Plans of IMISCOE research clusters 31 October 2007 till 30 September 2008
International migration and its regulation, Research Cluster A1
Members of A1 will focus on The future of migration between Turkey and Europe: migratory effects of a possible accession of Turkey by preparing a joint publication and research proposal for external funding. They will furthermore monitor changing migration flows in Eastern Europe and the consequences of post-accession mobility for labour markets in sending and receiving countries. A third group in this research cluster will focus on The future of control and effective measures of controlling irregular migration and wanted migration (both highly skilled and labour migrants). Finally they will address the lack of knowledge, problematic methodologies, blurred concepts and lack of definitions regarding the topic Transit migration and provide both an appropriate typology and theory.
Migration and development: causes and consequences, Research Cluster A2
First, A2 will support the European Ethnosurvey, which will be funded through FP7. This study’s objective is to explore the links between international migration, on the one hand, and urban development (architecture, investments) and social change (especially at family level) in Sub-Saharan Africa, on the other hand. The research itself will produce quantitative data regarding both the circulation of migrants and the impact of migration in the countries of origin. Secondly, A2 will explore the role of Migrant diasporas in decentralized development. In a conference in Rotterdam in 2008, attention will be drawn to innovative methodologies for exploring the transformations that are created in countries of ‘origin’ by the engagement of migrant diasporas at local level. Thirdly, the cluster will hold a meeting to prepare a publication on Labour migration from accession countries within the EU.
Migration and citizenship: legal status, mobilisation and political participation, Research Cluster B3
Cluster B3 will organise a conference on Substate, Suprastate and National Citizenship in Europe and finalise a project proposal on Support and Opposition to Migration: why did migration become a contested issue in some countries and not in others? This project will analyse anti-immigrant movements and parties and their relations with immigrant and pro-immigrant movements in a comparative perspective. Papers from the 2005 Social Capital and Multicultural Democracy workshop organized by the research stream on political participation will be published in a special issue of the European Journal for Political Research. The political transnationalism stream has prepared revised papers from its 2005 Liège workshop for a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies (publication date 2008).
Work, entrepreneurship, economic integration, Research Cluster B4
The work of B4 is subdivided into two sub-clusters with corresponding conferences relating to previous work and aiming at new research questions. The first conference, Migrant entrepreneurship – conceptions and definitions, is supposed to continue and deepen the items discussed in the workshop Quantitative and qualitative research on ethnic entrepreneurship (Osnabrück 2007), which revealed the need to look in depth at definitions and major concepts and approaches to this subject. The conference will be co-organised with the Task Group 4.4 of the EU network of excellence SUS.DIV (Sustainable Development in a Diverse World). The second conference, Social networks and economic integration of immigrants’ incorporates questions regarding the coherence between social networks, neighbourhood and economic integration of immigrants. This cluster will finally prepare a research proposal on Foggy social structures: informal economy and illegal migration’.
Social integration and mobility, education, housing and health, Research Cluster B5
B5's work is subdivided into four main activities: 1) research development and project work, 2) publication of a selection of B5 papers/reports, 3) a PhD Summer Course, Lisbon, Portugal, July 2008 and 4) the organisation of two workshops. The first activity concerns the international project GEITONIES (which will focus on the neighbourhood level and the representations, daily practices and interactions that affect relations between social and ethnic groups) and the international project MIGHEALTHNET. The PhD Summer Course aims to provide a week of training for IMISCOE PhD students focussing on general methodological issues, thesis writing and guidelines for publishing. Reflecting CEG’s know-how in cartography and GIS an additional course will be offered to introduce students to cartographic analysis. Finally, the two workshops will cover the topics Growing Points in the Study of Migration, Integration and Health and Inter-ethnic Tolerance and Neighbourhood Integration.
