REMESO Seminars

4 June

Liquid Roots, Soft Concrete

Emma Dominguez, Visiting artist, within the Knowledge Circulation Project at REMESO

A presentation of an ongoing artistic research project in which the artist takes the Swedish “Million Program” as a point of departure. Its architecture and physical form serve as the backdrop for the artist’s exploration of migration, a sense of rootlessness, and a longing for a place to belong. Through art, the artist seeks to give voice to lived experiences of migration, depicted from the perspective of two generations.

21 May

Teori om det folkliga avantgardet: om SOU 1972:66 och den estetiska kulturens radikala demokrati (kap. 1)

Kim West, Associate Professor, REMESO, LiU. Working seminar.

14 May

Displacing Diversity: How Social Mix Interventions are Legitimised, Experienced and Resisted in a Danish Neighbourhood

Rebecka Söderberg, PhD in International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER), Malmö University.

On how racializing discourses and neoliberal objectives are intertwined in political strategies for mixed residential areas. Söderberg´s focus lies on the lived experiences of residents in a Danish residential area covered by the so-called 'ghetto law', as well as underlying assumptions in Danish and Swedish policy.

7 May

From Grassroot to Movement: Experiences from (Self) Organization and Power in "Orten" *

Saman Faramarzis, poet och grundare av Förenade Förorter.

A part of Kunskapscirkuleringsprojektet at REMESO.

* "Orten" is short for "förorten" and refers to suburban ares in the outskirts of major cities, often characterized as multi-ethnic disadvantaged neighborhoods.

23 April

60% seminar for the Doctorate

Nicolina Ewards Öberg, PhD Candidate, REMESO, LiU.

NicolinaEwards Öberg presents two articles from her thesis and a draft for a third article. Working seminar.

9 April

Sámi Education or Education for Sámi - Historical Development and Contemporary Situation

Charlotta Svonni, Postdoctoral Researcher, Várdduo – Center for Sámi Research, Umeå University.

Svonni´s research has a focus on Sámi education in both history and the present. More specifically, she has researched curricula and syllabi for nomad school, Sami school and primary school. She is also involved in Indigenous education in an international perspective.

2 April

Monstrous Events: Political Emergence, Aesthetic Knowledge, and the Twenty-First-Century Crowd

Stefan Jonsson, professor, REMESO, LiU.

Stefan Jonsson presents the first chapter of a book in progress. Working seminar.

26 March

Walkning a fine line: Germany and the question of imperialism

Kai Koddenbrock, Professor of Political Economy at Bard College Berlin.

Joint seminar with REMESO International Graduate School.

19 March

Contemporary Challenges of Combating Racism – Perspectives for Global Anti-Racism

Aruanã Rosa, PhD cand., FCT-ECIU Fellowship University of Aveiro/CIPES-UA/REMESO-LiU.

Aruanã Rosa´s research connects racism, higher education, and public policies in the context of the European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU). In the seminar he will discuss the Portuguese context, colonial legacy, Luso-Tropicalism, and institutional blindness to racism. Working seminar.

12 March

Presentation of Two New Books

Handbook on Migration and Development: A Counter-Hegemonic Perspective (Edward Elgar 2024) Eds. R. Delgado Wise, B. Likic Brboric, C. Schierup and R. Munck.
Decided Return Migration: Emotions, Citizenship, Home and Belonging in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Springer 2024) by Aida Ibricevic, REMESO.

In this seminar, REMESO researchers launch their recently published books in an environment promising vibrant intellectual exchange.

Discussants: Zoran Slavnic. Moderator: Kristoffer Jutvik

5 March

Women on the Move – Stories from Gaza

Samah Sabawi, poet and PhD, Victoria University, Australia.
Claudia Tazreiter, Professor, REMESO, Linköping University.

Discussion of a book in progress that will document and give voice to experiences of forced displacement through the sharing of narrative accounts of women and girls escaping war and deprivation in Gaza over the past year.

19 February

Critique of Economic Sociology and Its Relation to Marxist Sociology

David Fasenfest, Waine State University, Detroit, MI, USA.

Economic sociology accepts the universality of market capitalism. For economic sociology, the more complex the society, the more markets do not clear, and embeddedness is an independent variable that causes disequilibrium. By contrast, Marxism is an attempt both to critique the existing analyses of capitalism and offer an alternative dialectic in opposition to that which capitalism imposes on any understanding of how that system works. Marxism holds that disruption, crisis, and inequality is central to capitalism, and seeks a more equitable and just economy and society.

Fasenfest is an economist and sociologist who has written numerous articles on regional and urban economic development, labor markets, work force development, and income inequality. His latest publication is Marx Matters (2022).

