University of Sussex Programme scmr conference 2012 final

Exploring Migration: A Graduate Student Conference Programme Sussex Centre for Migration Research (SCMR), University of Sussex

Day 1 Thursday 21 June 103 09:00 – 09:30 09:15 09:30 – 11:15 09:30 – 09:45 09:45 – 10:00 10:00 – 10:15

10:15 – 10:30

10:30 – 11:15

11:15 – 11:30 11:30 – 13:00 11:30 – 11:45 11:45 – 12:00 12:00 – 12:15

12:15 – 13:00

13:00 – 14:00 14:00 – 15:30 14:00 – 14:15

14:15 – 14:30 14:30 – 14:45

Fulton Building FUL

Registration & Morning Coffee Opening Remark 1st Panel ‘IDPs and Other Vulnerable Migrant Communities in Asia’ Chair: Sajida Ally Wajihah Hamid ‘Exclusion and fear amidst the “scale-makers” of Singapore’s Little India’ Danesh Jayatilaka ‘Resettlement in post-war Sri Lanka: a mixed method analyzing the recovery of IDPs’ Raja Adnan Razzaq ‘Cargo of Miseries: Host-Stranger Conflicts and the State’s response to refugee influx in the Punjab’ Bogumil Terminski ‘Mining-Induced Displacement and Resettlement. Theoretical Frameworks and Current Challenges’ Q&A Break 2nd Panel ‘Subjective Constructions of Migrant Identities and Realities’ Chair: Gunjan Sondhi Claire Bennett ‘Seeking asylum in the UK: the Perspectives of lesbian asylum seekers’ Jean Pierre Gauci ‘So Much for My Happy Ending: Persecution of Trafficked Persons’ Uke Kshipra ‘Hindu Nationalism, identity and marginalisation in Indian Diasporic Literature in the US’ Q&A Lunch 3rd Panel ‘Governance on Migration’ Chair: Vanessa Iaria Satoko Horii ‘EU Border Management and the Role of Frontex: the Case of the Border Guard Training’ Cosmas Ukachukwu Ikegwuruka ‘Immigration Control in the United Kingdom and the Liberal democratic paradox’ Gioia Caminada ‘How do stakeholders influence migration policy? An analysis of Poverty Reduction Strategies in the Commonwealth of Independent States’

SCMR Graduate Student Conference

21-22 June 2012 Fulton Build. University of Sussex

14:45 – 15:30

15:30

Q&A Concluding Remark

Day 2 Friday 22 June 101 09:00 – 09:15 09:15 – 10:45 09:15 – 09:30

09:30 – 09:45 09:45 – 10:00 10:00 – 10:45

10:45 – 11:00 11:00 – 12:30 11:00 – 11:15

11:15 – 11:30

11:30 – 11:45

11:45 – 12:30

12:30 – 13:30 13:30 – 15:00 13:30 – 13:45

13:45 – 14:00 14:00 – 14:15

14:15 – 15:00

15:00

Fulton Building FUL Morning Coffee 1st Panel ‘Mixed and Textual Methodologies’ Chair: Satoko Horii Fran Meissner ‘Disentangling complexity through networks: Urban super-diversity and the clustering of homophily’ Rebecca Pietrelli ‘Migration and Vulnerability to Poverty in Kagera (Tanzania)’ Tommaso Caiazza ‘Italians in San Francisco: an extra-ordinary experience?’

