Valeria Bello (United Nations University-GCM, Barcelona, Spain)

Date: 17^th January 2018, 18h-21h.

Place: UPF - Campus Ciutadella (Roger de Llùria Building, Room 40:213).

Title: “International Migration and International Security. Why Prejudice is a Global Security Threat” (From the homonymous book published by Routledge, 2017).

Abstract: A glance at the last 25 years illustrates that energy policies, conflicts, migration, public policies and the construction of otherness as a threat are all related. Their interaction have entailed both national and transnational dynamics that have increased extremism, prejudiced attitudes towards others and international xenophobia. Similarities between Europe today and Europe before World War II explain why prejudice is a global security threat and why it is arising as a current global concern within International Organizations. In such a light, changes in the International System and the attack on the UN practice of Intercultural Dialogue have become sources of new perceived threats and the reasons for which new exclusionary patterns have arisen. The main claim is that this situation has been exacerbating the perceived clash of civilizations and the root causes of different fashions of extremisms. However, as the analysis of discussions between members of the UN Security Council demonstrate, alternative ways to deal with these instabilities are still practicable and possible through a partnership of different stakeholders, including both state and non-state actors at global, regional, national and local levels.

BIO: Professor of Sociology at Sciences Po, Paris and (from Aug 2015) Chair of Sociology Valeria Bello (PhD in Sociology and Political Sociology, 2007, University of Florence, Italy) is a Research Fellow at the United Nations University Institute on Globalization, Culture and Mobility (UNU-GCM) and is the founding scientific coordinator of the UNU Migration Network, which she has coordinated from February 2014 until January 2016. She has taught and published in the fields of Sociology, International Relations and Political Science. She mainly works at themes such as prejudice, extremism and the securitization of migration. Her research interests concern the role of non-state actors in the area of migration and interethnic relations and in the fields of international relations and international and human security. Before joining UNU-GCM in 2012, she has been “Marie Curie” Intra-European Research Fellow at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (Spain) from 2009 to 2011. She has also worked as assistant coordinator of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence of the University of Trento (2003-2009) and assistant professor at the University of Trento (Italy) from 2005 to 2009.

She is author of the book "International Migration and International Security. Why Prejudice is a Global Security Threat" (Routledge, 2017); and editor of the books: “Civil Society and International Governance. The role of Non-state Actors in the European Union, Middle East, Africa and Asia” (with D. Armstrong, J. Gilson and D. Spini, Routledge 2011); and “A Global Security Triangle. European, African and Asian Interaction” (with B. Gebrewold, Routledge 2010). She has published in several international journals, including Social Indicators Research, International Migration, International Studies Review, Global Affairs, Global Policy, Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture.

Recommended Readings:

Bello, V. (2017) Interculturalism as a New Framework to reduce Prejudice in Times of Crisis in European Countries, International Migration, 55 (2), pp. 23-38.

Bello, V. (2016) Inclusiveness as Construction of Open Identity: How Social Relationships Affect Attitudes Towards Immigrants in European Societies, Social Indicators Research, 126 (1), pp. 199-223.