Migration and identity

WEEK 10: Global Refugees: Origins and Dimensions

30.11.2004

Historically, most refugees emanated from Europe, now the bulk come from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Central America and the Caribbean. What options exist for resettlement or return and the prevention of mass displacements?
Beijer, G. ‘The Political Refugee: 35 years later’ IMR 15, Spring/Summer 1981, 26–34

Bramwell, Anna C. Refugees in the Age of Total War (London: Allen Unwin 1988) HC2400.R3

Goodwin Gill, G. S. The Refugee in International Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press) KC 205.G6

Gordenker, L. Refugees in International Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987) HC 2400.G6

Gorman, Robert F. Coping with Africa’s Refugee Burden (Dordrecht: UNITAR, 1987) HC 2448.5.G6

Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues [ICIHI] Refugees: Dynamics of Displacement (London: Zed Press, 1986)

IMR, special issue on Refugees Today, 15 (53/4) Spring/Summer 1981

IMR, special issue on International Factors in the Formation of Refugee Movements, 20 (2) Summer 1986*

Kibreab, Gaim African Refugees (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1985) HC 2448.5.K4

Kunz, E. F. ‘The Refugee in Flight: Kinetic models and Forms of Displacement’ IMR, 7 (2), Summer 1973, 125–46*

Kunz, E. F. ‘Exile and Resettlement: Refugee Theory’ IMR, 15, Spring/Summer 1981, 42–51

Loescher, G. D. and L Moynahan (eds) Refugee and International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989) HC 2400.R3

Loescher, G. D. and J. A. Scanlan (eds) The Global Refugee Problem: US and World Response, special issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Social and Political Sciences, 467 (May 1983)

Marrus, Michael R The Unwanted: European Refugees in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985) HC 2420.M2

Newland, K. Refugees: The New International Politics of Displacement (Worldwatch Paper No. 43, 1981) HC 2400.N3

UNHCR (1993) The State of the world’s refugees Harmondsworth: Penguin*

UNHCR (1995) The State of the world’s refugees Oxford: Oxford University Press (due out in Nov. 1995)*

Zolberg, A. R. et al. Escape from Violence: Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989)** HC 2400.Z6
Self-check: You should have a clear idea of the origins, destinations and magnitude of the global refugee population. You should be able to make distinctions between environmental refugees, displacees and political exiles
Term 2
Term 2 is anchored around the key concepts of ‘identity’ and ‘diaspora’. We will see how, in the age of globalisation, identity is becoming increasing transnational and deterritorialized. The comparative study of diasporas will then be considered. Lectures will then target particular groups -- the African victim diaspora, the British imperial diaspora, new refugee diasporas, the Russian diaspora, the Overseas Chinese and the Caribbean diaspora. Note date of first lecture
WEEK 11 No lectures or classes (5/6/7 January)

WEEK 12 Migrancy, Identity and transnationalism

11.1.2005

This topic will try to capture the fluid and complex cultural outcomes that result from migrancy. Migrants leave ‘home’, but with what consequence? They could abandon their roots consciously, lose them through gradual assimilation, or seek to reaffirm them. Sometimes this is a ‘survival’ or ‘retention’ of an old identity, but more often a new identity gets created in ‘the diaspora’.
Abelmann, N. (1997) ‘Women’s class mobility and identities in South Korea: a gendered, transnational, narrative approach’, Journal of Asian Studies, 56 (2)

Bamyeh, M.A. (1993) ‘Transnationalism’, Current sociology, 41 (3), 1

Basch, L et al (1994) Nations unbound: transnational projects, postcolonial predicaments and deterritorialized nation states Langhorne, PA: Gordon and Breach*

Blanc, C.S., Basch, L. and Schiller, N.G. (1995) ‘Transnationalism, nation-states, and culture’, Current anthropology, 30 (4), 681*

Chambers, Iain (1994) Migrancy, culture, identity, London: Routledge*

Chuh, K. (1996) ‘Transnationalism and its past’, Public culture, 9 (1), 93*

Cohen, Myron L. (1991) ‘Being Chinese: the peripheralization of traditional identity’, Daedalus, 20 (2), 113–35, Spring

Cohen, Robin (1992) ‘A diaspora of a diaspora? The case of the Caribbean’, Social Science Information, 31 (1), 193–203

Cohen, Robin (1997) Global diasporas: an introduction Chapter 7.

Cohen, Robin Frontiers of identity: the British and the others London: Longman, Chapter 1

Gilroy, Paul (1993) The black Atlantic: Modernity and double consciousness, London: Verso, 1993*

Glick-Schiller, Nina, Linda Basch and Christina Blanc-Szanton (1992) ‘Transnationalism: a new analytic framework for understanding migration’, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 645, 1-24*

Hall, Stuart (1990) ‘Cultural identity and diaspora’ in Jonathan Rutherford (ed) Identity: community, culture, difference, London: Lawrence and Wishart*

Hannerz, U. (1996) ‘Transnational connections: culture, people, places’, Routledge, London*

Olwig, K.F. (1993) ‘Defining the national in the transnational - cultural identity in the Afro-Caribbean diaspora’, Ethnos, 58 (3-4)

Papers from the web site http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk

Philips, Caryl (1994) Crossing the river, London: Picador (fiction)

Portes, Alejandro (19??) ‘Transnational communities: their emergence and significance in the contemporary world-system’ in R.P.Korzeniewicz and W.C.Smith (eds) Latin America in the world economy*

Rogers. R. (1986) ‘The transnational nexus of migration’, Annals of the American Academy of political and social science, 485, 34-50

Rouse, R. (1995), ‘Questions of identity. Personhood and collectivity in transnational migration to the United States’, Critique of anthropology, 15 (4), 351-380

Schiler, N.G., Basch, L., Szanton-Blanc, C. (1995), ‘From immigrant to transmigrant: theorizing transnational migration’, Anthropological quarterly, 68 (1), 48-63

Shami, S. (1996) ‘Transnationalism and refugee studies: rethinking forced migration and identity in the Middle East’, Journal of refugee studies, 9 (1), 3

Vertovec, Stephen and Robin Cohen (eds) Migration, diasporas and transnationalism, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1999. Readings in Part III (pp. 463-654)
Self check: You should understand what is new in transnational migratory practices in the contemporary world and have extended examples in your mind to illustrate your understanding.