Migration, Power, and Identity: Anthropological
perspectives on international migration
Spring semester 2015
Teachers
Lisa Åkesson (resp for the course)
Cecilia Ekström (resp for the course)
Anja K. Franck
Nina Gren
Lisa Karlsson Blom
lisa.akesson@globalstudies.gu.se
cecilia.ekstrom@globalstudies.gu.se
anja.franck@globalstudies.gu.se
nina.gren@cme.lu.se
lisa.karlsson-blom@gu.se
Course content
Introduction
Introduction of the course, learning outcomes, examinations and thematic perspectives.
Presentation of literature, schedule, students and teachers.
January 19, 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Lisa Åkesson, Cecilia Ekström
Migration and anthropology
This lecture introduces the anthropology of migration. It traces the historical development of
migration studies in anthropology, and it presents contemporary debates and queries.
Lecture January 19, 13:15-15:00
Teacher: Lisa Åkesson
Gardner, Katy (2013) The anthropology of migration. In Carrier, J. & D. Gewertz (eds.) The
Handbook of Sociocultural Anthropology. London: Bloomsbury (download from GUL)
Gupta, Akhil & James Ferguson (1992) Beyond “culture”: Space, identity, and the politics of
difference. Cultural Anthropology 7(1): 6-23.
Schiller, Nina Glick, Linda Basch and Cristina Szanton Blanc, 1995. ”From immigrant to
transmigrant: Theorizing transnational migration” in Anthropological Quarterly. 68(1):4863.
Contemporary migration – patterns and problems
This lecture focuses on mobility from an agency perspective. Why do people migrate and how
do states receive them? Which different reasons and circumstances may induce people to
leave their places of origin? What kind of cultural meanings may be associated with
migration? Against this background we will also discuss the main patterns and problems in
contemporary international migration.
Lecture January 20 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Lisa Åkesson
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Seminar January 23, 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Lisa Åkesson
Carling, Jörgen (2002) Migration in the age of involuntarily immobility: Theoretical
reflections and Cape Verdean experiences. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 28:542.
Castles, Stephan (2010) Understanding global migration: A social transformation perspective.
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 36(10): 1565-1586.
Koser, Khalid (2007) International migration: A very short introduction. (120 p.)
Gardner, Katy (1993) Desh and bidesh: Sylheti images of home and away. Man 28(1): 1-15.
Gardner, Katy (2008) Keeping connected: Security, place and social capital in a ‘Londoni’
village in Sylhet. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14: 477-495.
Transnationalism and diasporas
More and more people live their lives across borders. They forge and sustain belongings to
more than one nation-state. Life conditions and identities are shaped in transnational social
spaces. The lecture and the seminar focus on the theoretical debate in migration studies
concerning border-crossing social formations, and their relations to nation-states and
nationalism.
Lecture January 27, 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Lisa Åkesson
Introduction to field study
Seminar: January 27, 13:15-15:00
Teachers: Lisa Åkesson, Cecilia Ekström
Seminar January 30, 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Lisa Åkesson
Olsson, Erik. 2009. From exile to post-exile: The diasporisation of Swedish Chileans in
historical contexts. Social Identities 15(5):659-676.
Wimmer, Andreas & Nina Glick Schiller. 2002. ”Methodological nationalism and beyond:
Nation-state building, migration and the social sciences” Global Networks 2(4): 301-334.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In addition you shall read the following three texts that also were included in the reading list
for the first course (Theories and Perspectives) in the master programme in Global Studies:
Brubaker, Rogers, 2005. “The ‘Diaspora’ Diaspora” in Ethnic and Racial Studies. 28(1):1-19.
Levitt, Peggy and Nina Glick Schiller, 2004. “Conceptualizing Simultaneity: A Transnational
Social Field Perspective on Society” in International Migration Review
38(3):1002-1039.
Safran, William, 1991. “Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return” in
Diaspora. 1(1):83-97.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Transnational lives: Gender, family, remittances
Migration flows are deeply gendered. Also, the way people live their lives across borders is
structured by gender hierarchies and relations. This section aims at providing a picture of how
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gender structures and is structured by migration, and how these processes interplay with
kinship and family formation. Furthermore, the sending and reception of remittances, which is
a key transnational practice, will be discussed.
