Paper short abstract:

The paper explores relationships between place, migration and marginality. It focuses on representation of difference through stories of recent migrants. The paper employs a specific spatial approach in studying migration. It is based on the study of certain micro-places in Ljubljana that are characterised by temporality and changeability.

Paper long abstract:

Ljubljana »Asylum home« as it is formally called was moved from the inner suburb of Ljubljana to the very fringe of the city in 2004. Basic living conditions for asylum seekers improved, but the sense of marginality deteriorated. Asylum home invokes feelings of temporality and it is deprived of any true character. How much of 'home' can the institution such as Asylum home actually afford to offer? To what extent does the place determine who one is and how one is perceived by the others?

This paper follows journeys of asylum seekers in Ljubljana in recent years, especially after 2004, and explores the impact they make on certain locations within the city. It examines migratory changes in the 'city on the crossroads' and explains the extent and ways of incorporation of difference into the city's everyday.

The paper employs a specific spatial approach to studying migration. It focuses on chosen micro places and uses different narrative approaches in trying to describe what it means to be 'different' in a city where difference was always present but only rarely challenged or appreciated. The paper deals with the notions of home, representation, place and displacement. While focusing on specific locations and specific stories of migration, it is offering alternative way to link place, movement and social dynamics in studying migration. It explains how places become politicised. By highlighting concepts such as action, communication and power, it examines tools that people use to mobilise meanings that places tend to offer.

Paper short abstract:

The paper will investigate the everyday negotiations of inclusion, exclusion and belonging that take place in encounters between newly arrived refugee families and inhabitants in local communities in rural Denmark. What kinds of social relations develop between refugee families and their neighbours and what is the role of local everyday routines?

Paper long abstract:

The paper will investigate how refugee families, admitted into Denmark as UN quota refugees 1-2 years ago and living in Danish rural and provincial areas, seek to become integrated in local communities through everyday interaction with local inhabitants.

Since 1999 the Danish authorities have dispersed refugees in ethnically Danish rural communities and small towns in accordance with the Danish government's integration policies. Thus, the majority of refugees granted asylum today are placed in smaller municipalities with few refugee or immigrant residents. For new refugees in Denmark, conditions for establishing new social networks have changed radically as they are now, to a larger degree, expected to create social relations with ethnic Danes rather than with people of their own ethnic origin (or other immigrant-/refugee populations). But how does this political intention translate into practice? How does the social incorporation of refugees into society unfold when it takes place, not in the diversity of the city, but in the uniformity of a small rural community?

Based on ethnographic cases the paper will explore the everyday negotiations of inclusion, exclusion and belonging that take place in encounters between newly arrived refugee families and ethnic Danes within the local neighbourhood. What kinds of social relations develop between refugee families and their neighbours and what is the role of everyday routines, such as the routinized local practices of gardening and house keeping?

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the theme of forced migration, focusing on the histories of some women asylum seekers in Italy. I will argue how fantasy, intended as an imagined world better than the one experienced in the present, becomes a social practice performed by these women to remove their marginality.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I will discuss the theme of forced migration as lived and witnessed experience of women asking for asylum in Italy. Going over their life histories, I will investigate the construction of a new daily world after the breaking down of other systems of relationship. With the aim to explore the drama and the continuity of violence experienced by these women before and after migration, I will turn to the notion of vulnerability, intended as a result of the exile trajectory and of assistance policies. This perspective allows to show how their identity becomes fragile due to the diverse forms of social exclusion faced in the host country. However, they are far from perceiving themselves as victims. Intended as what one would like to be or become, as an imagined future better than the present life, I will use the concept of fantasy to explore the desires these women express about their future and the ways in which they try to realise them. In this perspective, fantasy becomes a social practice performed by these women to remove their marginality. Vulnerability and fantasy represent two almost juxtaposed aspects of forced migrations: I will argue how fantasy creates a breach in marginality, thus enhancing action and turning into a survival strategy to face the suffering of forced migration. Moreover, the notion of fantasy introduces a new dimension, that of future, which the research on migration - especially that on forced migration - does not usually consider.

