The Department of Human Human Geography at the Radboud University of Nijmegen
cordially invites you to
The Alexander von Humboldt Lectures Series:
TRANS-WORLD
Debating the Openness of Borders in the Age of Transnational Migration
The following Alexander von Humboldt Guests take part in our programme:
- Prof. Alejandro Portes (Department of Sociology, Princeton University, USA)
- Prof. Thomas Faist (Center on Migration, Citizenship and Development,
University of Bielefeld, Germany)
- Prof. Joseph Carens (Department of Political Science at the University of
Toronto, Canada)
- Prof. Franck Düvell (Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of
Oxford, United Kingdom)
This series will be completed by a small scientific workshop and a big public
debate with politicians and scientists in 2008.
For a more extended description of the theme see at the bottom of this message
or http://www.ru.nl/socgeo/content/programmedescription.html.
For further information see:
http://www.ru.nl/socgeo/content/humboldtmission.html
**PROGRAMME**
Alexander von Humboldt Lecture: “From Immigrants to Ethnics: The Politics of
Immigration”
- Prof. Alejandro Portes (Department of Sociology, Princeton University, USA)
Abstract: This lecture will review the politics of immigrant communities with
emphasis on the phenomenon of transnationalism and its implications for the
social and political incorporation of foreigners in receiving societies. Other
topics to be reviewed are determinants of citizenship acquisition (“changing
flags”), the different nationalities to do so, and the transformation of
immigrants into ethnic groups through interaction with the native population.
The review closes with a typology of contemporary immigration and the
political attitudes and activities expected from each type of immigrant. The
second generation, its orientation toward transnational politics and
the determinants of its assimilation to host societies will be briefly
discussed.
Monday
May 14, 2007
17:30-19:30
Free entry
Thomas van Aquinostraat 1.0.02, Radboud University Nijmegen
Research Seminar with Prof. Alejandro Portes
Tuesday
May 14, 2007
14:00-17:00
Free entry
Thomas van Aquinostraat 3.0.27, Radboud University Nijmegen
Extraordinary Alexander von Humboldt Lecture by occasion of visit of Mr.
Campusano: “Exclusion from Citizenship Rights for Expatriates: The Chilean case”
- Raul F. Campusano Droguett (Departamento Jurídico, Ministerio de Miner,
Santiago, Chili)
Joint Initiative of the Department of Human Geography and The Department of
Political Sciences (Prof. dr. Marcel Wissenburg)
Wednesday
June 13, 2007
Time and Place will be announced
Free entry
Alexander von Humboldt Lecture: “Diaspora and Development: The Triangulation of
Exit, Voice and Loyalty”
- Prof. Thomas Faist (Center on Migration, Citizenship and Development,
University of Bielefeld, Germany)
Monday
September 24, 2007
17:30-19:30
Thomas van Aquinostraat 1.0.02, Radboud University Nijmegen
Free entry
Research Seminar with Prof. Thomas Faist: “The Erosion and Expansion of
Citizenship: Multiculatural and Multiple Citizenship”
Tuesday
September 25, 2007
14:00-17:00
Thomas van Aquinostraat 3.0.27, Radboud University Nijmegen
Free entry
Alexander von Humboldt Lecture: “Immigration and Democratic Principles”
- Prof. Joseph Carens (Department of Political Science at the University of
Toronto, Canada)
Monday
October 15, 2007
17:30-19:30
Thomas van Aquinostraat 1.0.02, Radboud University Nijmegen
Free entry
Research Seminar with Prof. Joseph Carens
Tuesday
October 16, 2007
14:00-17:00
Thomas van Aquinostraat 3.0.27, Radboud University Nijmegen
Free entry
Alexander von Humboldt Lecture: “Illegal/Irregular Immigration in Europe”
- Prof. Franck Düvell (Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of
Oxford, United Kingdom)
Monday
November 26, 2007
17:30-19:30
Thomas van Aquinostraat 1.0.02, Radboud University Nijmegen
Free entry
Research Seminar with Prof. Franck Düvell on: “Transit Migration on the Fringes
of Europe”
Tuesday
November 27, 2007
14:00-17:00
Thomas van Aquinostraat 3.0.27, Radboud University Nijmegen
Free entry
**DETAILED DESCRIPTION**
The Departement of Human Geography of the Radboud University of Nijmegen
cordially invites you to the Alexander von Humboldt Lecture series on the theme
of ‘Trans-World: Debating the Openness of Borders in the Age of Transnational
Migration’. Under this theme, we will analyse issues of borders and belonging
in the current age of transnational migration. It is almost a truism to say
that the world of today has become increasingly interconnected. Capital,
information, services and goods are crossing borders on an increasing scale.
