Deterritorialized state authority in a transnational world. Expert meeting on transnationalism.

Transcription

1 Deterritorialized state authority in a transnational world. Expert meeting on transnationalism. Friday 11 November 2011, , location: Gravensteen (Pieterskerkhof 6, Leiden) Programme and speakers Chair: Maurits Berger, Leiden University and Léon Buskens, Leiden University : Welcome by Merel Kahmann, Leiden University : Eva Ostergaard-Nielsen, Autonomous University of Barcelona : Marjo Buitelaar, Groningen University : Questions and discussion : Coffee break : Thijl Sunier, VU University Amsterdam : Jeroen Doomernik, University of Amsterdam : Friso Kulk, Nijmegen University : Questions and discussion : Lunch at Faculty Club (Rapenburg 67-73) : Myra Waterbury, Ohio University : Nadia Bouras, Leiden University : Carla Tamagno, Research Centre in Migration Studies, Lima, Peru : Questions and discussions : Coffee break : Jean-Michel Lafleur, University of Liege : Hein de Haas, University of Oxford : Questions and discussion : Closing remarks by Merel Kahmann, Leiden University : Drinks at Gravensteen building

2 Eva Ostergaard-Nielsen Towards a multi-level perspective on transnational relations between states and diasporas Eva Østergaard-Nielsen is Associate Professor of the Department of Political Science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She holds a PhD in Politics from University of Oxford. Eva s ongoing research interest/ projects include the politics of migration in both receiving and sending countries, transnational networks and forms of political participation by migrants and various types of non-state actors. Her most recent project concerns external voting rights and political parties and is financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science. Her publications include, Transnational Politics: Turks and Kurds in Germany (Routledge, 2003) and International Migration and Sending Countries (Ed. Palgrave, 2003), as well as numerous articles and chapters of which the most recent ones include: Mobilizing the Moroccans, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 35 (10): , 2009 and Codevelopment and Citizenship, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Marjo Buitelaar, Groningen University Title: tba Marjo Buitelaar ( is Associate Professor Anthropology of Muslim Societies at the department of Comparative & Historical Study of Religion at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Her research focus is on Moroccans in Morocco and Moroccan-Dutch citizens in the Netherlands. Her most recent book Van huis uit Marokkaans (2009) studies the narrative construction of intersecting social identifications of highly educated Moroccan-Dutch women.

3 Thijl Sunier, VU University Amsterdam Transnational Turkish Islam The Islamic landscape in Europe is predominantly analyzed as an offspring social formation of migrants with its specific economic and social characteristics and its power constellations. This is certainly the case with Turkish Islam. This resonates well with diaspora paradigm in many studies on Islam in Europe in which the Islamic world is considered as the spiritual center and Islamic movements and associations abroad as the periphery. This paradigm does no justice to the contemporary characteristics of Turkish Islam. Turkish Islam today is a transnational field that is not necessarily attached anymore to a particular place and direction. Turkey is but one pole of a many-stranded transnational religious field in which there is a continuous multi-directional crossbreeding. One of the main reasons is the fundamental changes that have taken place among Muslims in Europe in recent decades. Modern mass media play a crucial role in the building of networks across boundaries in a multiplicity of directions. But also the circumstances in Turkey have changed tremendously in the past decades. To the extent that the Turkish state attempts to exert influence over Muslims in Europe, the political agenda that informs these attempts is very different from what it was before. This puts into question the assumptions of many politicians in Europe about the long distance state control of a poorly integrated Muslim population. Thijl Sunier (1954), anthropologist, holds the VISOR chair of Islam in European Societies at the VU University Amsterdam. He conducted research on inter-ethnic relations, Turkish youth and Turkish Islamic organisations in the Netherlands, comparative research among Turkish youth in France, Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands, and international comparative research on nation building and multiculturalism in France and The Netherlands. Presently he is conducting research on transnational Islamic movements, religious leadership, and nation-building and Islam in Europe. He is chairman of the board of the Inter-academic School for Islam Studies in the

4 Netherlands (NISIS), and chairman of the board of the Dutch Anthropological Association (ABV). Jeroen Doomernik, University of Amsterdam Opposing logics: Political desires and migrant logic Countries sending and receiving migrants tend to have diverging interests and corresponding policies regarding these migrants present and future position in society notably so if the economic divide between them is large. Their countries of origin, as a rule, have ambivalent expectations. On the one hand they would like their emigrants to retain intimate ties on the level of household and state as this brings many economical and political advantages. On the other hand they would not desire large scale return migration as this might cause stress on the domestic labour market. An important instrument employed by sending states is a liberal extension of citizenship over time and generations. They also seek to protect their citizens abroad against abuse and other dangers. Countries of destination, at least in the European case, also have ambivalent expectations. Settlement from less developed regions is discouraged yet once migrants do remain governments tend to frown upon those who do not fully commit themselves to a future in their new surroundings. And even if they do not pursue assimilationist policies they would still applaud such an outcome. Multiple citizenship tends to be discouraged or made impossible. The main instrument aimed to protect international migrants the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families they fail to ratify (whereas migrant sending countries usually do). Meanwhile, often overlooked by states at both end of the equation, migrants have their own economic and social logic and try to act accordingly. Migration and its consequences has always been at the centre of my research interests; when I studied cultural anthropology (MA in 1986), did a PhD in human geography