Paper short abstract:

Thousands of university-educated women from the Philippines enter Canada under the Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP). Participation in the LCP produces a significant rupture in women’s identities and lives as they negotiate boundaries of exclusion and inclusion that continue to loom large in their settlement and integration trajectories in Canada.

Paper long abstract:

Thousands of migrants, predominantly university-educated women from the Philippines, have entered Canada under the auspices of the Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP). LCP workers are required to work and live with their employers caring for children, the elderly or the infirm. After completing 24 months' of work, migrants may apply for permanent residency status. Drawing from a series of research projects, I found that participation in the LCP produces a significant rupture in women's identities and lives. Coming to Canada with the hopes of creating a better life for their families back home and for offering opportunities for those destined to join them, informants continue to recount their experiences in the LCP in the manner of a trauma narrative which anchors their post-LCP identity formation and social relations. While working under the LCP, women's lives are informed by their physical and social isolation, precarious immigration status, lack of control over work and home environment, loss of intimate familial roles, vulnerability to abuse and exploitation and loss of occupational status. After the LCP, they confront occupational, economic and social marginalization resulting in dreams deferred or denied. Often alienated from family and ethnic community members who have not undergone the program and have little understanding of the ordeal, women's participation in local LCP worker organizations enhances social support, facilitates access to support services and benefits health and well-being. Importantly, the presence of the LCP continues to loom large in their lives and continues to reconfigure personal and social identity.

Paper short abstract:

This paper deals with conceptions of Iranianness as mirrored in a range of interviews conducted with social actors of Iranian heritage (born Iranians) or descant (born Austrians) in Vienna in between 2005-2008.

Paper long abstract:

This paper deals with conceptions of Iranianness as mirrored in a range of interviews conducted with social actors of Iranian heritage (born Iranians) or descent (born Austrians) in Vienna in between 2005-2008. As I found, social actors understand Iranianness mostly in cultural terms as physically ingrained (albeit stereotypical) behavioural templates, skills, or likes and dislikes. Yet, on another level, social actors' phrased belonging also divert from such kind of attempted rationalisation. They often refer to more emotional experiences centring on smells, colours, tastes, and textures etc. connected with Iran and their individual experience of cultural identity and home. On the basis of some vivid interview excerpts I will go into depth to examine interviewees' classification strategies at which Iranians were defined, as well as the development context of their individual imaginations of Iranianness. Here, interviewees' choices of strategies as well as their respective manner of identification are tightly interwoven with social actors' corresponding hopes, dreams and local experiences of exclusion and inclusion which I will address, too.

Paper short abstract:

The focus of my paper is the Palestinian refugee community in Jordan. As various factors lead to the construction of group identities,I will try to explore relevant terms such as home, dreams and nostalgia, as well as their different meaning for the various groups and how they are used in daily life

Paper long abstract:

Many Palestinians have been "naturalized" in Jordan, which means that they receive the same benefits as the Jordanian population. They are regular citizens possess a Jordanian passport and a national ID card. Nevertheless, they still have -and this after 50 years- the label of being refugees. They are considered as Palestinian by the "native" Jordanians. Furthermore, the Palestinian community is not as homogeneous as one might assume, e.g. there are the "Kuwaitis" and "Gazans" who are also viewed as different from the Palestinians.

Terms such as memories, nostalgia, and dreams regarding the future differ between generations, groups of different socio-economic backgrounds and /or different diasporic experiences (e.g. Palestinians who have worked in the Gulf countries and were forced to "return" to Jordan because of the Gulf War in 1990). Appadurai and Beckenridge cite that "diasporas always leave a trail of collective memory about another place and time and create new maps of desire and of attachment" (1989: i). In the case of Palestinians living in Jordan distinct group identities, e.g. of the Palestinians who lived in Kuwait, can be observed in everyday life. Many of the Palestinians have lived in more than in one country and are therefore "products and mediators of different places and cultures, incorporating both 'the traveler' and 'the native'"(Ben-Ze'ev 2004 127), which is also reflected in daily activities.