Q&A Break 2nd Panel ‘Crossing Borders, Boundaries and Networks’ Chair: Fran Meissner Romaine Farquet ‘Homeland Politics and Emotions: Transnational Engagement among Albanian-speaking Migrants from Yugoslavia to Switzerland’ Lorenzo Piccoli ‘Immigration and national minorities: redrawing identity boundaries, projecting integration policies A comparative study of Québec and South Tyrol’ Natasha King ‘Practising a no border perspective in the city: Radical migrant solidarity and the 300 hunger strike’ Q&A Lunch 3rd Panel ‘Forced Migration and Return’ Chair: Danesh Jayatilaka Sonja Fransen ‘Return Migration and Social Cohesion in Burundi: The Mediating Role of Land Scarcity’ Vanessa Iaria ‘Iraqi refugees’ return and transnational livelihoods in the Middle East’ Ine Lietaert ‘Returnees’ perspectives on their return processes to the South Caucasian Republics Georgia or Armenia’ Q&A Concluding Remark

SCMR Graduate Student Conference

21-22 June 2012 Fulton Build. University of Sussex

Abstracts Day 1 Panel 1: ‘IDPs and Other Vulnerable Migrant Communities in Asia’ Exclusion and fear amidst the ‘scale-makers’ of Singapore’s Little India Wajihah Hamid School of Global Studies, Migration Studies University of Sussex This presentation looks at a highly contested urban transnational space - Singapore’s Little India as an intersection to explore the positionality of South Asian male migrant workers in contemporary Singapore society and their dislocation within the physical and metaphorical space. It will explore how Little India becomes a space of exclusion for the workers vis-à-vis the other multiple users.

Reports from the state’s newspaper is used as a case study to illustrate the reinforcement of the marginal position occupied by these workers within Little India itself and the Singapore society at large. This presentation will contend that while the state rhetoric has made these workers transient, these workers do at times have transnational sensibilities and their own agency as they thread this contested space and the larger Singaporean society. Consequently, these male migrant workers should be viewed as ‘scale-makers’ rather than the ‘othered’ marginal labour migrants. Scholars need to recognise the role of these labour migrants beyond remittance, while the state should accord these workers some due recognition.

Resettlement in post-war Sri Lanka: a mixed method analyzing the recovery of IDPs Danesh Jayatilaka School of Global Studies, Migration Studies University of Sussex With the war ending in the east and north of Sri Lanka in 2006 and 2009 the government set in motion a large programme to return and resettle the hundreds of thousands displaced due to the conflict. The first initiative was launched in the east where large ‘owner driven’ housing construction projects were conducted in combination with livelihoods support activities. The eastern projects concluded in 2009, with the activities premised on the assumption that former IDPs would regain economic normalcy because of the aid. The outcomes on the ground however have not wholly been according to expectations. Differences among the housing and livelihoods packages had meant beneficiaries recovered in distorted patterns for reasons that are not always clear. Assessments had shown while some people had regained their previous economic setting, or became better off, others had fallen into vicious poverty.

This presentation looks at my ongoing doctoral research to find the answer to how people make most use of the aid provided to them. My research question goes as ‘What is the impact of housing and livelihoods assistance on economic recovery of former internally displaced persons who had been resettled?’ With the fieldwork concluded in 2011 I wish to share my experiences in relation to the research design and the methods that were employed, and the initial findings. Focusing on a former war torn village in the east, for a period of six months, I conducted a multidisciplinary quantitative and qualitative approach using household surveys, in-depth interviews, focus groups, key informant interviews, and ethnography to assemble information. These data are presently being analyzed using SPSS and qualitative coding methods, whereas I am drawing out a picture to meet the objective of my study, which is ‘why some former IDPs recover while others don’t, when everyone receives assistance’.

Cargo of Miseries: Host-Stranger Conflicts and the State’s response to refugee influx in the Punjab Raja Adnan Razzaq History Quaid-i-Azam University

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With the partition of India in 1947 the world saw the greatest human migration in the twentieth century. Approximately fourteen million people crossed the newly created boarders of India and Pakistan. The communal frenzy resulted in an estimated death of one million people. The migrants experienced intense trauma arising from the loss of property, family members and as a result of being forcibly wrenched from their ancestral homes. At least 75,000 women were abducted and raped by men of religions different from their own.

These communal riots and barbaric killings forced the people to leave their ancestral homes and head towards an unknown land in order to save their lives, properties and honor. Refugees started pouring in to India and Pakistan every day in large numbers. Both the governments were trying their best to rehabilitate and resettle the refugees who were crossing the boarders in large numbers.

