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Faculty of Culture and Society
Research and Doctoral Education Committee
Bo Petersson
Vice Dean
Translation of syllabus
from Swedish
Dnr KS 64-2013/280
Syllabus
Introduction course MUSA – Migration,
Urbanisation and Societal Change
Course name in Swedish
Introduktionskurs MUSA – Migration, urbanisering och samhällsomvandling
Course name in English
Introduction course MUSA – Migration, Urbanisation and Societal Change
Approval and date of approval
Approved 2013-02-XX by the chair of the Research and Doctoral Education Committee
at the Faculty of Culture and Society after preparation by the committee. The syllabus is
valid from the spring semester of 2013.
Course code
KSMUSA001
Credits
15 credits
Level
Third cycle
Grading scale
Pass or fail. For a pass grade the student must pass all modules: seminars and written
paper including response on fellow student’s paper.
Entry requirements
Admission to the doctoral programme. Eligibility to be admitted to the
doctoral programmes within the area Migration, urbanisation, and societal
change (MUSA).
Postal address
Malmö
University
Visiting address
Phone
Fax
Website
E-mail
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Intended learning outcomes
Following successful completion of the course, the doctoral student shall be able to
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
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give a broad account of the meaning of the concepts migration and urbanisation
and critically reflect upon how these processes are manifested in societal change.
identity key theories and concepts within the research areas and discuss how they
relate to each other.
in an independent manner identify and problematise specific manifestations of
migration and urbanisation and suggest ways to analyse and study them
describe and critically reflect upon a selected track in the literature in the field
and relate it to other elements of the theoretical field.
Course description
Migration and urbanisation are two closely related processes with global reach and which
are crucial for how the world is changing in our time. They have a significant impact on
virtually al the manifestations of societal change and are reflected on a global and local
level. The purpose of the course is to provide a basic introduction to theories, concepts
and phenomena within the research field Migration, urbanisation and societal change
(MUSA). Emphasis is placed on the application of concepts and theories on current
problems.
Content
The course is structured around four core themes that can be linked together as a whole:
1.
2.
3.
4.
City, structure and mobility
The history of migration
Globalisation, migration and work
Migration, urbanity and everyday life.
The course consists of several interrelated parts:
 Introductory presentations in lecture or seminar form on migration and urbanisation
as global/local processes and social phenomena and how these are interpreted and
analysed with a basis in relevant theory.
 Seminars with senior and post doc researchers presenting current research, including
case studies. The seminars are related to the intended learning outcomes and are
clearly linked to one and other.
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

Literature seminars where the course participants will give presentations on the
readings, followed by questions and critical discussion.
Text seminars where the course participants present and respond to each other’s
papers.
Work formats
In addition to individual studies of the literature and writing papers, the teaching methods
include different kinds of seminars, such as research seminars with presentations by
researches followed by questions and critical discussions, and literature seminars, as well
as closing seminars on each theme of the course. Attendance is compulsory for all
seminars. Upon absence, the course participant must submit a brief written report with a
critical reflection based on the readings for the seminar in question.
In addition to the theme based course seminars, the introductory course has a small
number of special MUSA seminars that are public and open to other interested parties.
MUSA seminars will be held throughout the course and are mandatory for the doctoral
students on the course. External researchers may be specially invited to present their
research in the context of introductory course. Special theme-oriented literature seminars
for doctoral students are also included in the course.
Formats for assessing student performances


active participation in seminars, 7.5 credits
paper corresponding to 7.5 credits and response to another course participant’s text.
Reading list and other teaching materials
Adey, Peter: Mobility, Routledge 2010.
Baines, Dudley: Emigration from Europe 1815-1930, Studies in Economic and Social History,
Economic History Society, Mac Millan 1991/1993.
Bengtsson, Tommy & Lundh, Christer & Scott, Kirk: “From Boom to Bust. The Economic
Integration of Immigrants in the Post War Sweden” (pp 15-58), Book chapter in European
Migration: What Do We Know? Oxford University Press 2005.
Bevelander, Pieter: “The Employment Status of Immigrant Women: the Case of Sweden”, in
International Migration Review, Vol. 39 (1) spring 2005.
Borjas, George J: “The Economics of Immigration” in Journal of Economic Literature,
Vol.XXX11 (pp 1667–1717), 1994.
Dant, Tim: Materiality and Society, Open University Press, 2005.
Castles, Stephen & Mark J. Miller: The Age of Migration. International Population Movements
in the Modern World, Basingstoke: Palgrave Mac Millan, 2009.
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Colic-Peisker, Val & Tilbury, Farida: “Employment Niches for Recent Refugees: Segmented
Labour Market In Twenty-first Century Australia”, In Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol. 19, No.
2, 2003.
