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- Convenors:
-
Tatjana Thelen
(Universität Wien)
Tine Damsholt (University of Copenhagen)
- Stream:
- Migration/Borders
- Location:
- D3
Short Abstract:
This panel discusses the relationships between imagination and identity in the context of migration.
Long Abstract:
This panel discusses the relationships between imagination and identity in the context of migration.
Migration may be envisioned as a more or less transformative experience. Some people might regard it as a sacrifice while others would consider moving to another place as an opportunity, or even see it as being part of their normality.
The imaginaries connected with specific places and people play an important role in defining how social agents identify themselves in relation with others. Institutional actors such as the media or nation-states also transmit images, ideas and norms about people and groups, thus impacting on how individuals understand their position in the world.
With the increasing movement of people, objects, technologies and ideas, new ties of solidarity and modes of self-definitions are emerging, which rely on imagination as much as on concrete actions.
This panel addresses issues related to how imaginaries of migration contribute to frame identifications and forms of belonging in a world on the move. It deals with topics such as the relation between imagination and action, and the role of technologies in constructing identities.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Kira Kaurinkoski (Aix-Marseille Université)
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyzes the relations between migration imaginaries and realities among Ukrainian immigrants in the greater Athens area. It concludes with a discussion on identity and belonging, citizenship and notions of home in a transnational and globalized world.
Paper long abstract:
This paper discusses migration from Ukraine to Greece since the late 1990s to the present. The majority of migrants are ethnic Ukrainian adult women, but there are also ethnic Greeks, young people and families. The great majority lives in the greater Athens area. The aim is to analyze the relations between migration imaginaries and realities, by comparing migrants' pre-migratory representations of their new host country, their views of their migration experiences and their visions of the future. Special attention is paid to potential differences according to ethnic background, gender and age. The paper also addresses the Greek crisis and its impact on the everyday lives of migrants in the midst of diminished employment opportunities and rising xenophobia. It also discusses migrants' perceptions and reactions with the view of the current crisis in Ukraine. The paper concludes with a discussion on identity and belonging, citizenship and notions of home in a transnational and globalised world. Where do the migrants see their future and where do they feel that they belong? The paper is based on the author's field research in Ukraine, Greece and Cyprus.
Alina Ioana Branda (Babes-Bolyai University)
Paper short abstract:
My paper aims at approaching the core issue of the panel Imaginaries of Migration, analyzing “narratives” of migration I have recorded in the last years, working on the topic. Different imaginaries are associated to migration, being an important trigger of the phenomenon in itself.
Paper long abstract:
My paper aims at approaching the core issue of the panel Imaginaries of Migration, analyzing "narratives" of migration I have recorded in the last years, working on the topic. Different imaginaries are associated to migration, being an important trigger of the phenomenon in itself. In this paper, I attempt to identify and analyze individual imaginaries which play a substantial part in taking the decision to migrate. I am going to approach the dynamics between them and real, sometimes harsh experiences of migration. My intention is to identify those agents that distort and convert the primary frames of imaginaries, using "narratives" of migration as an important analytical source. Personal crises are generated by ruptures between these two layers (imaginary and lived), triggering different ways of responding to them and very complex experiences. I focus on these particular migration histories, documented in the process of doing fieldwork with migrants from Transylvania to UK, Spain and Italy. I also propose an auto-ethnography, being exposed myself to these phenomena. Therefore, my paper attempts to answer partially to the questions :
"How do different actors envision migration, and what do they expect from it¬¬?"
"How do they act on these imaginaries? What is the relation between imaginaries and action?"
"What is the role of social sciences in framing imaginaries of migration?"
Participant observation, semi-structured interviews and life histories are the most applied methods in this research.
Khadeeja Haddy Sarr (Basel University ) Hélène Oberlé (University of Basel)
Paper short abstract:
Through biographies and narratives the study will explore the present situation of unique groups of highly qualified migrants. It will focus on transnationalism through analysing (trans)local imaginaries, personal expectations, visions, justifications, and activities.