This proposed paper is based on fieldwork conducted in Jordan in 2006/2007. It explores group identities and the different perceptions of home, nostalgia and dreams among these various groups.

Paper short abstract:

This paper draws attention to the significance of real and imagined kinship ties in defining mutually valued notions of selfhood, well-being and personal security. The diversity of personal experience is considered through the memories, hopes, dreams and fears of three female Brazilian migrants living in Japan.

Paper long abstract:

Studies of Brazilian nationals living and working in Japan tend to focus on the role of ethnic and national identity concerns in the making and shaping of everyday migrant experiences. Excluded from Japanese society such people, it is argued, find a sense of belonging in the 'collective shelter' of a displaced Brazilian community. This paper, however, draws attention to the significance of real and imagined kinship ties in defining mutually valued notions of selfhood, well-being and personal security. It is these relationships, in other words, that set the tone and rules of play for the ways in which people make sense of and articulate their diverse personal journeys through life, time and transnational spaces. In being single female migrants Diana, Lidia and Kátia are able to value a sense of freedom and independence that is inspired by the experience of living alone in a small flat or apartment for the first time in their lives. Friendships evolve, meanwhile, through the 'imagined family' of one's turma (group or gang). Yet for these three human beings the here and now of everyday experience is intimately connected to their memories of loss (of lovers, husbands and parents), hopes of a 'family future' and individualistic dreams of a house by the sea. Hopes and dreams, in this sense, represent two different versions of an uncertain future and future sense of selfhood that are simultaneously associated with the unwelcome needs of aging parents in Brazil and the fear of growing old alone in Japan.

Paper short abstract:

This paper deals with issues of ‘home’ and ‘belonging’ in transnational families, focusing issues of ‘return’. The paper explores how ‘return’ is conceived and experienced by different generations of migrants. The role of memories, hopes and dreams in imagining or enacting ‘return’ will be explored across gender and generation.

Paper long abstract:

This paper draws on material collected as part of a research which explored various aspects of family life in contemporary transnational families for the Ethnicity Strand of the Families and Social Capital ESRC Research Group. In particular, this paper deals with issues of 'home' and 'belonging' in transnational families, locating the experiences of different generations of people of Italian origin in comparative perspective with those originating from the Caribbean. The paper explores how the issue of 'return', or migration to the 'homeland', is conceived and experienced by different generations of migrants focusing, for instance, on how the memories and nostalgia of the parents are re-interpreted by their children; how experiences of inclusion/exclusion in the country of settlement shape attempts at connecting with the homeland; and on the contradictory nature of 'return' - sometimes causing new longings (e.g. for the country of settlement) and feelings of exclusion. Drawing on ethnographic examples, the paper will explore: what forms does 'return' take for contemporary transmigrants; how 'return' is imagined and enacted; how experiences of return may vary; how 'return' is linked to issues of belonging; and how are ideas and experiences of return shaped by gender and generation.

Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the memories and hopes of immigrants from S. Tomé e Príncipe. The author has registered a continuous conversation among them, where memories and dreams are interweaved, keeping their collective (national) identity alive and empowering them individually with a sense of belonging, mutuality and wellbeing in a foreign society.

Paper long abstract:

After the demise of its colonial empire in 1975, Portugal became the home of migrants from its colonies of Africa, trying to escape from extreme poverty.

Among them were citizens of the new country of S. Tomé e Príncipe (St. Thomas and Prince Islands). Most live in the Lisbon area and work in poorly paid jobs. This paper focuses on the memories and hopes of adults of S. Tomé e Príncipe, among whom the author has been conducting research for some years. Both at their homes and at their Association, he has been an observer of a continuous conversation where past and present, memory and dreaming, trauma, nostalgia and hopes are closely interweaved. This conversation, in conjunction with commemoration and rituals, keeps their collective (national) identity alive and empowers them individually with a sense of belonging, mutuality and wellbeing in a society where the majority of them feel marginalised and excluded. Most of them dream of returning, and hope that some "miraculous" event - such as the recent discovery of oil in its territorial waters - will improve the living conditions of the country. The realistic possibility of settling permanently and be buried in Portugal is never evoked.

