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- Convenor:
-
Sumita Chaudhuri
(Calcutta University)
- Stream:
- Relational movements: Migration, Refugees and Borders/Mouvements relationnels: Migration, régugiés et frontières
- Location:
- TBT 327
- Start time:
- 3 May, 2017 at
Time zone: America/New_York
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
Migration plays an important role in the context of urbanization. When people move towards the cities, they may carry with them their own cultural traditions or may adapt a new culture. This may be examined with cross-cultural data.
Long Abstract:
In the process of urbanization, migration plays a very crucial role. It is expected that the migrants would bring with them their own socio-cultural tradition, world view and behaviour pattern. Naturally the socio-cultural implication of migration in the process of urbanization can be an interesting aspect of enquiry. Among the more important social phenomena that accompany the process of industrialization of a society is the one involving the movement of large number of rural people to urban centres. While some of those who move to urban centres may originate in other urban centres, the large bulk of flow is made up of people who move from the villages to towns or cities. This movement of the predominantly rural folk to urban, is an event of economic, socio-psychological and cultural significance. It is also likely that even though one stays in the urban areas physically, his/her world view may not change much. Thus they may still carry the traditional norms and customs, practices and behavioural pattern. This only adds to the socio-psychological complexity of the process of migration. In the context of movement of people towards the large cities, it can be examined (1) what happens to people when they migrate to a city, whether they still maintain their socio-cultural traditions or adapt new culture, and (2) how they adjust to the city culture. This may be examined in this panel with cases from across the world.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Lauri Turpeinen (University of Helsinki)
Paper short abstract:
Migrating to the urban centres is regarded to be the normal course of life for young persons in many rural regions of Finland. This paper analyses the experiences of young adults from the remote region of Kainuu with settling in and adjusting to life in the vibrant capital of Finland, Helsinki.
Paper long abstract:
Finland is an outlier in the Western World, if urbanization is considered. It started later than
elsewhere, but happened very fast when it was under way. Out-migration has played a crucial role
in the process. It has to be considered that after the Second World War, most Finns were still living in rural regions. Today, the great majority is residing in the urban centres and rural areas are
struggling with depopulation. One region facing the challenge of rural depopulation is Kainuu in
North-Eastern Finland. It is also known as Nälkämaa, the 'hunger land' of Finland. This image
stems from its long history of out-migration, poverty, and remoteness.
In my paper I will be dealing with the experiences of young adults, who have left Kainuu for a new
life in the capital of Finland, Helsinki. I will be showing how those young adults from Kainuu have
re-invented themselves as urbanites, how they have adjusted to city life, what meaning urban
dwelling and life styles have for them and also how they negotiate their peripheral origins in
relation to the often maligning narratives about Kainuu and its inhabitants. I have studied this via
interviews and a participatory research method that enabled the participants to express themselves also visually. This paper is part of an ongoing PhD project about the experiences of young adults from Kainuu with rural-urban-migration.
Sara Vieira (University of British Columbia)
Paper short abstract:
How do Portuguese-Canadians experience re-integration upon returning to Toronto including use of bilingualism, coping strategies, and networking? How do over 150 Portuguese organizations in Toronto represent 'Portuguese', what services do they provide, and what types of funding are they allocated?
Paper long abstract:
My research 'Experiences of Portuguese-Canadian Transnationals' re-integration in The Greater Toronto Area' aims to understand how Portuguese-Canadians use their bilingualism to connect to a sense of belonging and identity, and maintain and retain social ties in both Canada and Portugal. My study has two specific objectives: (i) to understand the ways in which Portuguese-Canadians experience re-integration upon returning to the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) including their bilingualism/language use, identities/sense of belonging and connections to place and to compare their experiences to Portuguese-Canadians living in central Portugal, and (ii) to investigate over 150 Portuguese organizations/community centres and associations in the GTA to discern the types of services provided, languages used, resource allocation, and ultimately, assess the ways in which these Portuguese organizations represent 'Portuguese' within a Canadian discourse. My research questions are: (1) How do Portuguese-Canadians experience re-integration and how does this impact their bilingualism, identity, and connection to place? (2) What is defined as 'Portuguese identity' within a Portuguese-Canadian discourse and what power relations are embedded in these discourses? My aim is to ultimately assess and provide recommendations for services in order to allocate meaningful support for Portuguese-Canadian returnees to Canada, as well as the larger Portuguese-Canadian community in the GTA.
