Workshop Proposal: Revisiting the Nexus of the State and the Migrant

TY - ABST

T1 - Workshop Proposal: Revisiting the Nexus of the State and the Migrant

AU - Padovan-Özdemir, Marta

AU - Bauer, Angela

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - One strand of migration research deals with state management of the flows and lives of migrants. Another strand of migration research criticizes this statist perspective for falling into the pitfall of methodological nationalism and instead, argues for a human and transnational perspective on migration. However, what conceptual understandings of the state and the migrant do the different research traditions in migration research hold? What explanatory value do references to i.e. the European member states, the welfare state, the nation state, or the federal state provide migration researchers with? What methodological implications do different concepts of the migrant like foreigner, non-citizen, seasonal worker, or illegal immigrant hold for migration research? How can research results based on different concepts be compared? Is it at all possible to study (post)modern migration and incorporation without referring to the state? Is the migrant not substantially a matter of the continuous realization of the state through its inherent boundary work? Another way of framing the discussion of the theoretical and historical relation between the state and the migrant could be to turn the research perspective the other way around. What could be learned from studying state formation through the flows and lives of migrants? How are emigration and immigration constituents of state formation? Not least, how can a regional and global perspective on supranational institutions add explanatory value to the state-migrant nexus? What di- or converging trends on the state–migrant nexus can be observed in the Nordic context, across the European Union and beyond?This workshop invites migration scholars from a variety of disciplines to explore the multi-faceted state-migrant nexus from theoretical, methodological as well as analytical perspectives. Empirical contributions that may challenge and broaden our understanding of the state in relation to migration are particularly welcome.

AB - One strand of migration research deals with state management of the flows and lives of migrants. Another strand of migration research criticizes this statist perspective for falling into the pitfall of methodological nationalism and instead, argues for a human and transnational perspective on migration. However, what conceptual understandings of the state and the migrant do the different research traditions in migration research hold? What explanatory value do references to i.e. the European member states, the welfare state, the nation state, or the federal state provide migration researchers with? What methodological implications do different concepts of the migrant like foreigner, non-citizen, seasonal worker, or illegal immigrant hold for migration research? How can research results based on different concepts be compared? Is it at all possible to study (post)modern migration and incorporation without referring to the state? Is the migrant not substantially a matter of the continuous realization of the state through its inherent boundary work? Another way of framing the discussion of the theoretical and historical relation between the state and the migrant could be to turn the research perspective the other way around. What could be learned from studying state formation through the flows and lives of migrants? How are emigration and immigration constituents of state formation? Not least, how can a regional and global perspective on supranational institutions add explanatory value to the state-migrant nexus? What di- or converging trends on the state–migrant nexus can be observed in the Nordic context, across the European Union and beyond?This workshop invites migration scholars from a variety of disciplines to explore the multi-faceted state-migrant nexus from theoretical, methodological as well as analytical perspectives. Empirical contributions that may challenge and broaden our understanding of the state in relation to migration are particularly welcome.

M3 - Conference abstract for conference

T2 - 17th Nordic Migration Research Conference

Y2 - 13 August 2014 through 15 August 2014

ER -