Migration (Anthropology)

“Review of Latino Migrants in a Jewish State by Barak Kalir.”

by Sarah Willen

Willen, Sarah S. Forthcoming 2012. “Review of Latino Migrants in a Jewish State by Barak Kalir.” Review of Middle East Studies. 46(1).

Mediación intercultural natural. Reflexiones a partir de una experiencia en Orriols (Valencia)

by Albert Moncusí

Este texto es una reflexión sobre la mediación intercultural “natural”, su diferenciación respecto a la mediación... more Este texto es una reflexión sobre la mediación intercultural “natural”, su diferenciación respecto a la mediación intercultural profesional y sus limitaciones en contextos de políticas de exclusión social. Los argumentos se basan en información recogida en dos investigaciones efectuadas en Valencia, una con financiación europea y bajo la responsabilidad de tres ONG que colaboraron muy activamente en el trabajo de campo, y la otra, con financiación del Ministerio de Trabajo de España. Las reflexiones tienen como punto de partida el caso del barrio valenciano de Orriols. En un primer apartado, se describe el mismo, luego se abordan distintos discursos de vecinos autóctonos y extranjeros y se caracterizan sus relaciones. Finalmente, se define la mediación intercultural “natural”, con especial atención a sus fortalezas y debilidades en casos como el descrito. Se concluye que las potencialidades de la mediación se pueden desarrollar con una correcta articulación entre Administración y Sociedad Civil y en combinación con políticas sociales de prevención y erradicación de la exclusión social.

Beyond representations and into everyday life: exploring why and how British migrants stay in rural France

by Michaela Benson

I will be presenting this paper at the RGS-IBG conference in Edinburgh in July 2012

British migration to rural France, as in the case of other pro-rural migrations, is influenced by socio-cultural... more British migration to rural France, as in the case of other pro-rural migrations, is influenced by socio-cultural representations that valorize rural living. Drawing on an ethnographic study of the British residents of the Lot, an inland department in southwest France, this paper demonstrates how, in life following migration, such representations play a more-than-representational role in the migrants’ lives, with ideas about what constitutes rural living becoming increasing refined and significant to individuals as they engage in an ongoing quest for a better way of life. As the paper demonstrates, following migration representations of rural living transmute into reflections on how to live an authentic life, embedded more widely within the context of individual migration and life histories. While these are, in part, caught up with concerns over how to distinguish their lives and lifestyles from those of their middle-class compatriots also living in rural France, such reflections additionally express a concern with self-authenticity. As this paper argues, recurrent reflections on how to live reveal how their migration to rural France is part of an ongoing life project, articulated in the sense that there is always something more to life, in which concerns over class position and self-identity intersect.

Does the Priest Have to Be There? Contested Marriages Before Roman Tribunals. Italy, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries. In: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften, 3, 2009, 10-30.

by Cecilia Cristellon

The Council of Trent established the requirements that a marriage be celebrated by the parish priest and two or more... more The Council of Trent established the requirements that a marriage be celebrated by the parish priest and two or more witnesses be present at the marriage (1563), but neglected to specify who the parish priest was. The decrees provoked confusion among both laymen and churchmen. Traces thereof can be found in the hitherto essentially unexplored documentation of The Congregation of the Council. This institution was founded in 1564 specifically to resolve the questions that arose all over the catholic world by the application of the decrees promulgated at Trent. The related records are held in the Vatican Secret Archive. Through an examination of this documentation, complemented by files of the Holy Office the author analyzes how the new rules were understood, experienced, used, circumvented, and manipulated both by laymen and churchmen in order to end an unwanted marriage, to facilitate a union that was socially transgressive, opposed by family, or even heterodox, and to respond to pastoral concerns.

Love travel

by Dorota Szawarska

La migration des jeunes indiens mexicains aux États-Unis : Enjeux, défis et nouvelles subjectivités

by Alejandra Aquino Moreschi

Revue Autrepart, no. 60, Institute de Recherche sur le Développement, 2012, pp 23-40.