6 February

Medborgerliga rättigheter, akademisk frihet och medier i Tidö-avtalets era

John Stauffer, Acting Executive Director at Civil Rights Defenders
Jesper Strömbäck, Professor of Journalism and Political Communication, University of Gothenburg.

4 February

Cultures of Rejection, Antimigration, and Conspirituality

Celina Ortega Soto, PhD candidate, REMESO, 60% seminar.

Celina Ortega Soto will present two articles that form part of her thesis and a draft of the “kappa”. Working seminar.

17 January 

Statelessness Beyond Citizenship: Kurds of Syria and the Struggle for Identity Between Home and Exile

Haqqi Bahram, REMESO, IKOS, LiU, PhD-defense.

External reviewer: Professor Judith Beyer, University of Konstanz, Germany.

Statelessness Beyond Citizenship discusses statelessness across time and space through the case of the Kurds of Syria. By analyzing life histories expressed in narrative interviews, the author describes statelessness as a condition more complex than what much current research leads us to think - an enduring predicament connected to exclusion and struggle for identity, both in Syria and in exile.

16 January

Towards an Anthropology of Statelessness

Judith Beyer, professor of Social and Political Anthropology, University of Konstanz, Germany.

In this talk, Beyer outlines an anthropology of statelessness, i.e. statelessness, not as a historical anomaly but as a human condition of 15 million people worldwide, which offers a new perspective on the very concept of ‘the state’.

18 December

Calculating Migration: Imagining and Predicting Borders through AI and Automation

Karin Krifors, REMESO, LiU, Fredy Mora Gamez, LiU Tema and Universität Wien, Austria

5 December

Remaindered Life: Reading Group/Faculty Seminar

Neferti X.M Tadiar, LiU Moa Martinson guest professor

4 December

Collective Agency and Authoritarian Automation: Combining the Aesthetic and the Sociological Gaze

Anna Ådahl and Stefan Jonsson, REMESO, LIU

Presentation of a project on artistic research, as well as a film essay on crowds, mobility and identification.

27 November

Machine Discrimination

Tuba Bircan, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

Joint seminar with REMESO International Graduate School.

7 November

Remaindered Life: Reading Group/Faculty Seminar

Neferti X.M Tadiar, LiU Moa Martinson guest professor

6 November

From 'Migration Background' to 'Immigration History': A Paradigm Shift in the Production of Statistics on Immigration and Diversity in Germany?

Jens Schneider, University of Osnabrück, Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS, Germany

15 October

Inaugural lectures of LiU Guest professors in the name of Tage Danielsson and Moa Martinson

Athena Farrokhzad and Neferti X.M Tadiar

30 October

Currencies of Violence

Jonathan Beller, REMESO visiting professor, Pratt Institute, New York, USA

Beller will discuss a book in progress focusing on the means by which practices of violence give access to financial liquidity.

10 October

Remaindered Life: Reading Group/Faculty Seminar

Neferti X.M Tadiar, LiU Moa Martinson guest professor

2 October

Language of the Unheard: On Riots, State Violence and Other Worlds

Burcu Sahin, poet, REMESO guest lecturer and writer in residence

18 September

Solidarity - processing – writing

Balsam Karam, author, REMESO guest lecturer and writer in residence

12 September

Challenging the Collective Imaginary of Migration

Elsa Gomis, Artist and filmmaker and researcher, University of Oxford and Sweden´s Royal Art Academy.

Joint seminar with Tema Q.

11 September

REMESO kick off

Neferti Tadiar, Moa Martinson guest professor

Down and out. Swedish Working Class Migrants in Depression Era Hoverville, Seattle

Ola Larsmo, Moa Martinson visiting professor, IKOS, LiU

Existence, Temporality, and Mobility: Trends in Migration Research and Policy over the Last Three Decades.

Zoran Slavnic, Professor of Sociology, REMESO, Linköping University.

Dream Machine – on Football Migration between Ghana and Sweden

Emy Lindberg, PhD in Cultural Anthropology, Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University.

From Revolution to Autocracy: The Political Technologies of Post-Socialist Empire

Keti Chukhrov, Guest Professor in the name of Tage Danielsson, IKOS, LiU

When Political Rhetoric Threatens Migrant Labor Market Integration

Jennifer Shanenberg, Visiting PhD Candidate at REMESO/University of Tennessee

Remember us To Life - Current Memory Works as Repair

Rebecka Katz Thor, Assoc. Professor, REMESO, LiU

Between Statelessness and Migration: Kurds from Syria and Negotiations of Citizenship and Identity

Haqqi Bahram, PhD student, REMESO, 90%

Local Governance in Migration and Integration Policy. Sites of Policy Innovation and Contestation?