Focusing on the memories and dreams of the immigrants, my paper takes in due consideration how the identity of the agents, particularly in terms of class and gender, and their relative feelings of inclusion and exclusion, the presence of the (Portuguese) ethnographer and the circumstances of the conversations affect the contents of their discourses.

Paper short abstract:

From a study based on engagement in everyday life focusing on Tamil’s illness and well-being, this paper presents a case story of a Tamil woman. The case gives opportunity to explore how embodied memories of the past are intertwined in today’s everyday life and future visions. Taking an analytic approach of embodiment, the paper discusses Tamil individuals’ agency and selfhood in creating well-being to their present daily living.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores how Tamil refugees in Norway experience self and personhood in everyday life of today. As a refugee population, Tamils are exceptional in the Norwegian context of being economically well integrated but socially segregated. Investigating this social reality, issues concerning Tamils' memories of the past, everyday life in the present and visions of the future become significant. From an ethnographic study based on participant fieldwork and engagement in everyday life with focus on Tamil's illness and well-being, this paper presents a case story of a Tamil woman. The case gives opportunity to explore how embodied memories and nostalgia of the past are intertwined in today's everyday life and future visions. Taking an analytic approach of embodiment and 'being-in-the-world', the paper discusses Tamil individuals' agency and selfhood in creating a sense of well-being and meaning to their present day-to-day living. The paper suggests how Tamils reconstruct and negotiate embodied Tamil values and practices in motivating and creating a life of today and in the future.

Paper short abstract:

This analysis of life stories related by three Caribbean migrants argues that an important attraction of migration is the broader spectrum of social contexts it makes available for individuals to gain recognition and thus sustain their visions of themselves as successful social actors.

Paper long abstract:

Migration is usually associated with the desire to achieve positive changes by traveling to another place. Based on the assumption that migrants move in order to settle and start a new life in the receiving society, migration researchers have focused on the social and economic changes experienced by migrants in the migration destination, as measured by "objective" national indicators such as occupation, income, housing and education. In recent years, it has been suggested that many migrants, disappointed with their ability to achieve these objectives, reject becoming part of the receiving society in favor of maintaining and further developing transnational ties to their country of origin. On the basis of interviews with members of a Caribbean migrant family, this paper argues that the improvement migrants seek may differ from notions of social mobility in the migration destination. When examined from the vantage point of individuals' life trajectories, migration is associated with improvement largely because it opens up for a broader spectrum of social contexts wherein individuals may gain social recognition and thus sustain their visions of themselves as successful social actors. This suggests, therefore, that the maintainance of transnational ties may not so much be a question of disappointment with not attaining "objective" goals of improvement, as defined by the receiving society, but is rather an expression of the migrants' desire to achieve personhood within the framework of their lived experiences from their early years in their place of origin to their later lives in the migration destination.

Paper short abstract:

Two case studies of Afghans in Athens address the impact of their involvement in creative activities on their personhood and refugee “condition” and on their wider social environment. Analytical approaches to the concept of “creativity” in the study of refugees are discussed.

Paper long abstract:

My aim in this presentation is to describe the everyday life of two young Afghan refugees living in Athens. I focus on their involvement in artistic and political initiatives, even through they work as heavy manual laborers for economic survival. Compared with the everyday life-styles of their compatriot refugees in Athens, the choices of the two young Afghans seem to be contradictory and heterodox. Two questions arise: 1) What are the preconditions and motivations for their creativity and, 2) What are the effects of their activities on their personhood (as individuals, as refugees) and on others in their social environment? In the analysis I use the concept of subjectivity suggested by Ortner as the ensemble of modes of perception, affect and thought (provoked and shaped by cultural and social formations) that animate acting subjects. I examine how this notion of subjectivity, as the basis of agency (how people try to act on the world, and in turn, how the world acts on them), can be combined with the writings of Lefebvre and de Certeau on the creative potential of everyday life.