Résumé: Vers la fin des années 1980, la migration internationale s’est imposée dans la vie quotidienne des Zapotèques... more Résumé: Vers la fin des années 1980, la migration internationale s’est imposée dans la vie quotidienne des Zapotèques de la Sierra Norte de Oaxaca, au sud du Mexique. Les communautés indiennes ont alors dû faire face à la dépopulation de leurs villages et à la transformation de leur économie paysanne traditionnelle par l'injection d'argent venu des Etats-Unis. Autre défi de taille: le changement des perspectives d'avenir et des projets de vie de la jeune génération. Cet article montre qu’aujourd'hui la migration des jeunes indiens ne répond pas seulement à une logique économique, mais traduit également l'existence de “besoins subjectifs” liés à la recherche, tant d’un nouveau style de vie permettant la mobilité spatiale et sociale, que de modèles de relations de couple et de famille plus ouverts. Bien que subjectifs, ces nouveaux “besoins” se sont généralisés au point de constituer un important moteur de changement dans la région et un enjeu majeur à la fois pour les familles zapotèques et pour les processus en cours de recouvrement de l'autonomie politique de ces communautés.

Anstract:In the late 1980’s, international migration definitely irrupted into the daily life of Zapotecan communities from the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca State. The aforementioned fact was expressed both in the abandonment of villages and the arrival of remittances, as well as in the transformation of young people’s future expectations and life projects. The present article discusses the idea that currently the migration of young people from the mountains is not only the expression of economic logics, but also of the existence of “subjective necessities” related to the seek of a new lifestyle that can allow them physical and social mobility, and the search for more open models of relationship and family. These new “needs”, even when being subjective, have become the trigger for important transformations in the area. The previous fact is presenting new challenges for families in the mountains and for the autonomy project developed by those communities too.

Kyrgyz feasts and migrant modernities: embedding remittances in a contested terrain

by Igor Rubinov

«Altérités aliénées: Quand la subjectivation des rapports racialisés de classe et de genre fait mal».

by Kàtia Lurbe i Puerto

Lurbe Puerto, Kàtia. Sociologie et Santé, juin 2008, num. 29, pp.335-351.

Cet article aborde la question des altérités aliénées à partir d’une étude cas construite à partir les "fragments... more Cet article aborde la question des altérités aliénées à partir d’une étude cas construite à partir les "fragments de vie" de Fatou, jeune femme française d’origine africaine prise en charge dans un centre d’ethnopsichothérapie à Paris. L’analyse critique du discours de la vie de Fatou mise en récit livre des éclairages sur une idée plurielle du concept de mobilité(s), compris comme la traversée permanente de diverses frontières, dans laquelle la subjectivation des rapports racialisés de genre et de classe relève d’une importance clef pour comprendre la souffrance
psychique de Fatou. L’article offre également des réflexions d’ordre théorico-méthodologique sur la génération des données dans les terrains sensibles, à travers de la méthode sociobiografique. Il conclut avec une invitation à mettre en oeuvre une sociologie crisique, critique et créative pour approcher la question des altérités/identités.

Mots clefs: altérités, subjectivation, soins à la santé mentale, rapports racialisés de genre et de classe, descendants de migrants, ethnopsycothérapie, la méthode socio-biographique dans les terrains sensibles.

Abstract
By focusing in a sociological case study, the paper explores the issue of the alienated otherness. The case study has been built up from life fragments of Fatou, young French women with African origins who receives mental healthcare in a centre of ethnotherapy in Paris. The critical discourse analysis of the life narrative of Fatou sheds light on a plural idea of the concept of
mobilities, which is understood as the everlasting crossing of frontiers, in which the subjectivation of racialised relations of gender and class is fundamental to clarify Fatou’s psychological suffering. In addition, the paper offers a theoretical and methodological discussion about the production of data in sensitive fieldworks when using socio-biographical methods. It concludes with an invitation for a crisic, critical and creative sociology to approach the issue of otherness/identities.

Key words: otherness, subjectivation, mental healthcare, racialised relations of gender and class, migrant’s children, ethnopsychotherapy, socio-biographicalmethod in sensitive fieldworks.