Ellen Rahm, PhD student REMESO, 20%.

Governing the Future Race – A.I., Biometrics, and the Policing of Migrant Youth in Sweden

Max Waleij, PhD student, REMESO, 20%.

Race, Class, and Immigrant Entrepreneurship in the Finnish Competition State

Anuhya Bobba, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Economic Sociology, University of Turku.

The language of the unheard: on riots, state violence and other worlds

Burcu Sahin, resident lecturer and poet at REMESO during the Spring 2024

"Motstånd och arv i exil (Der Freie Deutsche Kulturbund Schweden)"

Samuel Richter, PhD student REMESO, 20%.

Book Workshop (Remeso internal)

June 12. Full day in TBA (working seminar)

Vulnerability Amplified: Assessing the Needs of LGBTI + Refugees in South Africa

Thea de Gruchy, Postdoctor, African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS), University of the Witwatersrand and Linneaus-Palme Scholar

South Africa is the only African country that acknowledges asylum rights for LGBT persons. Yet little is known about LGBT refugees in South Africa. Due to xenophobic and homo/transphobic violence they remain largely inconspicuous. This makes data a challenge.

With the WhatsApp messaging platform we collected information from 380 LGBT refugees, including age, length of time in South Africa, country of origin and self-identity. In this paper we discuss possibilities and problems of using WhatsApp as a survey with gender and sexual minorities in the Global South.

Operação Mercúrio: The Role of Police Violence in the (Non) Permancence of Senegalese Immigrants in Pelotas/RS

Matheus Lira Bento presents parts of his ongoing research project as a sociology Ph.D. candidate and guest at REMESO - an analysis of police brutality against immigrants living in the Southern region of Brazil. 

REMESO Kick-off (staff meeting, seminar, planning, and dinner) 

Seminar: Amin Mosheni, Scholars at Risk; Visiting Researcher at REMESO.  

Nationalism, Regionalism and European Identity 

Hans Kundnani, Associate fellow and former Europe Director, Chatham House, London. 

Kundnani discuss his latest book, Eurowhiteness: Culture, Empire and Race in the European Project (Hurst, 2023). The European Union is often thought of as an expression of “cosmopolitanism” – and therefore as the opposite of nationalism. But Europe is not the world. The EU represents a particular region, geography and history and can be thought of as an expression of regionalism – that is, a kind of nationalism, but on a larger scale.

This seminar explores theories of cosmopolitan Europe vs the alternative idea of a European regionalism and if theories of nationalism can be applied to regionalism. Kundnani writes regularly for The Observer, The Guardian, The New Statesman and Foreign Affairs. The seminar is part of The Swedish Research Council’s Graduate School in Migration and Integration. 

Reading: Kundnani, H. (2023), ‘“The Eurocentric fallacy”’, The Guardian, 17 August

International Workshop: Anticolonial Scholarship and Global Social Theory 

An international and interdisciplinary workshop on empire, colonialism, decolonization, and global inequalities; and their place in social theory.

International speakers include:

Syed Farid Alatas, Singapore;Manuela Boatca, Freiburg; Chen Hon-Fai, Hong Kong; Satish Deshpande, New Delhi; Laura Doyle, Massachussetts; Faisal Garba Muhammed, Capte Town; Julian Go, Chicago; Nacira Guénif, Paris; Ann Phoenix, London; Marcelo Rosa, Rio de Janeiro; Neferti X. Tadiar, New York.  

More information about the workshop.

Inaugural Lecture 

Ola Larsmo, Moa Martinsson professor at the department of Culture and Society 2023–2024

How can novels be used to discover unexpected aspects of history? How can we prevent the falsification of history? These issues are in focus for Ola Larsmo, appointed to the Moa Martinson professorship at Linköping University. Welcome to his inaugural lecture followed by a reception. The lecture is given in English. 

Måste vi prata om ras? Rasism och antirasism i 2010- och 2020-talens Sverige

Lisa Karlsson Blom, PhD candidate, REMESO. Final seminar.

Lisa presents her PhD project on anti racist practices in Sweden during the last decade. 

Ambivalence about race: expert opinions on racial and ethnic categories in clinical research in Sweden 

Anna Bredström, Associate prof., REMESO and Shai Mulinari, Associate prof., Lund University.

Through interviews with experts in clinical drug testing in Sweden, with a focus on the use of racial categories in trials, this paper explores an ambivalence among the participating experts. On the one hand, they saw race as a politically charged concept, preferably to be avoided. On the other hand, it was still considered medically relevant for determining biological differences between individuals as well as groups. 