Paper long abstract:
The joint project will contribute to this complex that is called globalization by researching aspects of migration, mobility and transnationalism with highly skilled migrants as agents.
The project consists of two case studies:
1. Swiss in Israel and Israelis in Switzerland
2. Swiss in Senegambia and Senegambians in Switzerland
The aim of the study is to grasp life experiences of highly qualified migrants through their biographies and personal accounts. The study will examine the visions and imaginaries at the basis of migration activities - such as moving to another location. Furthermore, it will analyse the justifications and decision-makings leading to transnational/local activities. Hence, topics and activities such as brain drain, brain gain, brain circulation, remittances, transnational marriages and networks are addressed. The groups being researched have unique historical, cultural, religious and visibility profiles. The impact these factors have on life modes, experiences, visions and decision-makings within, between and across boundaries need further exploration. Data is collected in several localities from distinct actors, which makes it possible to compare and contrast differences and diverging reactions to circumstances, cities, and countries
Tibor Komar (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb)
Paper short abstract:
This paper is reviewing the symbolic relationship between identity and football among the Croatian national team members born in diaspora. Emphasis is placed on expression of national identity of top football players who choose to play for the national team of their "imagined homeland".
Paper long abstract:
This paper is reviewing the symbolic relationship between diasporic cultural identity and football among the Croatian national football team members born in diaspora. Emphasis is placed on finding the elements that contribute to construction of national identity of later generations of migrants, specifically top football players who rather choose to play for the national team of their ancestors and for the "imagined homeland" (where they actually never lived) than for a country of their birth. As one of the functions of sport is that it acts as a mechanism for promoting national solidarity, a sense of identity and community, football has shown to be an ideal testing ground for exploring the symbolic dimensions of belonging, identity formation and discursive practices that shape national sports loyalty. The research behind this paper is based on several key research questions and is elaborated around results obtained from a number of semi-structured interviews and fieldwork conducted in Germany and Croatia. Migrant communities are usually places where social memory and national heritage are being reproduced and transferred to younger generations of migrants. Through analysis of interviews that the author has recently made with members of Croatian national football team born and living outside Croatia, this paper will try to point out the practices and discourses related to non-political context of national identification through football in (Croatian) migrant communities.
Nataša Rogelja Caf (Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts)
Paper short abstract:
On the ground of ethnographic research the paper explores the connection between sea imaginaries and maritime lifestyle migration and it discusses the process by which the sea imaginaries are inspiration for maritime lifestyle migrants and how they are translated into practice.
Paper long abstract:
The paper explores the connection between sea imaginaries and maritime lifestyle migration and it discusses the process by which the sea imaginaries are inspiration for lifestyle migrants and how they are translated into practice. First, the paper explains the theoretical foundations of lifestyle migration phenomenon emphasizing the point theorized by Benson and O'Reilly on the relation between social construction of places and choices of lifestyle migrants or broadly speaking on the importance of cultural dimensions for migration (Benson 2012, O'Reilly and Benson 2009). Second, it will discuss the importance of these cultural dimensions in the specific ethnographic setting among liveaboards in the Mediterranean. As a result of the rapid development of navigation and communication technology, boat building and car producing technology, popularity of travel and culturally-significant representation of the sea, increased living standards and mobile work opportunities, as well as recession and disillusionment with the national states' system, a constantly increasing number of people from the Global North adopt mobility as a way of life. Some of them, who will be discussed in the second part of this paper, travel, live and work on sailing boats. Finally the sea images, the maritime environment and ethnography will be put in the dialog in order to discuss the crossroads between human experiences in global modernity, stories of white sails and the blue environment.
Katrin Sontag (University of Basel)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the role of migration in biographical narrations of highly skilled entrepreneurs from a perspective of individual life strategies and orientation schemes.