Having no precedent in the past, the authorities on both sides had no clue as how to cope with that kind of emergency situation. At first the migrants were greeted warmly by the local communities on both sides of the borders but this honey-moon did not last for long and conflicts started to arise on petty issues which later on severely affected the assimilation process especially in Pakistan where despite of being assimilated physically the migrants had to maintain their separate identity as Muhajirs (refugees/migrants). The power struggle between the host community and the ‘strangers’ even today plays a vital role in the formation of governments in Pakistan and peace and stability in Sindh.

This paper would highlight the communal frenzy that prevailed at the time of partition when in order to escape the communal hatred, hundreds of thousands of people suddenly made up their minds to abandon their homes forever without even hope of crossing the border, let alone the certainty of rehabilitation later. The paper will analyze the irregularities in the rehabilitation process which eventually resulted in the root causes of the prevailing conflicts between the muhajirs (also known as the Urdu-Speaking community) and the locals.

Mining-Induced Displacement and Resettlement: Theoretical Frameworks and Current Challenges Bogumil Terminski, University of Warsaw, University of Geneva The mining industry is frequently associated with decisions that have enormous social consequences. One of the most negative effects of mining today is the forcing of thousands of people to abandon their current places of residence. Gold mines in Tarkwa, open-cast copper mines in Papua New Guinea or Jarkhand (India), lignite mines in Germany, and diamond mines in Zimbabwe are just a few examples of activities leading to the displacement of large numbers of people worldwide. Today, mining-induced displacement constitutes a major social problem and a challenge for human rights. This particular issue affects at least a dozen people around the world. It is therefore of great importance to conduct its profound analysis as well as inspire broad public debate. According to specialists from the Oxford Refugee Centre (published in 2000), the extraction of mineral resources is the cause of about ten percent of the development-induced displacement that takes place in the world each year. Contemporary literature on developmentinduced displacement (Cernea, De Wet, Penz, etc.) focuses mostly on the consequences of dam construction, irrigation projects, and artificial reservoirs. The literature of Mining-Induced Displacement and Resettlement (MIDR) is rather small and limited to the well-known cases of contemporary India and a few African states. My speech will cast more light on the following themes: 1. Part one theoretically conceptualizes and encompasses mining-induced displacement and resettlement as a specific category of development-induced displacement and resettlement (DIDR).

MIDR is a fairly obvious cause of DIDR and a part of its global context, yet there are some crucial differences that ought to be indicated in order to show that it is a very diverse issue indeed.

2. Part two depicts mining-induced displacement and resettlement in terms of a global social problem occurring in many countries around the world.

3. Part three presents the most well-known examples of displacement caused by mining.

4. Part four emphasizes the social dimension of mining expansion and the importance of MIDR as a human rights issue.

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Day 1 Panel 2: ‘Subjective Constructions of Migrant Realities’ Seeking asylum in the UK: the Perspectives of lesbian asylum seekers Claire Bennett Social Work and Social Care Student University of Sussex Lesbian asylum seekers face significant issues when applying for asylum in the UK as both gender and sexuality are not covered in the 1951 Refugee Convention. Consequently, asylum claims based 'persecution around same sex experiences' have to be argued for under the ‘particular social group’ category. This is the most controversial and arbitrary of all five Refugee Convention grounds.

Like many refugee women, lesbians may have been subject to sexual and physical violence as part of the persecution and the stigma they experience in their country of origin. As part of the asylum process, women have to disclose and discuss their experiences of rape, sexual and physical violence to a range of individuals in great detail. In addition, claims based on same sex experiences also require individuals to ‘evidence their sexuality’ in order to convince the UK Border Agency personnel and immigration judges of their sexual orientation.

This presentation will discuss the methods and findings of my DPhil research which involved interviewing eleven lesbian asylum seekers and refugees (three times) who had all experienced physical and sexual violence in their country of origin and sought protection in the UK. The presentation will outline the difficulties associated with navigating the UK asylum process and how this influences women’s stability, sense of self and sexual subjectivity.

