GRITIM-UPF Seminar Series

GRITIM-UPF Seminar Series 2023-2024

GRITIM-UPF Seminar Series 2022-2023

GRITIM-UPF Seminar Series 2021-2022 (See programme below)

Place/Time:

• UPF: Sala Polivalent Rodoreda, Edifici Mercè Rodoreda, UPF Ciutadella
Campus, Carrer Ramon Trias Fargas 25-27, Barcelona.
• IBEI: Room 24.009, UPF Ciutadella Campus, Carrer Ramon Trias Fargas
25-27, Barcelona.
• IEMed: Carrer Girona, 20, Barcelona.

Note: Those interested to attend are requested before to check the web
GRITIM-UPF or contact us at [email protected], since there can be unexpected
modifications.

1. Open Lecture Master: Lucy Mayblin (University of Sheffield,
Sheffield, England)
Chair: Lorenzo Gabrielli (GRITIM-UPF)
Date: October 5th, 2021
Time: 16:00 -18:00
Place: UPF

Title: Understanding contemporary migration and border controls in the context of colonial histories.

Abstract: This lecture has three key aims. First, to introduce postcolonial and decolonial theory and explain how these perspectives can aid researchers in
developing their understanding of contemporary responses to migratory phenomena. Second, to introduce students to some key scholars who have drawn out the connections between contemporary migration and histories of colonialism (who sometimes, but not always also draw on post and decolonial theory). Third, to draw out some of the methodological challenges of doing the challenging work of examining the connections between past and present within migration studies.

Bio: Dr Lucy Mayblin (@LucyMayblin) is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on asylum, human rights, policy-making, and the legacies of colonialism. She is author of three books: Asylum After Empire (2017), Impoverishment and Asylum (2019) and Migration Studies and Colonialism (2021). She was recently awarded the UK Philip Leverhulme Prize for her research achievements in the area of asylum and migration.

Recommended Readings:
• Thom Davies, Arshad Isakjee, Lucy Mayblin & Joe Turner (2021) "Channel
crossings: offshoring asylum and the afterlife of empire in the Dover Strait", Ethnic
and Racial Studies, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2021.1925320
• Mayblin L, Wake M & Kazemi M (2020) “Necropolitics and the Slow
Violence of the Everyday: Asylum Seeker Welfare in the Postcolonial
Present”, Sociology, 54(1), 107-123.

2. EuroMedMig Roundtable for Aula Mediterrània
Date: 11 November from 9h30 to 11h30
Place: Pedrallbes Palace
Title: Mediterranean Cities and Migration Governance

3. Paul Tabar (Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon)
Chair: Ricard Zapata-Barrero (GRITIM-UPF)
Date: November 30th, 2021
Time: 10:00 - 11:30
Place: Virtual (it is necessary to fill out a form in order to receive the
Zoom link, here)

Title: Transnational is Not Diasporic: The Austrian-Lebanese community.
National beloning in the age of globalization.

Abstract: The first part of my lecture will be conceptual. Given the apparent similarities to transnational activities, diasporic activities, processes and actors are often the first victims of the conceptual curse of transnationalism, resulting in the glossing over particularities in the diaspora field which, if studied separately, would have important analytical consequences for migration studies. In the second part of my lecture I will argue that this diasporic the public sphere generates different political views and positions entertained by various members of the Australian-Lebanese community and
materialised into specific ‘political remittances’ sent to Lebanon. Finally, an analysis of the impact of this political transfer to Lebanon is made in terms of a broader discussion of ‘political remittances’ as represented in the current literature.

