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- Convenors:
-
Stéphanie Rolland-Traina
(University of Bordeaux, CETOBaC - UMR 8032 CNRS)
Ruth Goldstein (Harvard University )
- Discussant:
-
Levente Szilágyi
(HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities)
- Stream:
- Migration/Borders
- Location:
- A105
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 23 June, -, -, Wednesday 24 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Zagreb
Short Abstract:
This panel explores the ways and possibilities that people perceive and cross borderlines despite the construction of borders and boundaries at two levels, physical State border checkpoints and symbolic boundaries.
Long Abstract:
John Torpey (2000) states that the increasing control of human circulation - reducing individual's freedom of movement - is strongly linked to the rise of modern Nation-State and to its progressive monopole of violence. Movement control and border policies are of main importance in State development and competition, revealing the ambiguous nature of the modern (Western) State, both protecting and dominating its citizens. Since the XIXth century, inside and outside of Europe, the apparition of new States has meant the construction of new borders, sometimes dividing people who had long lived together. This introduced consequential distinctions between us (citizens) and them (foreigners). In the XXth century, relaxing controls of borders inside regional economic areas often allowed people to move more freely and create new social networks.
Our aim is to reflect on the impact of the nature of borders, more or less porous, on social networks, the accommodation in social practices of people at the borderland and margins to escape State control. We examine the multiple consequences of border-building: on the constitution of "the self," and of identifications along national, ethnic, and/or religious lines.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 23 June, 2015, -Paper short abstract:
I am going to speak about the populace of territories having centuries-old interactions and interferences of cultures and the role of borders in their cultural diversity. My aim will be to show the features of cultural and linguistic situation in different parts of the borderland.
Paper long abstract:
The paper is devoted to the project carried out jointly by Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian scholars on both sides of the Russian-Ukrainian border (in Bryansk, Belgorod, Voronezh, Kursk regions - Russian Federation and in Chernihiv, Kharkiv regions - Ukraine), which was compared with the data from the Russian-Belarusian borderland (in Mogilev and Vitebsk - Belarus and Bryansk, Smolensk and Pskov regions - Russia).
Research was carried out in the boundary territories of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia that have all been years parts of the same state - the Russian Empire and then the USSR - till the 1990s. I am going to speak about the populace of territories having centuries-old interactions and interferences of cultures and the role of borders in their cultural diversity. My aim will be to show the features of cultural and linguistic situation in different parts of the borderland. Ethnological study of the region will be correlated with the corresponding phenomena in the central parts of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
Paper short abstract:
The paper is trying to answer the question that the identity of ethnic groups divided by boundaries - in this case Germans (Schwabs) of Csanálos (Romania) and Vállaj (Hungary) - has experienced modification that clearly was forced upon them due to new borders.
Paper long abstract:
In 1920, under the Treaty of Trianon a superimposed type of boundary was set up between Csanálos (Romania) and Vállaj (Hungary), which would affect the development of the intrinsically intertwined social networks - typically operated through kinship systems - of residents of the two settlements in a crucial way. The presence of a century-old border caused a progressive debilitating of the kinship systems.
Due to their Schwab origin, residents of the two villages very soon, at the time of the appearance of the border, found themselves in the crossfire of political games driven by powerful interests. The Schwab identity until the 1989 collapse of socialist system faced various challenges, so it followed a different development. It resulted large German emigration in Csanálos, and increased assimilation in Vállaj. After collapse of socialist system ethnic processes became uniform. Schwab identity nowadays is represented almost equally in the two villages.
As a result of border the mentality of people living in two settlements has changed. In fact, the context defined by the new government framework caused the division, the border as an institutions of flow could not provide the level of information exchange between the two sides that would compensate the external forces. As they started weakening in 1990s, a process of leveling started. However it caused not the reorganization of former relationships, but mostly manifested in the development of institutional relationships.
Paper short abstract:
The aim of this communication is to discuss the boundary between the different border practices, in particular - smuggling, illegal immigration and border control. We found some ambiguities in the art of governing and in the art of not being governed of people living in border zones.
Paper long abstract:
The ambiguous practices of state agents were related to the ambiguity of the Government's position on the border, in the control of illegal immigration as it happens with activities like smuggling, facilitating certain types of goods flows and people but hindering other types. Some testimonies indicate situations which require a reconfiguration of practices such as the smuggler who had to emigrate to escape authorities or the former irregular emigrant who come on vacation, already legalized that smuggled someone on their return trip to France. Many of migrants had been smugglers before their departure.
