Not Only Moving Bodies: Contested and Transforming Concepts in Migration Studies (original) (raw)

Notions of Migration: A comparative study

The present study was an attempt to investigate further some notions related to the phenomenon of migration but also the communication that been developed within a multicultural society. To fulfill the purpose of the study, bibliographic sources related to these terms have been studied and compared. The results show the development of these terms according to the needs of the members of multicultural environments.

CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE BOOK „MIGRATION THEORY. TALKING ACROSS DISCIPLINES”

Annals of Constantin Brancusi University, Letters and Social Sciences Series, 2023

Immigration and refugees’ issues represent topics which hold the headlines of newspapers everywhere in the world today. Since it is a heated subject-matter with implications in the main aspects of life, the aim of the present article is to focus on some of the domains interested in migration. Therefore, the article focusses upon the book “Migration Theory. Talking across Disciplines” published with the Routledge in 2022, with the aim to capture the implications of migration for the sciences anthropology, demography, economics, geography, history, law, political sciences, sociology.

Transnational Migration Imaginaries

This research-oriented bilingual (English and Farsi) discusses transnational migration imaginaries that shape the expectations and affect the calculations of social actors. The spatial focus of this seminar is the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as the main hub of the migration in the world. During the seminar different causes of migration and displacement, e.g. war, climate change, colonialism, unemployment, and so forth will be discussed under three main umbrellas: cultural, political and economic themes. As these topics are not limited to national borders, only a multi-scalar approach to migration can account for the complexity of the situation. In recent years, the Middle East and North Africa span both poles of migration: as countries of migrant destination, and as countries of migrant origin. According to the UNHCR’s report, just in 2015, this region accounted for more than 30 percent of global displacement, including 2.7 million refugees, 13.9 million internally displaced people and an estimated 374,200 stateless individuals. Hence, one can witness the emerge of a new transnational space in the region, between the countries of origin such as Syria and Afghanistan, transit countries such as Iran, Turkey, and Jordan as well as the desired destinies of the EU countries in general and Germany in particular. The world is too complex to be considered and calculated by social actors in the real time. Imaginaries are ways in which the complexity of the world is reduced to go on. In the case of migration, although the territorial national state still the main unit of politics all around the world, avoiding any trap of ‘methodological nationalism’ urge us to adopt a transnational analytical framework to provide an account of extraterritorial migration imaginaries. Migration studies, which constraints its research question and empirical data collection with the countries of origin or with the countries of desired settlement fails to capture the complex dynamics of migration, which is ‘embedded in a multi-level transnational field’. Students and refugees in this course will learn about the history of MENA, colonialism, Migration Imaginaries, to produce a rich context for migration narratives. This seminar is in line with the previous seminar (Spaces of Migration) that produce spatial narratives of refugees in Berlin. It will benefit from the previous attendance with refugee background as the facilitator of research in the seminar. This bilingual seminar is organized as a part of the seminar series “Berlin in Dialogue” for refugee, German, and international students by the Berlin Institute for Integration and Migration research. The seminars have been granted the prize “Menschen mit Hintergrund” by the university of Regensburg and the BAMF in December 2016.

Migrations, Migrants and Refugees in 19th - 21st Centuries in the Interdisciplinary Approach. Selected Topics [Prace Historyczne]; eds.: Paweł Sękowski, Olivier Forcade, Rainer Hudemann

Migrations, Migrants and Refugees in 19th - 21st Centuries in the Interdisciplinary Approach. Selected Topics [Prace Historyczne], 2019

Co-editorship of the issue, with Olivier Forcade and Rainer Hudemann. This publication is the result of research conducted by an interdisciplinary group of young Polish researchers from various academic centres throughout Poland, who are interested in the issues of migration and migrants between the 19th and 21st centuries. The beginnings of this collaborative eff ort, which does not have a formal structure, date back to 2016, when the author of the present introduction contacted PhD students interested in this topic from Poland’s leading research institutions with a view to establishing cooperation of an interdisciplinary nature. The present volume is the latest initiative from our group. The scope of the issues raised in the papers is very broad. In the opinion of the volume’s editors, what binds them together into a coherent whole is their focus on the issue of migration and immigrants, including refugees, in chronological and thematic order, from the 19th to the 21st century. The advantage of such an approach is the opportunity it provides the authors to present the results of their own research, conducted in most cases as part of their doctoral dissertations. TABLE OF CONTENTS Paweł Sękowski, Introduction Krzysztof Popek, "Muslim Emigration from the Balkan Peninsula in the 19th Century: A Historical Outline" Patryk Mamczur, "Rent Parties, Old Settlers and Jitterbugs: The Everyday Life of African Americans after Their Exodus to Northern Cities as Preserved in Oral Histories, 1917–1945" Kamil Kartasiński, "Polish Veterans of the Polish Armed Forces in the West: Who Decided to Emigrate to the USA and Canada after World War II – an Oral History Perspective" Mikołaj Murkociński, "Between War and Peace: A Brief Comparison of Polish Refugees’ Administrations in East Africa and Lebanon" Paweł Sękowski, "The Care and Assistance Provided for Polish Child Refugees in Barcelona in the Immediate Post-WWII Period" Karolina Wanda Olszowska, "The Protection Provided by International Refugee Organizations in Turkey in the Immediate Post-War Period" Jarema Słowiak, "The Role of the International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam in the Population Exchange between Vietnamese States during Years 1954–1955" Aleksandra Samonek, " Violation of Privacy in Migration Control Decreases Citizens’ Liberties and Public Accountability" Paulina Szydłowska, "Polish Child Migrants – Psychological Perspective" Olivier Forcade, Rainer Hudemann, "A Vast Tableau of Migrations: Conclusion"

Theorizing Migration Across Europe: Perspectives, Concepts, and Mthodologies

With the focus on the post-2004 mobility of Polish citizens, in this article we discuss two interrelated questions; namely, what are the most productive ways to theorize contemporary Polish migration, and what are the most fruitful methodologies aimed at understanding Polish migration and Poles on the move? In the first part of this article we unpack three inter- related theoretical frameworks: ‘liquid migration,’ ‘regimes of mobility,’ and ‘transnationalism.’ The methodological discus- sion in the second part of the article focuses mainly on outlining and contextualizing the most common approaches to migration phenomena. by critically introducing quantitative and qualitative methodologies, we explore and indicate the advantages of the ethnographic perspective and the merits and predicaments of research engagement in multiple sites.