So Much for My Happy Ending: Persecution of Trafficked Persons Jean-Pierre Gauci School of Law King’s College London This paper discusses the protection of trafficked persons through refugee law. After a brief overview of the relevance of asylum as a channel for long term protection the paper will critically appraise the notion of persecution as it applies to trafficked persons. The discussion will start with an overview of definitions of persecution as developed through hard and soft law instruments, case law and the literature. From this discussion the paper elaborates a working definition of persecution to be applied throughout the rest of the presentation.

It then moves on to apply the definition to trafficked persons arguing that a number of the risks facing trafficked persons upon return (including re-trafficking, retribution by traffickers and societal ostracisation) can amount to persecution. The paper will build on case law from the UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, Italy, France and Spain. Soft law and other guidance will also be considered. The discussion will include issues such as degree of harm, timing of the harm (past and/or future persecution), place of the harm (country of origin, country where asylum is sought, third country), agents of persecution (traffickers, family, society, gangs, government) and absence of state protection (including what that protection should entail and when it can be considered to be absent).

Hindu Nationalism, identity and marginalisation in Indian Diasporic Literature in the US Uke Kshipra Center for American Studies, School of International Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University

Migration of Asian Indian Hindus to the US in the later part of the twentieth century has created a strong religious and cultural identity in the multicultural society of America. These Hindu Indian Americans define India as a Hindu society and are strong supporters of the Hindu nationalist movement in India. The Hindu diaspora in US, as generally understood and propagated, is not a monolithic whole and the overlapping multiple identities within are blanketed under the term- Hindu

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identity with the intension of creating a Hindu Nation. This assertion of Hindu identity is not just a process of intolerance towards other religions like Christianity and Islam but also an attempt to marginalize various internal socio-cultural and linguistic groups within Hindus who view India as a multi-religious and multicultural society and are striving to safeguard its secular fabric. Throughout the past few decades, much blood has been split in the name of this so-called Hindu nationalism; all for the purpose of uniting a land that—in truth—has never been united and it is believed that “the rise of Hindu nationalist politics has been funded and supported by Hindu diaspora groups.

The speciality of Indian diaspora is that it has waves and every wave has produced rich literature representing that particular era. While the earlier diasporic literature dealt sympathetically and fairly with the lower-caste and class, non-English-speaking segments of Indian society, the works produced by Indian writers in the US in recent times reveal a clear bias in favor of ‘classical’, Brahminic, and therefore exclusionary, intended to produce an effect of a pure "Indianness" with little attention to its caste and class-based, social, communal, and regional inequalities.

The study is an attempt to look at the cognitive and affective elements of a specific sub-population to flesh out our collective understanding of the internal conflicting forces within a particular religious identity and the politics behind depiction of a homogenized Hindu identity in the contemporary literature in the US. Day 1 Panel 3: ‘Governance on Migration’ EU Border Management and the Role of Frontex: the Case of the Border Guard Training Satoko Horii University of Sussex School of Law, Politics and Sociology Sussex Centre for Migration Research EU Member States have been increasing the focus on the regional approach in EU external border management. A number of joint border operations have been conducted, most of which such as operations in Greece and Italy have drawn much attention from media and academia.

Turning our eyes from the highlighted dimension of border cooperation, this paper looks at the common border guard training, which has been developed by the EU border Agency Frontex. By exploring the development process, it seeks to identify the increased interaction between multiple actors involved in this field and the effects of training in the wider context of border management.

The paper employs the analytical framework from new institutionalist literature, and the methods taken for this study include historiography and semi structured interviews with border guards of the Member States.

An implication is that, the field of training is not a mere technical de-politicised field but has become a space for actors to maximise their interests. In this context, UNHCR and other international actors have found it effective to spread its protection mandate to Member States. In addition, the training has produced a space of socialisation, potentially taking national actors towards more integration-oriented.

