinforce the logic of exclusion, restricting access to these benefits to North Koreans who perpetuate particular narratives. Further, through self-identifying as 'good citizens', they reinforce the binary that stigmatises North Koreans who fail to do so as North Korea sympathisers.

Paper short abstract:

This paper outlines the manner in which sanctuary cities in the US establish governmental regimes for managing city populations regardless of their immigration status and yet maintain a good/bad immigrant narrative that facilitates the deportations of immigrant residents that are accused of crimes.

Paper long abstract:

Sanctuary cities in the United States have policies that mandate the elaboration of city government agency protocols for administering city and county services to all people regardless of their immigration status. While hailed primarily as mobilizing city and county government resources and institutional apparatuses for the purpose of halting deportations and including immigrants in city projects as essential city residents, this paper will outline how they additionally do two major things: clarify the manner in which city governments may assist in deporting certain immigrants that city politicians deem undesirable, and in so doing, fortify a narrative that only law-abiding immigrants are worthy of sanctuary. It will provide examples of how sanctuary cities administer services regardless of immigration status as well as examples of how the city has assisted in deportations, including deportations of children, people charged but not convicted of certain crimes, and even of domestic violence survivors who have contacted the police for protection from their abusers. In this manner, the paper will explain how sanctuary city policy regimes and the apparatuses they mobilize serve rather as a humanitarian deportation apparatus that maintain a good/bad immigrant hierarchy of inclusion when city populations are increasingly composed of mixed-immigration status households, and when national deportation efforts aim to incorporate municipal, county, and state government workers in immigration enforcement.

Paper short abstract:

Since the so-called crisis of 2015-2016, Syrian refugees in Germany are struggling to keep up with the changing dynamics of bureaucratic decision making. As such, a feedback loop has formed in the imaginary of both refugees and the state, with real life implications.

Paper long abstract:

Since hosting the over a million asylum applicants into Germany in 2015-2016, the government has adapted policy that seeks to quickly incorporate refugees socially and most importantly economically. The result of which is two-fold: on the one side it creates a feeling in the refugee community of ever-changing state goals and thus insecurity, and on the other it creates a feedback loop in which lower arms of state bureaucracy, such as Germany's "Jobcenter", counter productively affect the behavior of refugees. The social imaginary of what a "good refugee" is and should be is an ongoing social and political construction that has commodified refugees to be much like the "good migrant"--one who speaks the dominant language, is sufficiently employed and fits into social norms.

Using the experience of observation and interviews in the German Jobcenter and with groups of Syrian refugees, this work will present some implications of how the imaginaries of a "good refugee" are shaped by institutions, socially and by the refugees themselves. Taking on a translocality perspective, the difference between individual priorities and state driven initiatives is indeed variable by location. Furthermore, the conditionality of German refugee law, in terms of ideal "integration" requires language acquisition and no use of welfare benefits, but inconsistencies and negative experiences leave some refugee with an early distrust in institutions. With rising xenophobic attitudes across Europe and lawmakers bending to populist ideologies, refugees face more precarity as they attempt to decide upon staying Germany or a prospect of returning Syria.

Paper short abstract:

This study addresses the issue of adult education for refugees and its potential employment in fighting exclusion in socio-economic spheres by focusing on how, through the self-authorship of education, refugees can exercise agency in confronting the more persistent structural barriers.

Paper long abstract:

This study looks at how education can be employed as an instrument in the hands of refugees in negotiating the inclusion-exclusion boundaries and how, through the self-authorship (McPherson 2015) of education, refugees can exercise agency in confronting the structural barriers.

While education policies play a substantial role in determining the spaces of inclusion and exclusion that refugees must navigate, it is also important to assess their effectiveness in the light of the role of dominant discourses of neoliberalism, state racism and racist populism in shaping the "types" of citizens that refugees are expected to be (become) (Ahmed 2004), and the socioeconomic spaces they are expected (permitted) to occupy in society.

Through a set of ethnographical methods including participatory observations, interviews and arts-based workshops in a language learning centre for Syrian refugees in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, this study seeks to have a closer look at the dialogue between the educational policies and its practice by refugees in a context of exclusion and self-authorship.

The findings of the study shed light on a critical approach to education for refugees and the role of self-authorship in fighting the structural barriers.

Bibliography:

• Ahmed, Sara. (2004). The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Oxon: Routledge.

• McPherson, Melinda. (2015). Refugee women, representation and education: creating a discourse of self-authorship and potential. Oxon; Routledge.

Biography:

Helia Rahbarikorroyeh is a PhD candidate and research assistant at the University of Aberdeen. She completed her degrees at the University of Tehran and Stockholm where she worked as a journalist and blogger

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the role of the "good imam" between various discourses both inside and outside the mosque. Based on two years of intensive fieldwork in the suburbs of London, this paper investigates imam's goodness both as a factor of inclusion and an object of conflict.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I intend to present some of my key findings regarding the role of the imam in London, and his ability to adapt to various discourses of inclusion and exclusion. Within the realm of Islam as a discursive tradition, the imam in London tinkers continuously his role to reconcile different -sometimes opposed- forms of goodness. One form that emerges from the community of believers based on an "apt performance" that finds its roots in the example of the prophet of Islam. The other one is presented by the bureaucratic committee members who look at the imam as an employee who has to respect his 'job description'.