Bio: Paul Tabar is the director of the Institute for Migration Studies and a Professor in Sociology/Anthropology at the Lebanese American University, Beirut
campus. He is the author of Migration and the Formation of Political Elite in Lebanon (Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies) and Arab Communities in Australia (Arab Centre for Arab Unity Studies, 2013). He is also the co-author of On Being Lebanese in Australia: Identity, Racism and the Ethnic Field (Institute for Migration Studies, LAU, 2010), Bin Laden in the Suburbs: Criminalizing the Arab Other (Institute of Criminology, 2004) and Kebabs, Kids, Cops and Crime: Youth, Ethnicity and Crime (Pluto Australia, 2000). He is currently working on Lebanese diasporic communities and their diasporic public activities. He is also working on two book projects: one on migrant habitus focusing on second generation Lebanese Australians as a case study, and the other on social inequalities in Lebanon using a Bourdieusian perspective. Dr. Tabar has published many articles on Lebanese and Arab migrants in international journals. He is the editor of a book series on Migrant Studies in collaboration with Professor Anton Escher, Johannes Guttenberg University in Mainz, Germany.

Recommended Readings:
• Tabar, P. (2019) Transnational is not diasporic: A Bourdieusian approach
to the study of modern diaspora. Journal of Sociology. 1-17.
• Tabar, P. (2014) Political Remittances: The Case of Lebanese Expatriates
Voting in National Elections. Journal of Intercultural Studies, (35)4, 442-
460. DOI:10.1080/07256868.2014.913015

4. CCOO (Comissions Obreres) and UGT (Unió General de Treballadors)
Chair/: Carles Campuzano Canadès, President ACSAR Foundation (Barcelona,
Catalonia, Spain) and Director del DINCAT.
Date: January 13th, 2022
Time: 15:00 - 18:00
Place: UPF

Title: Trade Unions, Migration and Diversity

Abstract: Catalonia is commonly seen as a global referent in the implementation of the intercultural paradigm in the management of cultural
diversity. The position adopted by the main Catalan political parties has been aimed to prevent the consequences of assimilationist and segregationist policies established in some other countries. However, what has been the role played by the main Catalan trade unions since the second half of the 20th century? Have they approached migration as a threat to local workforce, or contrarily, as an opportunity to promote internationalism and socio-economic equality among both native and non-native workers? The main purpose of this session is to promote a debate on the role of trade unions in migration governance, both at the level of society and work, and at the level of politics, as a pressure group. This debate will be chaired by ACSAR Foundation, which is a Catalan non-profit organization dedicated to the study of migrations and the promotion of social cohesion, and member of the ALF Spanish Network. The debate will be between two leaders of the two main trade unions in Catalonia, CCOO (Comissions Obreres) and UGT (Unió General de Traballadors).

Key questions:
• What has been the role played by Catalan trade unions since the arrival of
non-native workforce to Catalonia in the 1950s? And since the 2000s?
• What has been the relation between trade unions and employers when
facing the migration phenomenon in the labour market?
• Have trade unions been supported by Catalan institutions and political
parties when seeking equal rights among both native and non-native
workforce?
• Has Catalan language been approached by trade unions as an opportunity
to promote social cohesion among workers or, contrarily, as an obstacle?
Speakers:
• Mariana Isla, director AMIC-UGT and responsible for the International
area of the UGT Catalunya.
• Anna Tomàs Cots, CCOO CITE advisor and CITE coordinator at the
SAIER of Barcelona City Council.

5. Etienne Piguet (University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland)
Chair: Mohsen Manouchehri (GRITIM-UPF)
Date: January 27th, 2022
Time: 13:15 -14:45
Place: IBEI Room 24.009, UPF Ciutadella Campus, Carrer Ramon Trias Fargas 25-27,
Barcelona.

Title: “Migration and Climate Change – What do we know ? What can we expect ?”

Abstract: The impact of environmental change on migration and the way migration can act as a response to environmental hazards are attracting an
increasing attention from both policy-makers and researchers worldwide in the context of climate change. Yet, knowledge in this field remains limited and
fragmented. This paper will provide an overview of the environmental change migration nexus and investigate the key issues at stake. The concepts and
methods most adequate to address these relationships will also be questioned.