Lecture February 3, 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Lisa Åkesson
Seminar February 6, 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Lisa Åkesson
Åkesson, Lisa, Jörgen Carling and Heike Drotbohm. 2012. ‘Mobility, moralities and
motherhood: Navigating the contingencies of Cape Verdean lives’. Journal of Ethnic and
Migration Studies 38(2): 237-260.
Lindley, Anna. 2009. The early morning phonecall: Remittances from a refugee diaspora
perspective. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 35(8):1315-1334.
Mahler, Sarah & Patricia Pessar. 2006. Gender matters: Ethnographers bring gender from the
periphery toward the core of migration studies. International Migration Review 40(1): 2763.
Schiller, Nina Glick & Georges Fouron. 2001. Georges woke up laughing. (250 p)
The Migration Industry
During this lecture we will direct attention towards the organization of international
migration. We will focus upon the involvement of private and commercial actors in the
migration process – during both regular and irregular migration trajectories as well as for the
efforts of states in controlling and managing international migration.
Lecture February 9, 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Anja K. Franck
Lindquist, J. (2010) "Labour Recruitment, Circuits of Capital and Gendered Mobility:
Reconceptualizing the Indonesian Migration Industry", Pacific Affairs, Vol. 83, Issue 83,
pp. 115-132.
Nyberg Sörensen, N. (2012) "Revisiting the Migration–Development Nexus: From Social
Networks and Remittances to Markets for Migration Control", International Migration, Vol.
50, Issue 3, pp: 61-76.
Salt, J., and J. Stein (1997) ‘‘Migration as business: the case of trafficking’’, International
Migration, Vol. 35, Issue 4 pp: 467–494.
Irregular migration and urban life
This lecture deals with irregular migration – and particularly the situation for irregular
migrants in urban space. Based upon research conducted in Malaysia we will focus irregular
migrants’ room to maneuver in the city at the intersection of their legal and social status,
gender, class and nationality. We will also discuss how migrants’ fear influences peoples’
spatial decisions and strategies in urban space.
Lecture February 10, 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Anja K. Franck
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Greenburg, J. (2010) The spatial politics of xenophobia: Everyday practices of Congolese
migrants in Johannesburg, Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa, Number
74, pp: 66-86.
Holgersson, Helena. 2011. The urban geography of non-citizenship (English summary of
Holgersson’s thesis).
https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/25391/2/gupea_2077_25391_2.pdf.
Seminar February 13, 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Cecilia Ekström
(Literature from the lectures of the week.)
“Second-generation”; identity and the nation-state
This lecture will focus on identity politics and self-identification at play when migration
meets and clashes with the idea of nationality, using the ethnographic example of “secondgeneration immigrants” in France and the French discourse of Republicanism.
Lecture February 16, 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Cecilia Ekström
Beaman, Jean Marie. 2011. "Liberte, Egalite, et Fraternite": Identity, Marginalization, and
Second-generation North African Immigrants in France. Ann Arbor: Proquest, Umi
Dissertation Publishing.
Swedes and immigrants - local understandings of segregation and marginalization in
relation to discursive formations of Swedishness and the Suburb
How are discourses of Swedishness and Swedish normality lived with; understood, negotiated
and resisted, within communities that find themselves excluded from such definitions?
This lecture will give empirical insight in everyday life, and the local worldviews developed,
in Swedish underclass-multi-ethnic suburbs relating to processes of racialization and
stigmatization. It will also discuss the effects of present terminology on the concept of social
exclusion as the dominant paradigm for understanding and denominate the inhabitants of
these areas and their position in society.
Lecture February 18, 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Cecilia Ekström
Group assignment February 20, 13:15-15.00
Teacher: Cecilia Ekström
Bjarnesen, Jesper. 2013. Mobilising Diaspo youth culture, in Diaspora at home: Wartime
Mobilities in the Burkina Faso – Côte d’Ivoire Transnational Space. Uppsala University.
Ekström, Cecilia (n.d.)” All crimes that I’ve done, I’ve done them because I had
nothing…” Strategies of agency on the margins of power (manuscript). (download from
GUL).