What is more, migration increasingly has become transnational migration,
meaning that it has become easier due cheaper ways of transportation and
communication to stay in close touch with the country of origin while being in
the host country. As a result, some commentators have argued that national
identities and national communities have transformed into transnational
identities and transnational communities. To conceive of the world primarily in
terms of the rationally organised hierarchies of the sharply bounded
territorial containers associated with classical modernity is therefore no
longer adequate, if it ever was. At the same time however, in the last
few years, issues of transnationalism and immigration are increasingly
perceived, at least by some, as dangerous migration streams that risk
flooding the protective and protected lands of domestic sovereignty. In this
context the desire to control and reclaim space, power and national identity
has recently found new nationalistic political adherents and partisans.
More and more governments of host countries are recognizing the need to
establish, modernize, and improve their laws, policies, practices and
administrative structures for ensuring orderly migration, while at the same
wishing to stimulate national and local integration of the immigrants and
dimming possible xenophobia. At the same time, governments of source countries
are also looking for migration policies which can help to optimise the positive
impact while reducing the negative implications. We would argue however,
that these debates are currently taking place in isolation: immigration
countries dominantly aim at controlling migration by closing the borders,
whereas more and more emigration countries are stimulating people to emigrate
because of the beneficial remittances that are brought ‘home’, often without
knowing what is an ‘appropriate policy’ for optimising the development impact.
At both sides, each national government has its own goals and priorities,
despite tendencies at the level of the UN and the EU to formulate more
integrated and cohesive policies. A more concerted view or vision on a
sustainable governmental approach to immigration is searched for in the source
and host countries.
In this new Von Humboldt series we wish to contribute to a better understanding
of the long-term implications of global migration for the development and
governance of (local) places, and more specifically reflect on what impact a
further opening of the borders will have on (local) societies of source/host
countries. In doing so, this project wishes to reflect on global-and-local
governmental approaches that enhance the beneficial aspects and at the same
time develop mechanisms to restrict the negative implications of migration,
both in the host as in the source countries and regions. In analysing this, we
will reflect on the interplay between the various actors involved, that is the
bordering, migration and development policies of the sending countries, the
host countries and the transit countries vis-à-vis and the migrants themselves.
More particular, we will explore and discuss the tension that seemingly lies at
the heart of current border practices, that is on the one hand practices of
biopolitical control, the production of citizens and strangers, the carving up
of domains of knowledge and purified ‘dreamlands’ of id/entity; and on the
other an the generation of a (dreamland of) escape into radical openness,
into a world of global development and global distributive justice. Both ends
seem of the domain seem to be needed. But where is the balance? How open are
the national borders in the current world? And how open do we want them to be?
Questions that are relevant for us then are: How do different migration and
border regimes influence migrants’ transnational attachment to place, notions
of community/identity and belonging and how home-making and home- breaking
practices are constructed and politicised. How do different border and
migration regimes translate into (new) structures of opportunity, and how to
optimise the development impact? How much transnationalism and globalisation
can we bear? How much home and belonging do we need? How much transnationalism
and globalisation do we need? How open do we allow political borders to be?
Given the apparently contradictory spatialities of borders, reflected in their
capacity to articulate both transcendent closure and immanent openness, we may
assert that attempts to border migrants are inherently partial, selective, and
opportunistic, both in their representation as in the interests that they
serve. In short, rather than to attempt to strategise on the national
political issue of finding measures for increased assimilation and control, we
wish to inverse the question and take a transnational perspective, the
erspective of the world as a whole, and analyse to what extent do we allow and
can we optimise the openness of borders for migration in, what we tentatively
call, the ‘Trans-World’.
Drawing upon your own interest and/or research we invite you to engage with the
issues raised here. Building on recent major scholarly interventions
addressing these concerns, an international roster of guest lecturers will be
invited to Nijmegen to collaborate with in-house staff, external scholars and
students to analyse and evaluate the policies and (moral) consequences of
border and migration policies in an increasingly interlinked world.
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