Bio: Etienne Piguet (Phd. /University of Lausanne/1998) is Professor at the Institute of geography of the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland). He chairs
the Population geography commission of the International Geographical Union (IGU) and is vice-president of the Swiss federal commission for migration
(CFM/EKM). E. Piguet is specialized in migration studies with a focus on the migration/climate change nexus. He has written extensively on issues of
migration flows, refugees, labour market integration of migrants, discrimination, statelessness, etc. He was Review editor for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 5th assessment report (IPCC 2014) and has published numerous books and papers on the topic in scientific journals including the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Population Space and Place, Nature (Climate change), Population and Development Review, Journal of Refugee Studies, etc. In Dec. 2019, he published a new book in French on asylum issues (Asile et réfugiés – Repenser la protection – Presses poytechniques romandes). Full list of publications: https://scholar.google.ch/citations?user=vmz4RzEAAAAJ&hl=en

Recommended Readings:
• Piguet, E., 2020. Environment and Migration. In: Kobayashi, A. (Ed.),
International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2nd edition. vol. 4,
Elsevier, pp. 163–168. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-102295-
5.10258-6
• Piguet, E. (2019). Climatic Statelessness: Risk Assessment and Policy
Options. Population and Development Review, 45, 4, 865-883.
• Piguet, E., Kaenzig, R., Guélat, J., & SpringerLink (Online service).
(2018). The uneven geography of research on "environmental
migration". (Population and environment.)
• Etienne Piguet (2013): From “Primitive Migration” to “Climate Refugees”:
The Curious Fate of the NaturalEnvironment in Migration Studies, Annals
of the Association of American Geographers, 103:1, 148-162

6. Gerard Delanty (University of Sussex, Brighton, UK)
Chair: Juan Carlos Triviño (GRITIM-UPF)
Date: February 24th, 2022
Time: 18:30-20:30
Place: IEMed

Title: The Politics of Climate Change and Migration: A Sociological Interpretation

Abstract: The lecture aims to provide a critical sociological perspective on climate change and migration. I discuss the dominant discourses and scenarios
on both the causes of climate migration and political responses. Emergency governance, neo-liberalism and biopolitical securitization play a central role in
the new politics of global migration. I discuss the implications for democracy and the future of human societies of catastrophe thinking, which misunderstands the nature and dynamics of migration. An alternative view on the relationship between climate change and migration is provided that places both within the broader context of major social transformations and social struggles.

Bio: Gerard Delanty was born in 1960 in Ireland. He is an Irish and British citizen. Since 2007 he has been Professor of Sociology and Social & Political Thought at the University of Sussex. He was previously Professor of Sociology at the University of Liverpool, which he joined in 1996. He obtained his PhD in 1988 from the National University of Ireland and worked at universities in Germany and Italy. He was a DAAD doctoral Fellow at Frankfurt
University in 1986/1987. He has been a visiting professor at York University, Toronto; Doshisha University, Kyoto; Deakin University, Melbourne; Hamburg
University; the Federal University of Brasilia; and the University of Barcelona. He has given over 200 invited talks in more than 45 countries.
His specialist field is social and political theory, as well as the history and philosophy of the social sciences. He has also published widely on many topics
in political sociology. Gerard Delanty is the author of fifteen books and editor of thirteen and over 60 journal articles as well as more than 80 chapters in collections. His most recent book is Critical Theory and Social Transformation (Routledge, 2020). Other books include: The Cosmopolitan Imagination (Cambridge University Press, 2009), Formations of European Modernity, 2nd edition (Palgrave, 2019), Community 3rd Edition (Routledge 2018), The European Heritage: A Critical Re-Interpretation (Routledge 2018). His most recent edited volume is Pandemics, Society and Politics: Critical Reflections on Covid-19 (De Gruyter, Berlin, 2021). He has been the Chief Editor of the European Journal of Social Theory since 1998.

Recommended Readings:

• Hellgren, Zenia and Lorenzo Gabrielli (2021) Racialization and Aporophobia: Intersecting Discriminations in the Experiences of Non-
Western Migrants and Spanish Roma. Social Sciences, 10(5).