Studies on the borders must take into account various scales of analysis - the locality, the village, the boundary line, the border zone, the city, the neighborhood, subnational and supranational spaces. All these scales of space greatly affect people's daily lives. Analyzing one of these scales without taking into account others give us a partial view of a certain social reality. Social networks and flows are crucial to understand the borders zones. However, it is difficult to draw a clear boundary between border practices on irregular emigration, because these roles and activities mixed up often.
Paper short abstract:
The topic of our paper will be the attitude towards political/ethnic border, respectively the transformation way of border concept - from utopia that produced in the past to a heritage that marks today - as a result of movements of social and political changes that passed Albanians in the Balkans.
Paper long abstract:
Political border that surrounded the state of Albania for more than half a century (1948 - 1990) left many part of the Albanian lands and population to belong to the neighboring states. The political border, which caused the separation of ethnic population, soon had received the status of the ethnic border. It divided the ethnic population on "we" and "they". This separation caused impossibility on communication and thus produced prejudices, illusions, dreams and utopia for the lands and the people across the border, in both sides of it. But today when the border is only formal, the memory about the time when was there, is only a heritage.
In our paper we will treat the border area between Albania and the new state of Kosovo, which will try to look as the product of a utopia in past real time, but also as the product of a collective memory today, which presents a rich national heritage. What has made changing of its status from utopia to heritage? For whom that border was painful reality and for whom is only a check point? The concept of political/ethnic border to Albanian themselves, on both sides, changed from those who experienced to the subsequent generations, as a result of movements of social and political change, which passed Albanians in the Balkans. Ways of transforming the concept of this border to the local mentality, by referring to the personal narratives, will be the subject of our paper.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the strategies and lived experiences of Pakistani-Japanese couples as they expand their family across national borders. Using longitudinal data, the study explores how the couples contest the borders and use various strategies to overcome the challenges they confront.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines the strategies and lived experiences of Pakistani male migrants and their Japanese spouses by using longitudinal data related to their family making. This type of cross-cultural marriage increased from the late 1980s when Japan suffered a serious shortage of labor which lead to an influx of foreigners working under precarious conditions as "illegal workers." In a country that has not officially allowed the entry of "unskilled labor," marrying a Japanese woman was one way for a migrant to acquire the legal right to stay in Japan to work. However, after marriage the couples faced difficult challenges, including the exclusion of foreigners from the labor market and various forms of discrimination due to the negative representations of "foreigners" and "Muslims", particularly after 9/11. This study explores how the couples dealt with the challenges and employed strategies to expand their life across national boundaries. Of particular importance is the formation of transnational families whereby the Japanese wives and their children relocate to Pakistan or a third country, including the UK, and the Pakistani husbands remain in Japan to continue their business. Such a strategy reflects the hope of the couples for achieving economic success and maintaining their Muslim identity by raising their children in an "Islamic environment." By exploring the complex trajectories of family making by Pakistani-Japanese couples, this paper sheds light on their aspirations and struggles, as well as the contradictions that they confront as they pursue their strategies for expanding their lives beyond national borders.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the effects and struggles for human rights of artisanal gold mining on multiple actors: isolated tribes, Andean migrants, civil servants, and NGO workers in the triple-frontier Amazonian region of Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia known as "El Dorado” by early Spanish explorers.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines the effects of artisanal gold mining on multiple actors: isolated tribes, Andean migrants, civil servants, and NGO workers in the triple-frontier Amazonian region of Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia. Known as "El Dorado" by early Spanish explorers, this region continues to carry the mystique of richness, stimulating massive migrations of men to the gold mines and women to mining brothels. The region is also home to isolated tribes, clashing with the gold miners. The gold travels to banks as far as away as Zurich and Dubai, initially transported along the Interoceanic Road. Latin America's newest and longest thoroughfare cuts horizontally across the continent, redefining definitions of what "a border" means. Towns, people, forests, and mountains now have a new geography of connectivity, which has also led to conflict. The road itself represents a boundary, delimiting how and when people, alpacas, sheep, and lamas may move. In the race for gold, governance, and political sovereignty, indigenous groups fighting to keep their land from wildcat miners, protect their isolated "brothers," and manage internal conflict about development, must interface with three different States, each with different views on human rights and autochthony. In this fluid landscape of moving people, expansive rainforest, sporadic yet violent State presence, what territorial border, property, and ownership signify changes must be reconciled through three national governments and international finance.