Paper long abstract:
Imaginaries of migration are mostly shaped by a statehood perspective, which refers to political status and borderlines of exclusion or inclusion. The proposed paper looks at imaginaries of movement (migration and mobility) from the perspective of life strategies and orientation schemes of individual actors, and asks for the role, which different migratory processes play within the events, decisions, conditions and consequences of their biographical narrations and meaning making. It draws from a study on highly qualified and highly mobile entrepreneurs.
This kind of "new migration/mobility" of the highly qualified with its connection to global and transnational social fields and processes tends to pose a challenge to classic concepts e.g. of departure and integration and has lead to numerous (scientific) imaginaries and concepts. The paper will discuss, which concepts may be valuable from a research perspective, which focusses on individual life strategies and orientation schemes.
Tatjana Thelen (Universität Wien)
Paper short abstract:
Based on data from two Romanian villages, this paper explores constructions of self/other and institutional care against the backdrop of out-migration. I illustrate the struggle involved in coming to terms with these developments as well as the importance of such imaginaries for community building.
Paper long abstract:
"You are doing it the right way: you care for your old people at home" was one of the first sentences I heard upon returning to a village in the North-West of Romania ten years after my initial fieldwork. Whereas back then the prevailing assumption had been that the elderly in the West were "given away" by their families, ten years later this image has been turned on its head: the elderly were supposedly being given away in Romania, while those in the West aspired to keep them at home. The us/them dichotomy seemed to have profoundly changed.
Although with society aging care migration has progressively entered both public and academic debates, the starting point is either Western countries with an attested care crisis or the life and work conditions of migrant workers. How constructions of self/other and community are adapted in light of care migration and how they feed into processes of belonging in the so-called sending countries is less researched. Therefore in this paper, I concentrate on the efforts to make sense of what is happening, showing how care becomes important for more general processes of the (re)production of communities. Secondly, I seek to show how these representations are connected to the shifting visions of institutional care in various forms. Both representational layers are interwoven into scientific and popular discourses on the presumed dilution of family values, as well as on what constitutes "good" care.
Marek Pawlak (Jagiellonian University)
Paper short abstract:
The paper focuses on the role of shame and reluctance in migrants’ imaginaries, which seem to be significant factors for identity strategies among Poles living and working across Europe. Thus, drawing on my fieldwork in Norway and Poland, I explore the context of migrants’ ‘embarrassed’ identities.
Paper long abstract:
After Poland's accession to the European Union in May 2004 a considerable number of Poles left the country seeking for employment in Western Europe. Many of them decided to stay and settle in, while some - after achieving their goals - returned to Poland. Others, however, found themselves caught between countries and started living intense mobile lives.
The paper focuses on the role of shame and reluctance in migrants' imaginaries, which seem to be significant factors for identity strategies among Poles living and working across Europe. Such role includes, inter alia, labelling and stigmatising co-nationals in a migratory situation: for example, in Ireland there is Marian (male given name; English Marion) or Polusy (plural, no translation), which stands for 'unwanted' and 'embarrassing' co-nationals; in England, we find Polack (instead of Polak - singular for Pole in Polish) or Polacks (plural); and in Holland there is a term Pool, which signifies same feelings of reluctance and embarrassment.
The idea of the paper is to move beyond methodological nationalism and focus on the context of group's internal relations. I draw on my fieldwork conducted among Poles living mobile ways of life between Poland and Norway in order to explore the complex interplay between migrants' strategies of identification and the role of social and cultural imaginaries, which are grounded in the global relations of power and ideological hierarchies.
Christian Ritter (ETH Zurich and University of Zurich)
Paper short abstract:
The paper discusses the practices of image production and digital communication trough which Swiss youth with a Kosovar background appropriate symbols and narratives from national Albanian discourses in their construction and negotiation of social and cultural "identities" on the WWW.
