Paper short abstract:

Based on interviews in Bradford, Southall and Glasgow, this paper will focus on the existence, development and significance of Asian performance arts at community level, since the late 1940s.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on interviews from the on-going AHRC-funded project into British Asian Theatre (University of Exeter, UK), this paper offers an insight into an alternative picture of migration of South Asians to the UK in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Sadly, this story of migration is frequently told in negative terms through reports, surveys and governmental statistics, citing a lack of accommodation, employment, money, English language, education, and integration. Despite, or perhaps, because of such negative circumstances, the new Asian communities that emerged in Britain's cities from the 1950s onwards gathered together in homes, and later religious buildings and community centres, to embrace the culture of their homeland. They sang devotional songs, recited verses of their beloved Urdu poets. Some played music, some danced, some cooked and, undoubtedly, all ate.

Although this expression of Asian arts accompanied religious festivals and celebrations within the ethnic community, such as weddings, its existence remained largely hidden to the wider city community, only surfacing for occasional city festivals, galas, and later melas. A sub-culture of Asian arts made by Asians, for Asians, with defined touring circuits and venues were a natural development and run counterpoint to professional Asian-led British theatre companies such as Tara Arts (1977), Tamasha Theatre Company (1989) and Kali Theatre Company (1990) who aim to include a wider, mainstream audience.

Based on interviews with those who have been involved with Asian arts since the late 1940s, this paper will focus on the existence, development and significance of Asian performance arts at community level. It will raise the following issues: identity of the artists and audience; changing modes of performance; location of Asian arts (public, private and community space); language; funding and support networks; individual and family ambition and expectations; access of Asians to mainstream arts and the provision of mainstream spaces to Asian Arts. Particular attention will be paid to the urban centres of Bradford, Southall, and Glasgow, European City of Culture 1990.

Paper short abstract:

For those awaiting asylum decisions in France, with precarious legal status and no right to work, 'waiting' becomes normalised. This paper explores the activities undertaken to 'spend' time and the manner in which people give meaning to their experiences.

Paper long abstract:

Today, waiting may be considered the "activity" of those who seek refuge in France and at some point an element of sweet violence of the bureaucracy in the host country. The asylum seekers I met have been waiting between six months (the "lucky" few) and four years for their claims to be evaluated. During this period they cannot work and their legal status is, at best, precarious. I would like to raise here a set of related questions: what does it mean to be waiting? What kind of waiting do they experience? What happens while waiting? I propose here to examine both the everyday activities undertaken to spend/kill/forget time and the manner in which people give meaning to their experiences. Based on a long-lasting ethnographic study in centers for asylum seekers in the Parisian suburbs which are supported by the state and managed by NGOs, the aim of this paper is to explore what happens when waiting becomes normalised.

Paper short abstract:

The People's Republic of China (PRC) still claims rights over the consular land which was originally bought by the Republic of China (ROC). This 'two Chinas' related issue thoroughly divides the Chinese in French Polynesia. Do they identify within a global geopolitical frame of reference?

Paper long abstract:

Undoubtedly the most divisive subject in the Chinese community in French Polynesia is the fate of the land belonging to the former Chinese consulate. After the first Chinese consul was appointed in 1945 to represent the Chinese residents in this French Overseas Territory, the government of the Republic of China (ROC) acquired a parcel of land on which to build a consular building in June 1946. The fate of the land was raised for the first time after the People's Republic of China (PRC) was recognised by De Gaulle in 1964. A year later, the French government decided to close the consulate. Meanwhile, the consul had set up a "committee to safeguard goods, furniture and property belonging to the Republic of China", made up of representatives from diverse French Polynesian Chinese associations. The civil Tribunal of Papeete later recognised this committee as the owner of the land (Judgment of 19 April 1978). However, that hasn't stopped the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ceaseless claims to rights over the former consulate. In 2001, President Jiang Zemin even paid a visit to Tahiti during which he reclaimed the property of the land in the name of the PRC.

This issue thoroughly divides members of the Chinese community in French Polynesia. That is why, despite the 1978 judgement, various projects for the use of the consular land - Franco-Chinese medical clinic, House of Confucius - have come to nothing. The systematic hostility between partisans and opponents of the restitution of this parcel of land to the PRC hampers any agreement.

The very fact that this community, composed of third and fourth generation descendants of Chinese immigrants, is still divided around questions that are relevant to the "two Chinas" problem (the PRC and the ROC in Taiwan) should lead us to characterize this community as diasporic. Indeed, its members appear to identify "at a distance", within a frame of reference that is not local but that pertains to the global geopolitical sphere. Yet a closer look at each side's motivation for taking these opposed positions reveals a much more complex reality. What is locally called "the affair of the consular land" enables to grasp the stakes underlying the diverging identifications of French citizens with Chinese origins.

Paper short abstract:

Guidelines for fieldwork developed in Spain about ICT practices among the migrant population with two aims: first, to identify and explain unexpected characteristics of ICT uses in a context of rapid social change and, secondly, to understand their role in the digital divide.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will focus on the guidelines for a fieldwork developed in Spain about ICT practices among the migrant population with two aims: first, to identify and explain unexpected characteristics of ICT uses in a context of rapid social change and a rapid increase in immigration and, secondly, to understand their role in a more complex definition of the digital divide.