Migrating - Remitting -‘Building’- Dwelling: House-making as proxy presence in postsocialist Albania. in JRAI vol.16

by Dimitris Dalakoglou

This article examines the material culture of migration, focusing on migrants’ house-making projects in their... more This article examines the material culture of migration, focusing on migrants’ house-making projects in their countries of birth. In particular, it examines the houses built or refurbished by Albanians in their home-country, which is no longer their place of permanent residence. This is a widespread phenomenon in Albania, but it is also a frequently appearing practice amongst other international migrants. Why do migrants living outside their home-countries build houses there even though they do not plan to return? I seek to answer this question in the case of Albania by focusing empirically on the process of constructing these houses, rather than merely on the material entity of the house
as such. I propose that such ‘house-making’ by Albanian migrants is not only a simple house-building process; it also ensures a constant dwelling and dynamic ‘proxy’ presence for
migrants in their community of origin. These ethnographic observations have further significance for the anthropological study of both houses and international migration.

Notes sur la captation de la main-d'oeuvre enfantine dans la région de Kayes, Mali (1904-1955)

by Marie Rodet

Journal des Africanistes, Tome 81, Fascicule 2, 2011, numéro thématique: Migration dans l'enfance, migrations de l'enfance, Regards pluridisciplinaires

Mots-clefs: Mali, Kayes, fin de l'esclavage, droit de tutelle, main-d'oeuvre enfantine, enfants confié-e-s, petites... more Mots-clefs: Mali, Kayes, fin de l'esclavage, droit de tutelle, main-d'oeuvre enfantine, enfants confié-e-s, petites bonnes, mise en gage


Keywords: Mali, Kayes, end of slavery, custody rights, children workforce, fostered children, pawnship

The road: An ethnography of the Albanian-Greek cross-border motorway. In American Ethnologist vol 37

by Dimitris Dalakoglou

This article is an ethnographic study of a 29-kilometer stretch of cross-border highway located in South Albania and... more This article is an ethnographic study of a 29-kilometer stretch of cross-border highway located in South Albania and linking the city of Gjirokaster with the main checkpoint on the Albanian–Greek border. The road, its politics, and its poetics
constitute an ideal point of entry for an anthropological analysis of contemporary South Albania. The physical and social construction, uses, and perceptions of this road uniquely encapsulate three phenomena that dominate social life in postsocialist South Albania: the transition to a market economy, new nationalisms, and massive emigration (mainly to Greece). Taking this cross-border road section as my main ethnographic
point of reference, I suggest the fruitfulness of further discussion of the relationship between roads, narratives, and anthropology.

[roads, globalization, transnationalism, development, postsocialism, materiality, Albania]

‘Khmer Women on the Move: Exploring Work and Life in Urban Cambodia’. By Annuska Derks. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. The Australian Journal of Anthropology 20(2): 263-264.

by Sophorntavy Vorng

Book Review

The governance of Romani people in Italy: discourse, policy and practice

by Nando Sigona

Sigona, N. (2011) 'The governance of Romani people in Italy: discourse, policy and practice', Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 16(5): 590-606

This article provides a critical overview of public policy and practice towards the Romani population in Italy over a... more This article provides a critical overview of public policy and practice towards the Romani population in Italy over a period of fifty years. It investigates the uses and consequences of the label ‘nomads’ and widespread essentialist assumptions about their alleged nomadic lifestyle, and the ambiguity embedded in policy which claims to solve the ‘Gypsy problem’. It explores in particular the ways in which recent political debate and policy initiatives have succeeded in reframing the Roma issue exclusively in terms of emergency and public security.
This discursive shift has produced the rescaling of the governance of Roma, relocating the responsibility for managing the Romani people from local authorities to central government. A significant corollary to this process has been the transfer of the Roma issue from the social policy agenda to a mere policing one, with important consequences in public policy, especially in relation to housing.

Contacts between Egypt and Syria-Palestine as seen in a Grown Settlement of the late Middle Kingdom at Tell el-Dabca/Egypt, in: J. Mynářová (Hrg.), Egypt and the Near East – The Crossroads, Proceedings of the International Workshop on the Relations between Egypt and the Near East in the Bronze Age, Prague 2011, 41-72.

by Bettina Bader

Introduction to the Special Issue "Migration, 'Illegality,' and Health: Mapping Embodied Vulnerability and Debating Health-Related Deservingness"

by Sarah Willen

Willen, Sarah S. 2012. Introduction to the special issue “Migration, 'Illegality,' and Health: Mapping Embodied Vulnerability and Debating Health-Related Deservingness.” S. Willen, guest editor. Social Science & Medicine. 74(6): 805-811.