My research goes beyond the governmental political discourse to look ethnographically at its embodiment by committee members of three mosques in London. In this sense, the mosque becomes itself a field of both visible and invisible top-down conditional inclusion that goes usually in clash with the grassroots ideals. In this context, the imam seeks protection and legitimacy outside the mosque in his relationship with various local and national actors, which transforms suddenly his "goodness" into an object of conflict between, not only actors inside, but also outside the mosque.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the imperative to perform 'relaxed religiousity' that Muslim migrants meet in Danish society. It argues that this not only reflects a tense relation to Islam, but a relation between secularism, ideas of civilised interaction and the welfare state's need for a space of governance.

Paper long abstract:

In the Danish welfare society, being an acceptable Muslim immigrant often implies being a 'relaxed Muslim' that performs a 'relaxed religiousity'. This comes to the fore in the political discourse and in the media at large, but also in everyday interactions in workplaces, welfare state agencies, civil society organisations and educational institutions. This paper explores the conditional inclusion that the ideal of the "relaxed religiousity" entails in a multi-ethnic school setting that prides itself of being inclusive and tolerant. Being a microcosm of society, one of the main agents of state inclusion and exclusion, and among the first arenas where young migrants and descendants meet societal norms and categories, the school institution provides us with a window to parameters of inclusion and how they shape identities and practices. In this specific setting, teachers' and Muslim pupils' perceptions and practices of acceptable Muslimness and religiousity, show how spaces of inclusion are defined and negotiated in the interface between state politics, institutional logics and social dynamics in everyday interactions. The paper argues, that the "goodness" of relaxed religiousity not only reflects a tense relation to Islam, but also an ambiguous relation to religion in general. It is suggested, that the imperative to compartmentalize religion stems from a complex relation between a moderate secular doctrine, an egalitarian ideal of civilised interaction and the Danish welfare state's demand for a space of governance and citizen formation.

Paper short abstract:

The mainstream perception of Bosniak refugees as white Europeans and their self-perception as "whites in a white country" has resulted in the under emphasis of their simultaneous position as Muslims in a "white country". This paper places the Bosniak case within the framework of Islam in Europe.

Paper long abstract:

From 1992 onwards, the German government admitted more than 320,000 refugees primarily from Bosnia, where Berlin alone took up to 30,000 refugees. This was under the significant condition that these displaced people were not given a conventional refugee status, but a so-called Duldung status, emphasizing the temporal aspect of this protection. Up to 250,000 of these refugees returned to Bosnia between 1992 and 2005, either on a voluntary basis, or as a result of the repatriation plan, which was mostly the case.

Governmental publications specifically related to the integration of Bosniaks into German society indicate that Muslims from Bosnia are classified as European and "unproblematic", because of their seeming ability to integrate. One could also reverse this reasoning, because studies have implied that the integration of Bosniaks into western countries has been eased, mainly because of their pre-existing European background and appearance, or invisibility. For example, when compared with most non-European migrant groups, Bosnian migrants often experienced less discrimination and stigmatization. They were even considered to be a "white refugee elite" in certain settings.

As Valenta and Ramet (2011) rightly point out, in no way do these perceived advantages imply that a European background gives Bosnians a migratory experience free of stigmatization and discrimination. Therefore, a thorough exploration of the larger framework on how the "good migrant", or the "good Muslim" is conceptualized, is needed in order to understand the affects these processes have on the everyday of Bosniaks in Berlin.

Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on findings from the project Music without Borders in Vienna. Its central research question addresses pupils' narratives of (musical) identities, which revealed changing and fluctuating characteristics according to different situations and contexts during this project.

Paper long abstract:

The growing presence of heterogeneous populations requires a rethinking of compulsory education, especially for 'pupils with migrant background'. Since the 1990s, the Austrian Ministry for Education has tried to implement 'Intercultural Learning' as a teaching principle in general school education. The aim is to prepare pupils with migrant background to 'better integrate' into Austrian society. Core component is the transmission of values, e.g. that one has to speak 'good' German, blend optically (e.g. not using a headscarf), and show a 'good' democratic attitude.

The research project Music without Borders was conducted in schools with high percentages of 'migrant pupils' in Vienna, embedded in said system of values. Based on ethnography and qualitative research data, it addressed pupils' shifting (musical) identities. Identifications uttered by the children fluctuated between values, dependent on different situations, and on who they were talking to. Which conditions are "good" for pupils to disclose their own (musical) identities in school? Which abilities or skills do teachers understand as "useful", and for whom? Can the concept of "Intercultural Learning" -after almost 30 years of operation with disastrous results- still be applied when intending inclusion?

The problems observed in the context of contemporary Austrian compulsory education shed much light on the difficulties among (young) adults and their attitudes towards immigrants or towards the host society, respectively. School education is a core condition, either 'good' or not, of inclusion.