Kiran Jayaram (University of South Florida)
Paper short abstract:
This paper proposes a methodological approach for anthropological studies of mobility that puts primacy on learning as the processual counterpart to culture. In short, studying people in motion to and in an urban area requires paying attention to how they learn to move.
Paper long abstract:
Though most people on the planet have not crossed international borders, contemporary discourse portrays a mass of people whirling from country to country and from countryside to city. This paper engages three main bodies of scholarship. Firstly, it builds upon the research on urban areas (Du Bois 1899; Park 1915; Wirth 1938) and on the role of cities in contemporary processes (Hannerz 1980; Harvey 1973; Pottier 1988; Sassen 2001). Secondly, anthropological studies of mobility have focused on the "complex assemblage of movement, imaginaries, and experience" (Salazar 2016). In a sense, these realms of the world mirror the material world, beliefs, and behaviors of a population as fundamental elements of culture. However, anthropological studies of mobility have often overlooked the processual part of culture: learning. Drawing upon educational anthropology, I propose that any ethnography of mobility should take into consideration how people learn to be mobile in the city.
This paper will draw upon my research among contemporary Haitian educational and labor migrants to Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. I begin by presenting some of the elements of the regime of mobility (Glick Schiller and Salazar 2011) with which migrants must contend. Next, I describe some of the knowledge that some of them use on the way to and within the city. After examining these ethnographic examples, I point to their limitations as a way to propose ways to study urbanites. I suggest how studying the process of learning can reveal information about people's culture.
Aleksander Posern-Zielinski (Poznan University, Poland)
Paper short abstract:
The aim of the paper is to present the result of the comparative project on the adaptation strategy of Polish migrants living in five European capitals (Berlin, Dublin, London, Oslo, and Stockholm). At the center of study is to understand the mechanism of the success achieving process.
Paper long abstract:
The aim of the paper is to present the results of the comparative research project on the adaptation strategy of Polish migrants living in five European capitals (Berlin, Dublin, London, Oslo, and Stockholm). The target group is composed by the migrants settled down in host countries after accesion of Poland into EU. Majority of the migrants selected for the investigation are well integrated professional people. At the center of the study is to understand the mechanism and circumstances of the success achieving proces, identified both according to objective criteria as well as understanding in term of emic perspective as a subjective well being or individual feeling of satisfaction. Another discussed topic is the transnational context of the integration process. It is interesting to stress here, that success is more often achieved in isolation from the ethnic community established in the host country. Simultaneosly the migrants of success participated frequently in a kind of unformal social net of ethnic relations build in host country/city and maintain strong ties with the home country. Finally, the proces of acculturation among recent succesfull migrants is also discussed with the aim to determine how the social and cultural capital brought by them from the home country has an impact on speed and quality of acquiring competences needed in the host country.
Sarika Shukla (I.T.P.G.College, Lucknow University) Anamika Shukla (Symbiosis Law School, Noida)
Paper short abstract:
Urban sprawl has embraced Lucknow metropolis. Whether the city scales new heights with skyscrapers or expands its waistline with slums depends on the diet of migrants with their varied skill sets. The paper scrutinizes the urbanization trends of Lucknow and its consequences.
Paper long abstract:
Urban sprawl has tightly embraced the City of Nawabs. From a meager population of 10 lakhs spread across 9.17 sq. kms. in 1980s, the population and the area expanded to 45 lakhs and 45.5 sq. kms. respectively in 2011. One of the major reasons for this upward trend has been migration.
It is widely known that whether the city will scale new heights with sky scrapers or expand its waistline with chaotic unplanned slums depends on the diet of migrants with their varied levels of skills amongst other reasons. According to Master Plan 2021, there are 241 illegal colonies and 81 illegal industries in the residential areas of Lucknow. Thus, a new social strata has emerged causing hindrance to the merging of urban-rural communities. As the 2 lakh migrants attempt to secure jobs as secondary and tertiary workers, the authors observe the stark difference in the quality of lives of the urban rural migrants.
In the paper we analyze the reasons for this increasing mobility to the banks of Gomti river while also presenting the maps of the changing morphology of the city over the past 5 decades and discuss further projections. Skill building programs, benefits and compensation schemes for rural immigrants and ailing farmers are also presented as we attempt to extrapolate the maximum socio-economic benefits in the aftermath of the presented migratory trends in the capital of the most populous state of India.