5 ( ), was a post-doc at the Free University in Berlin ( ), worked as senior policy maker at the Dutch Ministry of the Interior (2000) and presently as researcher with the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies(IMES)( present) and lecturer ( present) at the Department of Political Science. Friso Kulk, Nijmegen University Deterritorialized state authority through law: A mixed message Friso Kulk, MA LLM is PhD. student at the Institute of Sociology of Law at Nijmegen University (the Netherlands). He studied Arabic and law at the University of Amsterdam. His PhD is titled Parents and children in transnational families between Dutch and Islamic family law. It s a socio-legal study into the role of family law in the every lives of Dutch-Moroccan and Dutch-Egyptian transnational families. The study combines extensive fieldwork in Egypt, Morocco and the Netherlands with legal research on family law, nationality law and private international law. Myra Waterbury, Ohio University Diaspora engagement policies and their impact on the political integration of minorities: Comparative lessons from Eastern Europe Myra Waterbury is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. Her recent publications include Between State and Nation: Diaspora Politics and Kin-State Nationalism in Hungary (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), and Bridging the Divide: Towards a comparative framework for understanding external kinstate and migrant sending-state diaspora politics in Rainer Baubock, et al., eds. Diaspora and Transnationalism: Concepts, Theories and Methods (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010). She is currently working on projects related to ethnic citizenship

6 and diaspora politics, ethnic association in the European Parliament, and minority political integration in Eastern Europe. Nadia Bouras, Leiden University Title: tba Nadia Bouras is a historian, and is working towards her PhD on gender and migration at Leiden University. Her MA thesis was titled De migratie van Marokkaanse vrouwen naar Nederland, (Migration of Moroccan women to The Netherlands, ). She is also one of four Moroccan Dutch members of the Conseil de la Communauté Marocaine à l'étranger (Assembly of Overseas Moroccan Community Council) or CCME. Carla Tamagno, Research Centre in Migration Studies, Lima, Peru Title: tba Carla Tamagno is a specialist and researcher on international migration. Her PhD (2003) is entitled Entre acá y allá : transitional migration of Peruvians between Italy and Peru. Jean-Michel Lafleur, University of Liege The emigrants right to vote in home country elections: challenges and opportunities for the emigrants and their host and home societies Analyzing the experience of states which have recently implemented external voting laws, this paper discusses -independently of normative considerations- the main issues

7 surrounding the organization of national elections on another state's territory. Thanks to its strong empirical background, this paper seeks to make a contribution to contemporary debates on external voting in countries -like Morocco- where the enfranchisement of citizens abroad remains a controversial topic. Jean-Michel Lafleur holds a joint PhD in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Liège and the Institut d Etudes Poltiques in Paris. Jean-Michel is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FRS- FNRS) and is attached to the Center for Ethnic and Migration Studies (CEDEM) of the University of Liège. His work focuses on external voting that is the emigrants right to vote from abroad in home country elections. Looking at numerous cases in Europe and Latin America, Jean-Michel is currently preparing a book on the development of external voting and its consequences on the triangular relations between emigrants, the home society and the host society. His publications include a monograph and an edited book (Le transnationalisme politique (2005) and Transnational Politics from a Transantlatic Perspective (2009)), special issues for International Migration and Ethnic and Racial Studies, and articles in journals such as Global Networks and Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. In addition to his position at the University of Liège, Jean-Michel has been a visiting fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, the City University of New York and the Mora Institute in Mexico City. Hein de Haas, University of Oxford Title: tba Hein de Haas is a Senior Research Officer at the International Migration Institute (IMI) of the Department of International Development and the University of Oxford. His research focuses on the links between migration and processes of development and globalisation. He did extensive fieldwork in the Middle East and North Africa and, particularly, Morocco. In 2009, Hein de Haas was awarded a Starting Grant by the

8 European Research Council (ERC) for DEMIG, a five year ( ) research project on the determinants of international migration. Hein de Haas current work includes: the determinants of migration; migration and development; the role of states and policies in migration processes; African-European migration; global migration futures.