Immigration Control in the United Kingdom and the Liberal democratic paradox Cosmas Ukachukwu Ikegwuruka Law Newcastle University A liberal democracy such as the United Kingdom believes in certain values and actively promotes them. This paper will evaluate the salient features of those liberal values such as the rule of law in the amphitheatre of immigration control. It will use the United Kingdom’s practices in immigration control to measure its compliance to liberal democratic ideologies and thus explore the dilemma -if any- faced by the UK in what is referred as the ‘liberal democratic paradox’. The emerging question then is how will the UK respect these values and at the same time marry them with immigration control? If there are conflicts between these values, what will be the remedy?

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By way of analysis, this paper will conceptualize the rights of migrants in their precarious, irregular or stranded immigration status otherwise called ‘the precarious migrants dilemma’ and in doing so will address the issues as to whether the rights of these precarious migrants in the UK are merely theoretical and illusory or whether they are real and practical?

By engaging in this investigation, the paper will draw a distinction between the enforcement of immigration control on the one hand and the protection of basic human rights of migrants on the other hand in the sense of ‘bifurcation or firewall argument’.

The methodology is purely documentary analysis, as the study will draw immensely from existing literature, case laws, soft laws and the applicable international legal instruments.

How do stakeholders influence migration policy? An analysis of Poverty Reduction Strategies in the Commonwealth of Independent States Gioia Caminada This paper explores the decision-making process behind migration policy, using Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS) as a case study. Two questions guide the discussion: which political actors bring migration into the political agenda, and how do different stakeholders influence the treatment of migration in policy plans? The focus is on the PRS of the Commonwealth of Independent States, with an in-depth analysis of Moldova and Tajikistan. The research is based on qualitative interviews with stakeholders involved in PRS in these countries, and a longitudinal analysis of the treatment of migration in the policy documents. In the cases analysed, migration is brought to the policy papers mainly by the World Bank and international donors such as the International Organisation for Migration. As a result, the PRS treat migration mainly as a macroeconomic phenomenon, and largely ignore its local impact. Inequalities in the decisionmaking process are argued as being one of the main causes of the ineffectiveness of PRS by a great part of development literature. However, this study suggests that in the case of migration the stance of the actors involved are complimentary, and that enhanced cooperation between policy actors would lead to more effective migration policies. In fact, while the World Bank possesses expertise in macroeconomic analysis, local governments can monitor the national characteristics of migration, and civil society organisations possess direct knowledge of its local effects. Cooperation between policy actors would therefore lead to a process of mutual empowerment, rather than one actor prevailing over the others in the decision making process.

Moreover, this paper argues that the effectiveness of migration policies does not depend on the mainstreaming of migration, but on migration policies being designed to meet the specific context to which they are being applied.

Day 2 Panel 1: ‘Mixed and Textural Methodologies’ Disentangling complexity through networks: Urban super-diversity and the clustering of homophily Fran Meissner Max Plank Institute for the study religious and ethnic diversity School of Global Studies University of Sussex Based on my PhD research in London and Toronto this paper focuses on the empirical analysis of the social networks of 55 Pacific Islanders and NZ Maori. The aim of the paper is to explore the role different aspects of super-diversity (see Vertovec, 2007) play in understanding the post-migration socialising of these migrants in the two cities. The paper first presents a cluster analysis of the homophily values which were measured between each respondent and her/his social contacts on a range of variables reflecting different aspects of super-diversity. Homophily scores indicate how much respondents are the same as their social contacts and are usually compared on only one variable most commonly either race, age or gender. A cluster analysis allows to identify clusters of respondents with similar homophily scores on multiple variables. The analysis suggests that ethnic background is not a primary explanatory variable but that other migration related variables are more

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divisive. The clusters of respondents identified are then analysed with reference to ego-centric network measures to establish in how far the clusters better explain post-migration socialising.