• The AGREP project’s website: https://www.upf.edu/es/web/agrep
• Markus End and Ismael Cortés (eds.) (2019). Introduction, in Dimensions of Antigypsyism in
Europe. Brussels: ENAR

8. Martina Tazzioli (Goldsmiths, University of London, England)
Chair: Zouhair El Hairan (GRITIM-UPF)
Date: March 17th, 2022
Time: 18:30-20:30
Place: IEMed

Title: Choke, push-back and disperse: displacement as a political technology of migration governmentality.

Abstract: Displacement has become a key political technology of migration governmentality - to regain control over unruly mobility, harm migrants and
violently obstruct them from accessing rights, safe spaces and asylum. This presentation rethinks the notion of displacement by including push-back
operations and the politics of migrants' dispersal as part of it. These spatial tactics for governing and obstructing migrants' movements and presence have been increasingly used in a systematic way by European states. The lecture will focus on migrants' dispersal in France and in Italy and on so called "chain push-back" operations at the French-Italian border and along the Balkan route. The talk will address the methodological difficulties of accounting for and counting push-back and dispersal, confronted with the lack of accurate data and statistics. In the conclusion, the talk will explain how displacement - enacted through push-backs and dispersal - can be used as an analytical lens for studying the governing of unruly mobility through mobility.

Bio: Martina Tazzioli is Lecturer in Politics & Technology at Goldsmiths. She is the author of The Making of Migration. The biopoltics of mobility at Europe’s
borders (Sage, 2020), Spaces of Governmentality: Autonomous Migration and the Arab Uprisings (2015) and co-author with Glenda Garelli of Tunisia as a
Revolutionised Space of Migration (2016). She is co-editor of Foucault and the History of our Present (2015) and Foucault and the Making of Subjects (2016). She is on the editorial board of journal Radical Philosophy.

Recommended Readings:
• Tazzioli, Martina (2019) Governing migrant mobility through mobility:
Containment and dispersal at the internal frontiers of Europe. Politics
and Space (1)17
• Tazzioli, Martina (2021) “Choking without killing”: Opacity and the grey
area of migration governmentality. Political Geography.

9. Dan Rodriguez-García (Autonomous University of Barcelona)
Chair: Zenia Hellgren (GRITIM-UPF)
Date: May 5th, 2022
Time: 15:00 -18:00
Place: UPF

Title: Migration, Diversity and Mixedness

Abstract: Increasing international mobility and superdiversity have expanded the possibilities for individuals to meet and partner across national, ethnocultural, racial, religious, and class borders. Mixed couples and individuals of mixed descent are a growing reality across the globe, a characteristic of contemporary times. Still, little is known about the scope and social meaning and consequences of this reality. This presentation will deal with the social realities and meanings of this growing phenomenon of ‘mixedness’, an encompassing concept that encompasses and expands on ideas of assimilation, interculturalism and the end products of immigration, i.e., the sociocultural processes of mixing; the social construction of categories of difference between groups; the social and political discourses towards mixing; and the everyday construction of hybridity and multiple identities. Mixedness has historically been one of the most important tests for understanding the social structure and for exposing social divisions, because the crossing of racial, ethnic, religious, or class boundaries through partnering tells us not only about individual choices but also reveals the scope of social divisions and the relationships between groups within a society. In this presentation, I will first contextualize the phenomenon of mixedness, historically and demographically. Second, I will summarize the results of various pioneering research projects on mixed families and mixed youth in Catalonia, Spain, that
have used a multi-disciplinary and multi-method approach that allows deeper and more nuanced analyses. I will show a complex picture that illuminates the socially transformative value of mixedness, while highlighting what this reality can tell us about the disheartening persistence of ethnocultural divides that hinder inclusion and social cohesion.

