CFP Negotiating diversity

Session proposed for the 18th Nordic Migration Conference Oslo, 11-12 August 2016

Abstracts of 150-200 words to be submitted by 15 March 2016 via online system on conference web-site (link provided below)

Workshop organizer: Marta Bivand Erdal, Peace Research Institute Oslo, ([log in to unmask])

Living with diversity, at the level of everyday lived experiences, as well as in national policy development, have by now become well-established fields of enquiry, in Scandinavia, Europe, and globally. Often research – and policy – is framed around questions of 

multiculturalism, accommodation of difference, and the role of the public sphere. Whilst ‘diversity’ need not be related to migration, and indeed such a connection may be problematic
in suggesting homogeneity as a ‘natural’ starting point,  this session focuses on the implications of diversity resulting from migration, during the past decades and until today, in the European context and elsewhere globally. It does so as an acknowledgment of the societal significance - in the public eye - of particular kinds of diversity associated with migrants, migration and mobilities, the negotiations of which merits further attention.  

The session explores how negotiations of diversity happen at different scales, from the neighborhood, to the national and international levels; from an individual actor perspective, but also considering state level policies, and different meso-levels, including the roles of media, whether in print or online. The focus of the session lies on ‘negotiations’ as a proposed term to describe the multifaceted ways in which living with diversity is managed or mismanaged; welcomed, accepted or denied; practiced more or less actively; planned for, but also experienced. Through this emphasis, the processual nature of living with diversity is foregrounded, together with the inherent roles of agency.  

Contributions exploring the nitty-gritty nature of negotiation processes, whilst attentive to the inherent power geometries present, are encouraged. Papers could focus on one or more
different levels (e.g. lived experiences, policy developments at municipal level, public debate
in online fora or face-to-face encounters), and draw on one or more geographic contexts
(e.g. within a particular nation-state, a region, a transnational social field, a locality or neighborhood), including empirical focus beyond the ‘Global North’.


http://www.sv.uio.no/iss/english/research/news-and-events/events/conferences-and-seminars/the-18th-nordic-migration-conference/index.html

Marta Bivand Erdal

Senior Researcher

 

Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)

 

www.prio.org/migration

www.prio.org/staff/marta

 

Postal address: PO Box 9229 Grønland, NO-0134 Oslo, Norway

Visiting address: Hausmanns gate 7, NO-0186 Oslo, Norway

 

Recent publications:

Erdal, M.B. and Lewicki, A., 2016,  Special Issue: Polish Migration within Europe: Mobility, Transnationalism and Integration,Social Identities 22(1);

Erdal, M.B., Amjad, A., Bodla, Q., and Rubab, A., 2015, Going back to Pakistan for education? The Interplay of Return Mobilities, Education and Transnational Living,Population, Space and Place, doi: 10.1002/psp.1966;

Erdal, M.B. and Ezzati, R., 2015, ‘Where are you from’ or ‘when did you come’? Temporal dimensions in migrants' reflections about settlement and return, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 38(7): 1202-1217,DOI:10.1080/01419870.2014.971041;

rdal, Marta Bivand, 2014, 'This is my home' Pakistani and Polish Migrants’ Return Considerations as Articulations About ‘Home’,Comparative Migration Studies 2(3): 361–384.