Special focus will be on qualitative information about the respondents socialising habits and in how far the city specific context is relevant for these. As such the paper presents a possible avenue for better understanding migration related diversity as it is reflected in the social networks of individuals living in super-diverse cities. As an academic contribution the paper thus pepresents a nonethnofocal analysis of how international migration into cities impacts on the social processes in these cities by combining both quantitative and qualitative data analysis as well as a two city comparative pespective.

Migration and Vulnerability to Poverty in Kagera (Tanzania) Rebecca Pietrelli Development Economics Department of Economics University of Sussex The objective of the research is to explore the link between migration and vulnerability to poverty of households of migrants in the remote Kagera region of Tanzania. The research will focus on the impact of migration on the wellbeing of households of migrants rather than on the wellbeing of migrants, because it assumes that migration is a rational optimizing behaviour by a family. The study will analyze whether migration, one of the informal strategy of risk reduction, presents gain in terms of reduction of vulnerability to poverty, defined as “the ex-ante risk that a household will, if currently non poor, fall below the poverty line, or if currently poor, will remain in poverty”.

The empirical methodology will evaluate whether households with migrants are less vulnerable than households without migrants using a 13-year panel survey, the Kagera Health and Development Survey (KHDS). Firstly, the empirical analysis will compute one of the most common measure of the vulnerability literature, Vulnerability as Expected Poverty (VEP), in order to obtain the vulnerability levels of the households of the region for 1991 and 2004. Secondly, it will evaluate if there are significative differences in vulnerability levels pre and post migration for the households of migrants between 1991 and 2004.

Italians in San Francisco: an extra-ordinary experience?

Tommaso Caiazza Social History University of Venice Ca’Foscari California has been seen as providing Italian immigrants more opportunities as well as work suitable for their skills; this has led many scholars to conclude that their adjustment was less difficult than it was for Italians in other parts of the United States. Focusing on San Francisco, my research indicates that by overemphasizing the economic success achieved by Italian-Americans in California, historiography has marginalized other aspects of their experience.

Drawing on newspapers, I first examine the origin of this California exceptionalism. I investigate the process by which the San Francisco Italian-American élite shaped the myth of the “model colony”, contrasting their experience to that of the Italian communities in the East Coast. I then analyze the contradictions in the process of Italian Americans' integration focusing on two key decades: the 1930s and 1940s. The first decade, following the Quota laws, represented a stabilization period for the Italian group, both demographically and socially; the second one, in contrast, was a great transition era, due to the several changes stimulated by World War II. In this research I pay attention on three indicators: politics, marriages and housing. I examine the Italian group’s involvement in politics by using the Municipal records (reviews, proceedings).

Network analysis and prosopography allow for a micro-analytic study explaining the group’s interaction with power.

A statistical survey based on the US 1930 Census and the Registers of the Italian Church SS. Peter and Paul allows for an analysis of the second generation’s exogamic trends providing some insight into their relation with other groups.

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Through the Census I also examine changes in the Italian neighborhoods. The exodus from Little Italy to the suburbs brought tensions with the surrounding Chinatown revealing the Italian group’s participation in the social and cultural modeling of San Francisco’s racial system.

Day 2 Panel 2: ‘Crossing Borders, Boundaries and Networks’ Homeland Politics and Emotions: Transnational Engagement among Albanian-speaking Migrants from Yugoslavia in Switzerland Romaine Farquet University of Neuchâtel My PhD research explores homeland politics among Albanian-speaking migrants from Yugoslavia in Switzerland for the period 1981-1999. It seeks to identify the different practices followed in order to generate political transformations in the Yugoslav Province of Kosovo as well as the factors that influenced this mobilisation. Although it recognises that the usual explanations, based on the political conditions and opportunities as well as resources, are relevant, it also argues that cultural elements influenced this mobilisation. It thus wishes to draw particular attention to questions of meaning-making and emotions. Methodologically, my research is principally based on oral history interviews.