Bio: Dan Rodríguez-García is Serra Húnter Associate Professor and Director of the INMIX—Research Group on Immigration, Mixedness, and Social Cohesion in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He holds a BA, an MA and a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology, as well as an MA in Culture, Race and Difference and an MSc in Demography. He has been a research fellow at the University of Sussex; a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto; and a Visiting Professor at the Université Paris-Sorbonne, the Institut National d’Études Démographiques (INED), the University of Toronto, the University of Vienna, and Malmö University. His areas of research are international migration, interethnic relations, social integration, ethnicity, racism, and mixedness. He has guest-edited Special Issues for The ANNALS (2015), Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2021) and Genealogy (forthcoming). Dan is a regular participant in training and knowledge transfer activities regarding immigration and diversity issues for different government institutions, associations, and the media. http://gent.uab.cat/dan/.

Recommended Readings:
• Rodríguez-García, D.; de Miguel Luken, V., Solana, M. (2021) “Mixed
Couples and their Descendants in Spain: Patterns of Mixedness and
Theoretical Considerations”. In Anuario CIDOB de la Inmigración 2020, J.
Arango et al. (dirs.), Barcelona: CIDOB, pp. 168-195.
• Rodríguez-García, D., Solana, M., Ortiz, A., Ballestín, B. (2021) “Blurring
of Colour Lines? Ethnoracially Mixed Youth in Spain Navigating Identity”.
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47 (4): 838-860.
• Rodríguez-García, D., Solana, M., Lubbers, M. (2016) “Preference and
Prejudice: Does Intermarriage Erode Negative Ethno-racial Attitudes
Between Groups in Spain?”, Ethnicities 16 (4): 521–546.
• Rodríguez-García, D. (2016) “The Mash of Cultures: Integration and
Mixedness”. Featured story in Social Science Space, December 14, 2015.
• Rodríguez-García, D. (2015) “Introduction: Intermarriage and Integration
Revisited: International Experiences and Cross-disciplinary Approaches”.
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 662
(1): 8-36.

10. Ian Alan Paul (UC Santa Cruz)
Chair: John Palmer (GRITIM-UPF)
Date: May 19th, 2022
Time: 15:00 -18:00
Place: UPF

Title: The Wastes of Computation: Artificial Intelligence, Border Surveillance, and the Policing of Detritus

Abstract: In 2019, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) commissioned a report on the potential uses of artificial intelligence (AI) for
policing the borders of the EU. This report, along with several Frontex pilot programs being deployed at the frontiers of the EU, are expressive of the larger
digital transformation of policing presently underway on planetary scales. This talk will analyze these emerging AI-border landscapes, and in particular will focus on the emergence of waste (computational, environmental, human) as the organizing principle for a broader politics of policing and surveillance.

Bio: Ian Alan Paul (b. 1984, US) is an artist-theorist whose work examines enactments of power and practices of resistance in global contexts. Their
transdisciplinary practice is formally diverse, often involving coding, photography, writing, and video, and is situated at the intersections of critical
theory, contemporary art, and digital media studies. Ian has developed projects and lived for extended periods in the United States, Mexico, Spain, Egypt, and Palestine, and has exhibited their work and given lectures internationally. Their research-creation practice approaches issues that are geographically diffuse yet thematically connected, including the digitized surveillance of the Mexico-U.S. Border, the contested past and future of the Guantánamo Bay detention facilities, the politics of memory in Cairo, and the cybernetic policing of the Mediterranean. They received their PhD in Film and Digital Media Studies from UC Santa Cruz in 2016, and their MFA and MA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2011.

Recommended Readings:
• Nail, Th. (2020) The Figure of the Migrant, . Stanford University Press,
Chap. 1
• Mbembe, Achille. Necropolitics, Public Culture 15.1 (2003) 11-40
• Lynes, K., Tyler Morgenstern, and Ian Alan Paul. 2020. Moving Images:
Mediating Migration as Crisis. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839448274.

GRITIM-UPF Interdisciplinary Research Group on Immigration

GRITIM-UPF Seminar Series

GRITIM-UPF Seminar Series 2023-2024

GRITIM-UPF Seminar Series 2022-2023

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