One of the outcomes of our previous fieldwork, as well as some results presented in other studies, show that the immigrant population is using ICT in specific ways, both in spaces and purposes of use. For example, in recent surveys home is the place where most people say to have used computers and the Internet in the previous three months, both men and women, immigrants and non-immigrants. However, the great importance of cyber-cafes (sometimes difficult to distinguish from locutories) should be pointed out for the immigrant population as a preferred place for using computers and connecting to the Internet (40% of use) in contrast to the rest of the sectors and groups, for whom this space is significantly less important. In fact, we have observed how cyber-cafes are spaces where transnational family relationships are maintained and developed. We have ethnographic examples of male children and adults who migrate and maintain weekly contact with wives and mothers - illiterate in the traditional sense - through videoconferences in the locutories for more than ten years, as well as similar examples among women who start a migratory chain in contact with other female relatives back home.

In the same line as above, it is necessary to explore uses of blogs, web sites, forums, news and messaging at a transnational level and inside ethnic groups in receiving regions. Moreover, the influence of ICT uses among the immigrant population on cultural practices in their countries of origin has not been explored yet, in relation to the position these countries may occupy on the map of the digital divide. However, some examples tell us about the global dimension of local practices among migrant populations. Differences in the ICT acces and use among countries are remarkable, data on gender reveal few differences about the places where computers or the Internet are used, other researchers show gender differences in the preferences for typologies of video games, in the perceptions of them and in the motivations leading to playing. So far we have ignored if differences also exist among Spanish and foreign immigrant women or men, or what are the differences in use among the foreign populations coming from different countries. Age, however, emerges as a clear factor of unequal access to ICT, especially in using the Internet. Finally, class differences concerning Internet access are only mentioned in recent research projects.

So far in Spain we do not have much more information, neither research, on these issues; therefore, it is urgent to develop research about the influence of these factors that may allow us to reconstruct the extent of the digital divide and analyse it in more detail. This will have to do with the access and the abilities of the less favoured groups, but it also has to do with the lack of recognition of children and young people's uses in general and the specific uses developed by those children and young people in migration processes and their communicative, affective and identity needs.

Paper short abstract:

I combine migration and tourism theories under the broader umbrella of mobility. I argue labour migration is difficult to evaluate and suggest that this can be done via the study of rural tourism. I try to understand the 'money trajectory' and the microsocial context that these mobilities involve.

Paper long abstract:

The goal of my research is to show the link between two parallel phenomena that can dramatically change a small society: the travelling, migrational or non-migrational, to and from this particular region.

There are two strongly linked "mobility corridors" in Maramures: outgoing mobility, which consists mostly in labour migration and incoming mobility, i.e. the arrival of foreigners, as holiday-residents, researchers and tourists. These two mobility streams are linked empirically. Moreover, migrational workers function as mediators or cultural brokers for the locals (Romanians) and for the visitors (who are often inhabitants of the countries of destination for the labour migration). The massification of migration is both the cause and the effect of an increased interdependence between Eastern-Western / urban-rural societies' cultural and economic models.

Because it involves underground activities, labour migration is very difficult to evaluate, especially when it comes to statistics and figures in general. In this case, the evaluation can be re-constructed on the basis of rural tourism; thus my intention is to follow the "money trajectory" and the microsocial context that this process involves.

Studies on migration generally analyse the situation in the destination countries, in the country of origin, or both. The specificity of my research is the inclusion of a parallel "mobility". I try to combine migration and tourism processes under the broader umbrella of what is mobility nowadays. Another specificity of this research would be the tradition of labour migration from the studied area. Labour migration is usually a new phenomenon or at least one that visibly grew in the last decades. In Maramures this process has more continuity: there is a long tradition of labour migration.

Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the process of adaptation of the Chilean population (eg exiles, workers, students) in London and Bristol. It addresses the strategies used for the maintenance of their cultural identity and for the development of social support networks in physical and/or virtual contexts.

Paper long abstract:

The cross-cultural mobility of Chileans, whether forced or voluntary, involves the adaptation to a different culture and the development of social networks, which also provides support for the creation of a community. Whether this community is extended or nuclear, there is a sense of a shared identity, where culture finds a way to be expressed, be it in the way of traditional representations, behaviors, attitudes, or in the shared cultural memory.

This presentation is focused on three main aspects: a) the voluntary and involuntary migration of Chileans to London and Bristol, as exiles, relatives of exiles, as well as people looking for work or to continue their education; b) the process of adaptation and acculturation of Chilean immigrants and the strategies used for dealing with intercultural differences, and c) the exploration of the ways in which Chilean immigrants maintain their cultural identity, traditions, and beliefs in a different cultural context. This last aspect involves the development and maintenance of social support networks (at home and abroad), including a high reliance on information and communications technologies (e.g., internet and telephone).

Paper short abstract:

The British NHS has a tradition of recruiting overseas nurses. This paper focuses on the concept of 'home' from the lived experiences of ten overseas nurses recruited in the 1970s. The stories are historically located within a postcolonial framework.

Paper long abstract:

Dr Bheenuck's study utilises a life history approach to explore the lives and experiences of ten overseas nurses who arrived in Britain as student nurses during the 1960s and 1970s. All ten respondents originate from previous British colonies. A conscious decision was made to frame the 'stories' within a postmodernist paradigm, and to historically locate these using a postcolonial framework. The individuals, in this study, left their home at a time of great historical and social change. Many of these countries were recovering from experiences of colonialism and subsequent independence from colonial powers. It was also a time of severe labour shortages in Britain and this was particularly acute in the National Health Service. Prospects of unemployment at home and the promise of a better future in the United Kingdom were significant factors in the migration of most of the nurses. The nurses' decision to leave their country of birth and their experiences as migrants feature strongly in the narrated stories. Their experiences over the past three or four decades indicate a concern with their sense of selves and who they are. As retirement approaches, for many of the nurses, the concept of 'home' and their sense of belonging in Britain have become important issues.

The concept of 'place' is an important factor in the postcolonial world and for many of the nurses in this study, as they ponder over life after retirement, there is a tension in terms of where they 'belong' and where 'home' is.