Linguistic, cultural and religious diversity and related policies, Research Cluster B6
This cluster is organized into 5 thematic streams: 1) cities of diversity: the spatial nexus; 2) public religion and secular democracy; 3) language policy and practices; 4) ethnic minority and immigrants cultural productions as forms of political expression; and 5) debating cultural differences. The 1st stream will organise a follow-up workshop in Rabat to discuss publication possibilities, research proposals and policy recommendations. Sstream 2 will organise a conference on Changes in Colonial and Post-colonial Governance of Islam. The 3rd stream will continue its work on biliteracy issues in cooperation with the interdisciplinary and international project Literacy Acquisition in Schools in the Context of Migration and Multilingualism (funded by the German Volkswagen foundation). They will organize an international conference that will focus on issues of classroom interaction and literacy acquisition. The aim of stream 4 is to develop a research project that will study arts and culture as forms of political expression from a transnationalist perspective. Finally, stream 5 will prepare two publications (Legal practice and cultural diversity and Debating cultural Difference: the family) and organise an international conference on Interlegality and internormativity in multicultural Europe.
Interethnic relations, identity, representation and discrimination, Research Cluster C7
C7 will develop a book on the theme of visibility and invisibility. This theme will capture the essential themes covered by this cluster: the importance of markers in interethnic relations, the question of ethnic boundaries and group demarcations, the question of political and/or collective/social representation, the issue of passing in its relation to discrimination and the question of social categorisation and its relation to social (collective) identities.
Gender, age and generations, Research Cluster C8
Cluster C8 will organise its work under three specific themes of research collaboration and integration. The second generation will organise a workshop on theoretical debates in second-generation research. There will probably be four main presentations by key speakers on the US-Europe theoretical debate: Alejandro Portes, John Mollenkopf, Hans Vermeulen, and Maurice Crul/Jens Schneider. Gender and the labour market will organise a small conference to produce a set of papers on this theme. Love, Sexuality and Migration will convene a small conference, with invited papers (selected following a call for papers), on this theme in the first half of 2008 to result in a special issue of a journal.
The multilevel governance of immigrant and immigration policies, Research Cluster C9
C9 intends to 1) finalize and present the final version of the Joint Studies Publication The Making of Migratory Policies in Europe; 2) prepare a first draft of an edited book on The local dimension of immigration policy-making; 3) promote a mapping exercise on the role of regions in policy-making processes on migration, with particular attention to interactions with EU institutions; and 4) support the organisation of the IMISCOE Theory Conference on the Policy-Research nexus.
Strategic Research in Integration Policies, Cross-Cluster group (A1, C9, INTPOL team)
This initiative aims at filling relevant gaps in research on integration policies which increasingly gains relevance in the integration policy discussion. It will be coordinated and implemented by IMISCOE partner EFMS. It focuses on the development of two research lines regarding measures and policies aimed at the structural integration of immigrants and people with a migration background, specifically focusing on the local level: 1) elaboration of a research proposal on methodology and indicator systems for local integration processes and 2) a feasibility study on a new research line on integration processes in small towns and rural areas. Both research lines will be supported by a theory building analysis on local integration processes.
Social Cohesion, Cross cluster group (SOCO, B3 and C9)
Within this initiative the aim is to publish the feasibility study on social cohesion and proceed to its wider dissemination and prepare a research proposal based on this study for external funding. In 2006 this team will organize a workshop with IMISCOE cluster leaders and directors in order to identify experts within and outside the network that would like to commit themselves to critical research on social cohesion. Specific attention will be dedicated to unintended effects of social cohesion programmes and their links to anti-immigration mobilization.
The role of the welfare state, Cross cluster group
Within almost all the nine IMISCOE research clusters the welfare state plays a key role in the core of the research questions. However, there is not yet a clear analytical framework how to deal with the welfare state in various research areas related to immigration and the integration of immigrant groups. This initiative will address this lack of framework and tries to relate the concepts and perspectives used in welfare state studies to various themes, concepts and paradigms within migration and integration research, in order to come up with a better understanding of the accommodation of welfare regimes to immigration flows as well as the influence of the welfare state on immigration and integration processes.