In my presentation, I wish especially to concentrate on how emotions contribute toward shaping transnational political practices. I seek ways to incorporate emotions into the analysis of homeland politics by drawing on insights developed within the Social Movement approaches. Thus, on the one hand, I am interested in the strategic use of emotions as a resource for mobilising participants transnationally and gaining visibility as well as extracting concessions from target governments, organisations and the general public. On the other hand, I wish to scrutinise the power of emotions behind activists’ motivations, subjectivities and interpretations. I seek, for example, to scrutinise the role of feelings in various domains, from the determination of preferences and interests to the construction of a collective identity and solidarity. Ultimately, these issues contribute towards our understanding of the emergence of specific transnational practices and organisations as well as their particular orientations and sustainability.

Finally, I wish to examine the applicability and limitations of my theoretical findings in relation to the particular case of homeland politics among Albanian‐speaking migrants from Yugoslavia in Switzerland.

Immigration and national minorities: redrawing identity boundaries, projecting integration policies A comparative study of Québec and South Tyrol Lorenzo Piccoli School of International Studies, Trento Following the research agenda introduced by Will Kymlicka (1995), this qualitative study offers an interpretation of how the integration of immigrants is constructed by the national minorities of Québec and South Tyrol, two groups that are constantly undergoing a process of redefinition of their collective identities based on a differentiation from the Others who do not belong to the in-group.

Immigrants today have become the most significant Others for these groups, as the sense of belonging that they are expected to join is inherently fragmented since they are not part to the original compromises that are specific of these sub-national polities. Therefore, the question this study aims to answer is how the national minorities redraw the boundaries of their identity in relation to the phenomenon of immigration, and how do they practically accommodate for this change. The hypotheses to be tested are whether the national minority groups of Québec and South Tyrol: H1. engage in a process of reconstruction of their identity by trying to construct a definition that allows newcomers to assimilate in their group; H2. adopt practical policy measures to assimilate newcomers in their group. The two hypotheses are tested respectively: H1. by conducting an analysis of the political narrative of the main parties, their electoral appeals and speeches; H2. by analysing the integration policies in the field of education, language, and social policy. The comparison between Québec and South Tyrol has the potential to provide a basic understanding of

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the impact of immigration in two sub-national polities that are very different, but still adopt similar political narratives and policy strategies with regard to the integration of newcomers.

Practising a no border perspective in the city: Radical migrant solidarity and the 300 hunger strike in Athens Natasha King University of Nottingham School of Politics and International Relations Can our political ideologies be a barrier – as well as a route – to showing solidarity? What happens when one’s political ideology comes into conflict with the event unfolding in front of you? In the case of radical migrant solidarity, what if one’s ideology is anti-state, and yet the actions of migrants focus on a demand to the state?

In this paper I tell the story of the solidarity movement that built up around the hunger strike of 300 men from the Maghreb, that took place simultaneously in Athens and Thessaloniki in the winter of 2011. For some, the strike represents one of the only victories of the radical left since the crisis of capital gripped Greece, and a successful demonstration of co-operation across political boundaries.

For others, the response of the solidarity movement still leaves a bitter taste.

The dilemmas played out in the solidarity movement around this campaign brought those showing solidarity into conflict with others of different political stripes, as well as those experiencing the oppression of mobility controls first hand. What does this tell us about the tension between our ideologies and how we act? What prospects are there for reconciling these tensions?

The story is told in the context of 9 months activist fieldwork in Athens where the 300 became a recurring theme in conversations, debates and interviews, and where the boundaries between insider and outsider; academic and activist were at times starkly defined and at others comfortably blurred.

Day 2 Panel 3: ‘Forced Migration and Return’ Return Migration and Social Cohesion in Burundi: The Mediating Role of Land Scarcity Sonja Fransen Maastricht Graduate School of Governance Maastricht University In conflict-affected societies the return of former refugees is often considered a threat to sustainable peace. Social relations between returnees and non-returnees have to be (re-) established and return flows may exacerbate existing problems of resource scarcity and poverty, leading to a decline in living standards and increased resource competition for all community members (see e.g. Fransen & Kuschminder, 2012; Hammond, 1999). In these contexts return does not only affect social relations between returnees and non-returnees, but community cohesion as well. The successful reintegration of former refugees is therefore considered an important prerequisite for sustainable peace (Black & Gent, 2006; Kibreab, 2002; Macrae, 1999). However, studies on refugee reintegration are still relatively scarce and most studies focus on economic reintegration, whereas social relationships are often overlooked. Additionally, research often overlooks the effects of return on communities as a whole. Empirical evidence on the relationship between return migration and social cohesion in conflict-affected societies therefore remains unexplored.