Fryklund, Björn & Peterson, Tomas: “The Refugee Question – The Touchstone of the Swedish
System?” in Rystad, Göran (ed): Encounter with Strangers – Refugees and Cultural
Confrontation in Sweden, Lund University Press/Studentlitteratur, 1992.
Glick Schiller, Nina & Caglar, Ayse (eds): Locating Migration: Rescaling Cities and Migrants.
Cornell University Press 2011
Hardy, Cynthia & Phillips, Nelson: “No Joking Matter: Discursive Struggle in the Canadian
Refugee System”. Organization Studies, 1999 20: 1
Hatton, Timothy J. & Williamson, Jeffrey G: Global Migration and The World Economy, Two
centuries of Policy and Performance, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2005.
Hedin, Karin & Clark, Erik: “Neoliberalization of housing in Sweden: gentrification, filtering
and social polarization”. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 2012.
Hettne, Björn: Development Thinking, London: Zed Books, 2010.
Jacobs, Jane: The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Vintage Books, 1961/1992. (In
Swedish: Den amerikanska storstadens liv och förfall. Daidalos 2005).
Johansson, Christina: Välkomna till Sverige?: Svenska migrationspolitiska diskurser under
1900-talets andra hälft. Doktorsavhandling Linköpings universitet, Bokbox förlag, 2005.
(English summary: “Beyond the Swedish Self-Image: Discourses on Migration and the Nationstate in the late 20th Century”. ehp.lbg.ac.at/files/sites/ehp/Annual_Report_11.pdf )
Kärrholm, Mattias: “The Materiality of Territorial Production. A Conceptual Discussion of
Territoriality, Materiality, and the Everyday Life of Public Space”. Space and Culture, November
2007 vol. 10 no. 4 (pp 437-453)
Ley, D: “Transnational spaces and everyday life.” Transactions 29: (pp 151–64), 2004.
Listerborn, Carina: “Suburban women and the ‘glocalisation’ of the everyday lives: gender and
glocalities in underprivileged areas in Sweden”, Gender, Place & Culture, (pp 1-23), 2012.
Martinelli, Flavia & Moulaert, Frank & Novy, Andreas (eds): Urban and Regional
Development Trajectories in Contemporary Capitalism, Routledge, 2012.
Martiniello, Marco & Raath, Jan (eds): An Introduction to International Migration Studies –
European Perspectives, Amsterdam University Press, 2012.
Midtbøen, Arnfinn H. & Rogstad, Jon: “Discrimination. Methodological controversies and
sociological perspectives on future research”. Nordic Journal of Migration Research. Volume
2, Issue 3 (pp 203–212), 2012.
Persson Hans-Åke: “Foreigners, Historical Ethnic Immigration, and the Successful Western
German Model”. In Persson Hans-Åke (ed): Encounter with Strangers: the European
Experience. Lund University Press/Studentlitteratur, 1997.
Portes, Alejandro & Sensenbrenner, Julia: ”Embeddedness and Immigration: Notes on the
Social Determinants of Economic Action.” The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 98, No. 6
(pp 1320-1350), 1993.
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Povrzanovic Frykman, Maja: “Cosmopolitanism in situ: urban sociabilities and cosmopolitan
place-making in a Malmö district”. In Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power
(Routledge), special issue co-edited by Garbi Schmidt and Nina Glick Schiller. (forthcoming)
Rooth, Dan-Olof: “Adopted Children in the Labour Market – Discrimination or Unobserved
Characteristics?” International migration, Vol. 40 (1), 2002.
Runblom, Harald & Norman, Hans (eds): From Sweden to America. A History of the
Migration, University of Minnesota Press and ACTA Universitatis Uppsalaiensis 1976.
Sheringham, Michael: Everyday Life. Theories and Practices from Surrealism to the Present.
Oxford University Press 2006.
Stigendal, Mikael: Cities and social cohesion - Popularizing the results of Social Polis, Malmö
University, Department of Urban Studies, 2010.
Wigerfelt, Anders S: “Hungarian Refugees in the Shadow of the Cold War”. In Persson, HansÅke (ed): Encounter with Strangers: the European Experience. Lund University
Press/Studentlitteratur, 1992.
Additional texts may be added to the reading list. Not all above listed text will be read
in their entirety. You will be given information about which sections that are
mandatory at the beginning of the course.
Transitional regulations
In situations where the course is no longer offered or the course contents have been
significantly changed, the doctoral candidate has the right, during a period of one year
following the change, to be examined on two different occasions in accordance with the
course syllabus valid at the date of registration.
Course evaluation
The course will be completed with an individual, written course evaluation based on the
objectives of the course. The course convenor will provide information about the results
and any measures to be implemented on the basis of the results prior t the next course.
In connection with the course start, the course convenor will provide information about
measures that have been implemented since the previous occasion when the course was
offered.