Asylum Seekers / Patron Seekers: Interpreting Iraqi Kurdish Migration

by Diane E. King

King, Diane E. 2005 Asylum Seekers / Patron Seekers: Interpreting Iraqi Kurdish Migration. Human Organization  64(4):316-326.

This article examines the phenomenon of Iraqi Kurdish out-migration to the West between 1991 and 2003. It argues that... more This article examines the phenomenon of Iraqi Kurdish out-migration to the West between 1991 and 2003. It argues that migrants looked to the West and Westerners as potential patrons and were incited to migrate by their conceptualizations of patronage and clientage roles. Iraqi Kurdish migrants to the West constituted one of the largest flows of asylum-seeking clandestine migrants in the world by the late 1990s. European governments first accepted their asylum claims as “legitimate,” but later accused the migrants of being a “problem” and ceased granting asylum to most applicants. This article demonstrates how participants in the Iraqi Kurdish body politic posture themselves as clients and formulate the ideal roles of patrons in the migration process based on prior experience as clients of the state, tribal leaders, and other figures. Patronage and clientage roles provide both an interpretive frame and a motivator for the act of migrating.

Back from the “Outside”: Returnees and Diasporic Imagining in Iraqi Kurdistan

by Diane E. King

King, Diane E. 2008 Back from the “Outside”: Returnees and Diasporic Imagining in Iraqi Kurdistan. International Journal on Multicultural Societies 10(2)

Iraqi Kurdistan is a “homeland” for a growing diaspora of Kurdish people living throughout the West. In this article I... more Iraqi Kurdistan is a “homeland” for a growing diaspora of Kurdish people living throughout the West. In this article I argue for return migrants’ narratives about life in the West as a constitutive element of a Kurdish diasporic imaginary in the homeland itself in addition to in the West. The first significant numbers of Kurds to out-migrate were mainly young men who fled the 1975 collapse of the Kurdish rebellion against the central government in which many of their peers perished. Most settled in Europe and the United States. Theirs was probably the last generation of Iraqi Kurdish out-migrants to experience a thorough rupture from their past that was sustained by Iraq’s ongoing political unrest, totalitarianism, and relatively sealed borders. This changed dramatically in 1991 when the Kurdish region of Iraq became functionally independent from Baghdad. Thousands of migrants left Iraqi Kurdistan (now known officially as the Kurdistan Region) for the West during the following decade. During the same period, Kurds who had migrated to the West in both the present and previous decades returned, most on short-term visits. Throngs of neighbours, friends and kin peppered each returnee with questions and listened raptly to accounts of life in the West, which they referred to simply as “the outside.” These encounters instilled those remaining “inside” with a new communal consciousness formulated vis-à-vis the West. This and accompanying political and technological changes have resulted in Iraqi Kurds’ becoming a diasporic people even though most have never left “home.”

The Legal Adaptation of British Settlers in Turkey

by Prakash Shah

Co-authored with Dr. Derya Bayir

This article is based on a fieldwork project conducted by the authors in the Muğla region of western Turkey. The... more This article is based on a fieldwork project conducted by the authors in the Muğla region of western Turkey. The region is the locale for a significant level of settlement by British people, within the wider context of settlement by groups of other EU nationals in western Turkey. Based on a series of interviews with British settlers and Turkish locals, it examines the factors which affect the process of legal adaptation of the former group. It identifies and discusses the place of British settlers within the larger Turkish legal order, their integration into Turkish life, and the extent to which different socio-legal disabilities and advantages affect this process. The article also casts some light on the extent to which, given the level of British immigration into the area, Turkish officialdom is prepared for their presence.

Pedersen, K.B., 2004. Migration. In E. B. Petersen, H. Lyngstrøm, & B. Storgaard, eds. Vandkunstens mange ansigter. København: SAXO-institutet, pp. 21-28.

by Kristoffer Buck Pedersen

Having a blue passport means not having a red one yet. Ethnographic approach of the acquisition of Romanian citizenship

by Olga Cojocaru