Understanding the Migration/Segregation nexus from a racial capitalism approach

Irene Molina, Professor at the Department of Human Geography, Uppsala University.

Irene specializes in research about the city as a place of social power relations with a focus on race, discrimination, class, gender and intersectionality.

Combining theories of racialization and racial capitalism, on one side, with the two political fields of Migration and Housing policies, on the other, this lecture sheds light on the processes of racialized segregation in the Swedish cities. We will analyse past regimes of the racialized segregation-migration nexus, look at the current landscape after "Tidö-avtalet" with its exacerbated racial regime and fortification of nation-state borders. We will however also ask about resistance and hope, by looking at ongoing struggles for a just city. 

Different Actors, Same Stage?: Norwegian visible minority artists’ narratives of stability and change in the cultural field 

Sabina Tica, guest PhD cand, Dep. of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo.

In Norway, as well as in other western societies, policies have been implemented to increase diversity in the cultural field. However, few contributions have shed light on how artists whose bodies are viewed as contributing to ‘diversity’ experience the quest for diversification. In this paper, I utilize interviews with 34 Norwegian artists who are visible minorities and explore how they narrate stories of stability and change within the field.

Critique of the Freedom of Art: The Contemporary Far Right and the Uses of a Concept

Seminar and book launch. What could a long-term, progressive, and anti-racist cultural policy be in Sweden today, in a situation where conservative, xenophobic, and anti-intellectual forces are gaining political influence? Short interventions by Gustav Strandberg, Kim West, and Josefine Wikström, Södertörn University; and Madina Tlostanova and Stefan Jonsson, Linköping University.

 

REMESO's 15th anniversary: What research on migration, ethnicity and society? Critical scholarship on an increasingly critical field

Introduktion

REMESO celebrated 15 years with panel discussions and seminars together with colleagues, board members, alumni, and affiliates. February 8, 2023. Take part of some of the discussions here in our five videos.

Introduction by Anders Neergaard, Professor, Director of REMESO and Carl-Ulrik Schierup, Professor emeritus, former Director of REMESO.

 

A Modern Migration Theory

Book discussion with Peo Hansen, Professor, REMESO, author of A Modern Migration Theory and Lisa Pelling, Chair of REMESO Board and Director of Arena Idé.

New Challenges for Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Panel discussion with Rudeina Mkdad, PhD student, REMESO; Anders Neergaard, Professor, Director of REMESO; Kitimbwa Sabuni, REMESO board member, County Admin., Board of Stockholm; Per Wirtén, REMESO board member, author and political commentator and Lisa Pelling (moderator), chair of REMESO board, Director Arena Idé.

Ethnic and Migration Studies: Systems of Knowledge

Panel discussion with Aleksandra Ålund, Professor emerita, REMESO; Haqqi Bahram, PhD student, REMESO; Branka Likic-Brboric, Senior associate professor; Xolani Tshabalala, Postdoc, REMESO; Claudia Tazreiter (moderator), Professor, REMESO.

 

 

 

Cosmopolitanism and Welfare Chauvinism in Sweden

Max Jerneck, Affiliated researcher , PhD, Stockholm School of Economics. Jerneck discussed the dominant paradigm underpinning the discussion of the “costs” of immigration. Most parties have accepted the idea that because immigrants, as a group, have a relatively high level of unemployment and get more from the welfare state than what they pay in taxes, they make up a an economic burden. However, Jerneck argues, through the lens of “functional finance” and a critical look at the dominating discourses, that immigrants contribution through taxes to the state budget is of little relevance for the Swedish economy.

Revolution after Hegemony

Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen, professor of political aesthetics, University of Copenhagen.Where and what is fascism today? What if it can’t be confined to political parties or ultranationalist politicians but has become something much more diffuse that is spread across our societies as cultural expressions and psychological states? Professor Bolt Rasmussen discussed his recent book Late Capitalist Fascism (Polity) and work in progress.

Digital Citizenship Ideals in the Swedish Welfare State

Ahmed Kaharevic, PhD candidate; Helena Iacobaeus, PhD candidate; Mariana Gustafsson, Lecturer and Associate Professor, Division of Political Science, Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University.

This article answers to the call for more critical perspectives on digital citizenship. Inspired by Isin and Ruppert’s (2020) conceptualization, Laclau & Mouffe’s (1985) discourse theory, and Schou and Hjelholt’s (2017) citizenship framing in the Danish context, we identify and unpack imagined digital citizenship in the Swedish (digital) welfare state. The data consists of the Swedish national digitalization strategy, the Swedish Library Act, and interviews with library staff.

