John Erik Fossum (University of Oslo)

Date: 29th April 2019

Time: 13:30 - 15:30

Place: UPF Campus Ciutadella, Mercè Rodoreda 24 building, Room 24.120.

Title: Different approaches to immigrant integration - overview and assessment.

Abstract: In the lecture, John Erik Fossum will present and assess three theories of immigrant integration: multiculturalism, transnationalism and cosmopolitanism. The point of departure is that those theories that we use to analyze and assess immigrant integration rest on certain assumptions pertaining to normative principles, values, types of actors, and types of structures. We need to spell out what these are if we are to assess the theories’ relevance, acceptance and normative legitimacy. Further, the contexts within which immigrant integration is taking place shape and condition the theoretical assumptions that we operate with. A central conditioning context is the nation-state, which has a strong grip on the normative imagination. At the same time, the nation state in Europe is facing two key developments: For one, globalisation and transnationalisation bring states and societies more closely together and make them more interdependent. Do these developments also make them more open and inclusive for immigrants? For another, the rise of an ethnic nationalism whose aim is to highlight what is unique, distinctive and defining of a given national community has a built-in exclusive aim – to exclude those deemed ‘the others’. Are all immigrants considered ‘others’? What are the implications of these two seemingly opposite developments for our theories of immigrant integration?

Bio: John Erik Fossum is Professor of Political Science at the ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, Norway; head of ECSA Norway and vice-president of the Nordic Association for Canadian Studies (NACS). He has directed and participated in a broad range of research projects including “Reconstituting Democracy in Europe” (RECON), which had 20 partner universities across Europe; “Responding to Complex Diversity in Europe and Canada” (RECODE); EuroDiv: Integration and division: Towards a segmented |Europe?; Erasmus Academic Network on EU-Turkey Cooperation, (VIADUCT); and the European PhD-network “The Post-Crisis Legitimacy of the European Union” (PLATO). His main fields of interest include issues of democracy, identity and constitutionalism in the EU and Canada, Europeanisation and the transformation of the nation state. He has published 17 books, a range of special issues, and numerous articles and book chapters in political science, law and sociology outlets. Recent book publications include, The European Union’s Non-Members: Independence under Hegemony? (co-edited with Erik Oddvar Eriksen) (Routledge, 2015) and Federal Challenges and Challenges to Federalism, (co-edited with Markus Jachtenfuchs) (Routledge, 2017), Squaring the Circle on Brexit – Could the Norway Model Work? (with Hans Petter Graver) (Bristol University Press, 2018), and Diversity and Contestations over Nationalism in Europe and Canada (co-edited with Riva Kastoryano and Birte Siim)(Palgrave. 2018).

Recommended Reading:

Fossum, J.E., Kastoryano, R. and Siim, B. (eds.) (2018) Diversity and Contestations over Nationalism in Europe and Canada. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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