Forced Migration: The emergence of and responses to ‘refugees’
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This session concerns the conceptualisation of ‘refugees’ in research, policy and practice and
discusses some key themes in contemporary forced migration regimes, such as models of
reception and integration.
Lecture February 23, 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Nina Gren
Eastmond Marita 2011 “Egalitarian ambitions, constructions of difference: The paradoxes of
refugee integration in Sweden” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 37:2, 277-295
Malkki Liisa 1995 ‘Refugees and exile: From “refugee studies” to the national order of
things’ Annual Review of Anthropology 24:495-523 (28 p)
Whyte, Zachary (2011) “Enter the Myopticon: Uncertain surveillance in the Danish asylum
system”. Anthropology Today 27(3), 18-21.
The Legacy of Flight: Reconstructing Home and Negotiating the Past
This session focuses on the experiences of refugees and their attempts to create meaning and
new belongings. Moreover, in what ways is it possible to talk about the experiences of forced
migrants as different from those of other types of migrants?
Lecture February 25, 10.15-12:00
Teacher: Nina Gren
Eastmond, Marita (2007) ‘Stories as Lived Experience: Narratives in Forced Migration
Research’, Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2 pp. 248-264.
Jansen, Stef and Löfving, Staffan Eds. 2007. “Introduction: Movement, violence and the
making of home”. Focaal 49:3-14 (12 p).
Hart, Jason 2008, “Dislocated masculinity: Adolescence and the Palestinian Nation-in-Exile”,
Journal of Refugee Studies 21(1): 64-81
Preparation of field study
Seminar Feb 26, 13:15-15:00
Teacher: Lisa Åkesson, Cecilia Ekström
Seminar February 27, 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Nina Gren
This week’s seminar will discuss the ethnographic text Illegal Traveller. An AutoEthnography of Borders through the lens of the articles for the lecture of the 25th of February
as well as the article of Liisa Malkki form the 23dr of February (see above).
Khosravi S. 2010/2011 Illegal Traveller. An Auto-Ethnography of Borders. London: Palgrave
(150 p).
Multiculturalism: The classical debate
This lecture offers an introduction to the classical debate on multiculturalism with a focus on
the distinction between “difference multiculturalism” and “critical multiculturalism” and the
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different positions and identity claims the two concepts gloss over. The lecture will also give
examples of how multiculturalism is practiced in different countries, and it will bring up the
long-standing debate on whether multiculturalism is bad for women.
Lecture March 2, 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Lisa Åkesson
Åkesson, L. 2011. Multicultural ideology and transnational family ties among descendants of
Cape Verdeans in Sweden. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 37(2): 217-236.
Terence Turner's "Anthropology and Multiculturalism: What is Anthropology That
Multiculturalists Should be Mindful of It?" Cultural Anthropology 8 (4): 411-429.1993
Multiculturalism and Whiteness
This lecture discusses migration and multiculturalism from the perspective of critical
whiteness theory. Multiculturalism and diversity can be viewed both as actual states of society
and as discourses, and the focus of this lecture is on the latter. According to the whiteness
perspective to be introduced, it is necessary to analyse migration policies/discourses in
relation to colonial and post-colonial processes of racialization to better understand the power
structures that govern them. We will focus especially on Sara Ahmed´s ideas on "white space"
as a space in which certain bodies appear familiar and other appear strange.
Lecture March 4, 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Lisa Karlsson Blom
Seminar March 6, 10:15-12:00
Teacher: Lisa Karlsson Blom
Sara Ahmed (2007), "A phenomenology of whiteness", Feminist Theory, 8(2)
Sara Ahmed (2009), "Embodying diversity: problems and paradoxes for Black
feminists", Race Ethnicity and Education, 12:1, 41-52
Alana Lentin & Gavan Titley, "The crisis of ‘multiculturalism’ in Europe: Mediated minarets,
intolerable subjects" European Journal of Cultural Studies, 15(2) 2012
Oral examination: presentation of field study
March 17 10:15-12:00
Teachers: Lisa Åkesson, Cecilia Ekström
Written course evaluation
March 17, 13:15-14:00 Computer hall
Hand in of written field study
March 24, 24:00
Upload the field study on GUL (further instructions will be provided).
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