To Measure Racism

Edda Manga, Researcher, Mångkulturellt centrum and Mattias Gardell, professor, CEMFOR, Uppsala University. Edda Manga and Mattias Gardell presented their new book which examines the question on how to “measure” racism, from a set of theoretical and historical perspectives. They also offer a practical suggestion for how to measure the effects of racism for different groups: the so called: Balingsholmsmodellen.

Trade Unions, Refugees and Immigrant Labour: has the Attitude Changed? The Stance of Swedish Blue-Collar Trade Unions as Evidenced by Sentiment Analysis 

Aliaksei Kazlou, Assistant Professor, Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University.

Aliaksei Kazlou presented an article co authored with Lin Lerpold and Örjan Sjöberg, Center for Sustainability Research and Department of Marketing and Strategy, Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm. 
 
The attitude of trade unions towards migration and migrants, be it of asylum seekers or those in search of jobs and better incomes, differs quite substantially across European countries. In this investigation the authors use sentiment analysis to assess whether there are any changes, such as structural breaks or polarisation, to be discerned in the opinion of the representatives of thirteen blue-collar trade unions and their national confederation. At its most general, the trend appears to turn more negative over time, yet the influence of defining events and legal changes is not so easily discerned, therefore closer studies was undertaken the union representing workers in the industry with the largest proportion of immigrant labour, the Hotel and Restaurant Workers’ Union. 

Building Europe’s Next Generation Digital Infrastructures: the Reconfiguration of Sovereignty and Imagined Communities

Mauricio Rogat, postdoc, REMESO. Recent post-pandemic recovery plans in the EU and the UK, involving considerable investments in digital infrastructures, evoke questions about potential reconfigurations of sovereignty and the boundaries of imagined communities. This presentation will elaborate on the relationship between the expanding digital infrastructures, bordering practices and the social fabric of the everyday.

Panel discussion - Colonialism and Modern Social Theory

Book presentation by visiting professors Gurminder Bhambra, University of Sussex, and John Holmwood, University of Nottingham. Commentary by REMESO professors Peo Hansen and Claudia Tazreiter. Moderator: Stefan Jonsson.

“Taurus in the Arena of Life: Toussaint L'Overture's "Grievous Error" and Black Radical Ruptures in the Wake of Slavery and Colonialism”

James R. Walker, PhD, ADN, Honors Program, DePaul University, Chicago.
The seminar discussed Walker's essay, "COVID-19 and Dreams of a Radical Re-visioning of Global Health Engagement," and it´s suggestion to re-vision our engagement with global health inequity through the work of Black Radicals C. L. R. James, Walter Rodney, Paul Gilroy, and Christina Sharpe.

“The concept of race.”

Discussion on Loïc Wacquant’s article “Resolving the Trouble with ’Race’” (2022), which suggests a new notion of ethnicity and race and problematizes the idea of structural racism. Introductory comments by Anna Bredström and Anders Neergaard.

Geographies of Commemoration in a Digital World: Anzac @ 100

Danielle Drozdzewski, Dep. of Human Geography, Stockholm University. Danielle Drozdzewski talked about her reccent book, co-authored with Shanti Sumartojo and Emma Waterton, and the suggestion that the digital constitutes opportunities to influence how we remember. She will moreover introduce a new epistemology of memory, which tackles the complexity of geographies of commemoration. Integral to her approach has been an embodied and mindful cognisance of positions within/on memory research (including about Anzac).

Book release: Contending Global Apartheid: Transversal Solidarities and Politics of Possibility

Carl-Ulrik Schierup, professor emeritus, REMESO, presented his new book, co-authored with Martin Bak Jörgensen (Brill 2022). Commentary by Stefan Jonsson, REMESO.

“The Legal Expriences of Turkish Women Migrants in Sweden”

Duygu Hatipoglu Aydin, REMESO guest researcher, Associate Professor at Hacettepe University, Faculty of Law, Ankara.

"The contribution of young migrant men to building potentially sustainable, and sexual and reproductive health beneficial social integration in Johannesburg Inner city."

Oncemore Mbeve is a Doctoral Candidate at Wits University, African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) and a visiting Doctoral Candidate at REMESO, LiU. Comments from Anna Bredström, Associate Professor, REMESO.

”Feeling difference: Race, migration, and the affective infrastructure of a Danish detention camp”

Annika Lindberg, School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg. Guest seminar with REMESO International Graduate School. 

“Late Capitalist Fascism”

Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen, Dep. of Arts and Cultural Studies, Copenhagen University. Rasmussen will give a presentation based on his new book Late Capitalist Fascism, (Polity Press, 2021)