This paper analyzes the effect of return migration on community cohesion by using household and community data collected in Burundi, a small and densely populated country in the Central African Great Lakes region. Burundi witnessed the return of more than 500,000 former refugees over the past decade (UNHCR, 2011). Social cohesion is compared across communities that experienced different levels of return, while controlling for other contextual factors such as scarcity of land and conflict history. The results show that return migration only negatively affects social cohesion in areas of resource scarcity, which means that the return of former refugees to Burundi does not

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influence social cohesion per se. Instead, the impact of return is highly dependent on the context to which returnees come back; a finding that emphasizes the need for reintegration support by means of context-specific policies.

Iraqi refugees’ return and transnational livelihoods in the Middle East Vanessa Iaria Sussex Centre for Migration Research University of Sussex Since the end of the US-led war in Iraq, around 500,000 Iraqi refugees have ‘returned’ despite the insecurity and slow reconstruction process in Iraq. What are the causes and nature of ‘return migration’ in the context of the Iraqis displaced to Syria and Jordan after 2003? The article addresses this question and contributes to theoretical and empirical debates on forced migrant return and transnationalism, two phenomena that characterise the current Iraqi displacement in the Middle East.

Based on qualitative field evidence gathered in Syria and Jordan between January 2010 and March 2011, the article suggests that Iraqis’ returns and transnational livelihoods constitute a reaction to the absence of official durable solutions to their predicament. In this context, return is rarely an endstate followed by permanent integration back ‘home’. It is a complex process that takes a long time and entails various degrees and modalities of transnational mobility and livelihoods connecting host and home societies.

The international refugee regime discourages Iraqis’ movements to enhance the management of mobile refugee populations. Preventing post-return mobility, however, hampers the spontaneous transnational practices that the Iraqi people have developed as sustainable livelihoods and development opportunities in the absence of sedentary solutions.

Key words: Iraqi refugees, return, remigration, transnational livelihoods, Syria, Jordan Returnees’ perspectives on their return processes to the South Caucasian Republics Georgia or Armenia Ine Lietaert University of Ghent Although return migration has received renewed attention in migration research, there is still insufficient insight into the complex social realities of returning/returned migrants, especially regarding their own perspectives on their return processes. Research on returnees who are still in the host country often looks at the return intentions of potential returnees, overall stating that potential migrants are ambivalent about returning or not. However, little is known regarding the perspectives of returnees who already decided to return and are awaiting this return. This study wants to study this perspective, including a population of two groups of adult migrants who want to return from Belgium to Georgia (n=39) and Armenia (n=51), hereby supported by a governmental voluntary return program. All participants are questioned about their migration background and process, current living circumstances, expectations about their return and general perceptions regarding their migration and return processes.

In this paper, we will discuss the analyses of these 90 semi-structured interviews with returnees before their return to the home country. Half of the respondents are single man and more than half of them are rejected asylum seekers. Overall, our data show tensions between choice and constraint, questioning the concept of “voluntary” return: although many returnees state they made the final choice to return themselves, the living conditions in the host country often force them to make this decision. Moreover, because of their precarious residence status and living conditions in the host country, they experience greatly limited opportunities to participate, either socially or economically, in the host countries’ society. Related to a preliminary study with Nepalese return migrants (Lietaert, Derluyn & Broekaert, in press) and other findings on return migration (Cassarino, 2004), this also

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implies that they start from a disadvantageous ‘point of departure’ regarding their preparedness to return and their ‘reintegration’ possibilities after being returned.

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