Paper long abstract:
With the spread of digital camera technology and ICT, new actors have become visible with one's own images in the public of the WWW. These new "media amateurs" also include young people of Albanian background, whose parents have emigrated to Switzerland. On social networks such as Facebook and YouTube numerous images and videos can be found, in which youth present themselves with national Albanian and Kosovar symbols. Considering the rather strong national discourses in former Yugoslavian countries on the one hand, the socio-political debates in Switzerland on the "integration" of young Kosovo Albanians on the other, the question arises of how this (aesthetic) emergence of ethno-nationalism in hybrid youth cultural environments can be characterized.
The practices of imagination, construction and communication of ethnicity observable on the social web go beyond the dichotomy of an implicitly "banal" and explicitly "hot" nationalism (Billig 1995): From a cultural studies perspective, this young peoples appropriation of symbols, myths and narratives from national Albanian discourses in online communication can be understood as guided by their need to negotiate shared experiences of cultural and social stigmatization.
Against this background, the paper focuses on the ambivalent function of such "images of belonging". Based on an ongoing study it will argue, a) how youth cultural actors acquire social "agency" in the context of migration and how it is framed by ICT and camera technology and b) how traditional concepts of culture are undermined, but also reformulated under the influence of both cultural and technical delimitation.
Alejandra Tijerina García (Universität Hamburg)
Paper short abstract:
This article – based on ethnographic research in Berlin and Hamburg – focuses on the shaping and reshaping of migrant imaginaries in previous and post-migration realities and the influence these exert on individual integration strategies.
Paper long abstract:
Parting from a person-centered perspective, individuals in the decision-making process to migrate are immersed in an internal debate considering benefits and consequences for their future spatial and social mobility. Migrant imaginaries are then shaped and reshaped based on individual expectations and diverse sources of information (i.e. social media or city branding). Considering Charles Taylor's social imaginary as the understanding individuals hold of their social environment and their place within it (2005), migration imaginaries can be regarded as the perspective of the different subjects involved. The decision to migrate based on these imaginaries carries individuals across borders and presents them with new challenges as their preconceived ideas may or may not correspond to the perceived local reality. These points of encounter or rupture between individual visions and post-migration realities open a space for addressing the question: how do migrant imaginaries and perceived reality influence integration strategies?
Focusing on an individual approach, I conducted a series of interviews with Spanish migrants in Berlin addressing the issues of migration decision-making and integration in the context of the prolonged impact of the Great Recession. Based on the insights gathered in my ethnographic research, I argue that migrant imaginaries continue being reshaped or reinforced by the perceived local reality and city imaginary (Lindner, 2006). This, in turn directly influences the individual's integration strategies in the short and long-term. Furthermore, initial insights of a similar study currently being conducted in Hamburg will be disclosed to offer a comparative perspective.
Nóra Kovács (Hun-Ren Centre for Social Sciences, Budapest)
Paper short abstract:
The proposed paper explores cultural imaginaries, notions and values that are at play in shaping the dynamics of Chinese-Hungarian married, cohabiting and dating couples, and separated or divorced couples.
Paper long abstract:
Researchers tackling the problem of integration of Chinese migrants arriving in Hungary since 1990 into local Hungarian society agree that the existence of Chinese-Hungarian mixed marriages is not typical. Field research has shown that there are Chinese-Hungarian mixed couples, although their exact number is not known, but it seems low compared to the size of the Chinese population in Hungary. Scholarly literature suggests that the central reason for this is not to be found in endogamous norms valid among Chinese immigrants. Based on data gathered through anthropological fieldwork and semi-structured interviews with members of Chinese-Hungarian married, cohabiting and dating couples, as well as members of separated or divorced couples, the proposed paper explores cultural imaginaries, notions and values that are at play in shaping the dynamics of these relations.
Taking the viewpoint of members of the host society as a point of departure it seeks to understand how distance and closeness is created and manifested in cultural terms. It focuses on how everyday practices of living together, language use, childrearing strategies, and work attitudes of Chinese-Hungarian couples reflect the relative positions of power of two different cultural backgrounds within the relationship. Furthermore, it explores how transnationalism, spatial mobility, simultaneous ties to different places appear in the lives of mixed marriage-based families.