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- Convenors:
-
Elisabeth Boesen
(Université du Luxembourg)
Tilmann Heil (University of Cologne)
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- Formats:
- Panels
- Sessions:
- Friday 24 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
The panel invites contributions dealing with migration from (former) colonies to countries without colonies as a particular mode of colonial and postcolonial entanglement. It hopes to shed light on the multifariousness of these historical connections and the ensuing socio-cultural formations.
Long Abstract:
A growing number of scholars are interested in colonial and postcolonial relations in societies without (former) colonies. They study "colonialism from the margins" by investigating the colonial entanglements of, for example, Switzerland or Denmark, and thus help to develop a general approach on shared histories. This insight that colonialism should not be simply equated with colonial rule opens up multiple areas of cultural and social science research including research on economic and political involvement, on the Christian mission and so forth.
While this new field encompasses research on a variety of social actors, studies on immigrants from (former) colonies to countries without colonies are still largely missing. Migration research concentrates on migration to the metropoles, e.g. from Northern Africa to France, including studies on those who, in the wake of decolonization, moved "back home" like pieds noirs and retornados.
The panel proposes to comparatively approach the non-metropole migration as a particular mode of colonial and postcolonial entanglement on the margins. It starts from the assumption that it is important to see these mobility phenomena and the ensuing social developments as being related to longstanding and encompassing processes of colonial and postcolonial mobilities and relationships. By inviting contributions on (post)colonial migrant groups in various non-metropolitan places, the panel strives to reflect the multifariousness of these historical connections and thereby put the appropriateness of categorical distinctions such as labor migration/colonial migration, South-North migration/inner-European migration into question - categorizations that form the basis of current political discourses and migration politics.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 24 July, 2020, -Paper short abstract:
Based on the fieldwork study of the Vietnamese political activists, the paper provides an analysis of the flows of ideas between Poland and Vietnam, revealing the complex hierarchical system of connections among the former socialist countries never entangled in colonial relations with one another.
Paper long abstract:
The paper provides an analysis of the flows of ideas resulting from the human mobility between Poland and Vietnam. During the Cold War Era, the two countries belonged to a common political organism - Soviet Bloc, which resulted in the multifold connections between the two previously unrelated states, including the educational migration of Vietnamese to Poland. While the two states have never never been directly entangled in colonial relations with one another, they were nevertheless immersed in a complex system of relations of domination and subordination existing within the Soviet Bloc. The conceptual framework of (post)colonialism has recently started to be used to interpret the situation of former socialist countries - particularly in the case of the relations between the Soviet empire and its satellites. However, the seemingly horizontal connections among the satellite states have not been subjected to a deeper analysis.
Basing on the fieldwork study I examine the flow of ideas which emerged between Poland and Vietnam in the result of actions of the Vietnamese migrant political activists, who derive from the legacy of Polish anti-communist dissidents to formulate their objectives and strategies. This case illustrates the asymmetrical nature of flows between the two countries, existing both during the Cold War Era and after the fall of the Soviet bloc. The paper, therefore, aims to illustrate the complexity of the hierarchical and unbalanced system of flows between the countries formerly labeled as "brothers in arms in socialism" and currently adopting the semi-peripheral position in the global order.
Paper short abstract:
How do two museums in Leipzig and Bristol open up to minority groups? Bristol was once an important side of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and now holds one of the biggest Jamaican communities outside Jamaica. Negotiations on decolonization are dialogic and conflicted, sometimes painful.
Paper long abstract:
In my dissertation, I examine how the concept of diversity is interpreted and implemented in two museums and how those processes affect programmes, audiences and organizational structures of the museums. The increasing political and societal discourse about the diversification of public institutions raises a number of questions, e.g. what are conditions under which urban cultural institutions open up to underrepresented groups and what are obstacles? How are underrepresented groups included in institutional negotiations? In my thesis, I use ethnomethodology in order to reconstruct diversification processes in two museums, one in Leipzig and one in Bristol (England). Whereas in Bristol public funding of cultural institutions requires diversity management strategies and monitoring of for example the diversity of staff, this is not required in Leipzig, which makes the comparison interesting.
From my close work with different teams in both museums, I have produced thick descriptions of their work, relations and mind sets, from which I theorize about diversification processes in the two museums. I give an overview over structures, resources and concepts of diversity strategies and show as a result how the process of diversifying challenges institutional structures, self-concepts and output. I also concentrate on postcolonial migration and how postcolonial actors are or are not integrated in the process of museum making. This is particularly salient in Bristol, as the city was once an important side of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and now holds one of the biggest Jamaican communities outside Jamaica. Negotiations on decolonization are dialogic and conflicted, sometimes painful.
Paper short abstract:
A decade ago—still with a promising future ahead—Rio de Janeiro (temporarily) received newcomers from crisis-ridden Spain and diasporic Senegal. Their multiple colonial legacies reconfigure into complex post/colonial strains that mediate how newcomers relate to the raced and classed urban fabric.
Paper long abstract:
This paper unfolds the multiple post/colonial strains that mediate how newcomers from crisis-ridden Spain and diasporic Senegal relate to the raced and classed urban fabric of Rio de Janeiro. These strains—tiring and distorted, but powerful mediations—emerge from the three interconnecting post/colonial legacies of Brazil, Senegal, and Spain. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2014-2020 in Rio de Janeiro with Senegalese and Spanish newcomers, this paper focuses on those aspects in the newcomers' commentaries on race and class relations in Rio de Janeiro in which the colonial matrix of power surfaces, however, in a distorted way given the non-metropolitan current location as well as contemporary migration dynamics. The multiple, post/colonial strains are fed by the legacies of, for example, Rio de Janeiro's past as the only colonial capital of a European empire, slavery across the Atlantic, Spanish/European imperialism in Latin America, and French/European colonialism in West Africa. Through a careful analysis of commentaries on black-black (African-Brazilian) and white-white (European-Brazilian) relations, I trace how the post/colonial matrix of race and class is distorted as Brazil occupies an ambiguous position. In many Senegalese discourses, it is placed both somewhere on the continuum between Europe and Africa and outside of it. In Spanish discourses, Brazil is at once part of Latin America and not. Brazil's ambiguous positions and my interlocutors' uncertainty in making sense of their own everyday class and race relations, causes exhaustion at the same time as it reveals the continuous power of post/coloniality in contemporary Rio de Janeiro.