Newsletter 4

CeMig Newsletter

02 March 2021

This is the newsletter of the Centre for Global Migration Studies (CeMig). It provides regular information about events, research projects and publications on the subject of migration at Göttingen Campus and within the region.

CeMig Events

Trauma in the Context of Global Migration
Opening up an Analytical Field

04 March 2021, 19:00 - 20:30 CET

Online via Zoom

Public Roundtable as part of the workshop "Beyond Victimhood and Stigmatization: Trauma, Ruptured Memories and Agency in the Context of Global Migration" with

Dr Orkideh Behrouzan - to be confirmed (Department of Anthropology and Sociology, SOAS University of London)

Prof Shahram Khosravi (Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University)

Dr Maria Belz (Network for Traumatised Refugees in Lower Saxony, NTFN)

Chair: Prof Margarete Boos (Department of Social and Communication Psychology, University of Göttingen)

Abstract: Since at least the long summer of migration in 2015 representations of migrants and refugees as traumatized masses have been omnipresent in European media and politics. They raise narratives and discourses of migrants and refugees as victims in need of help and mobilized the compassion and solidarity of a revitalized civil society. This roundtable discussion aims to closely examine the multiple dimensions that the association of (forced) migration with trauma entails. Bringing together social and cultural anthropologists with academic and practice psychologists it opens up the question whether trauma as a notion and analytical concept is suitable in the field of global migration to include historical and social contexts, describe individual experiences and agency or capture collective memories.

For more information and registration visit our website.

From Deserts to Shores: Engaged Archaeologies of Forced Migrations - An American European Dialogue on Hostile Terrains

04 March 2021, 18:00 CET, Online via Zoom

Question and Answer Session with Prof. Jason de León, Austin E. Shipman, Nicole Smith & Gabriel Canter (University of California/ The Undocumented Migration Project) & Prof. Yannis Hamilakis, Ayşe Şanlı & Darcy Hackley (Brown University)

Moderation: HT94FMM-Team

From the US-Mexican border that divides the Sonora desert into the State of Sonora and Arizona to the Aegean waters of the European coastal borders, border regimes have turned landscapes into hostile and lethal terrains. From deserts to shores, these geopolitical conditions cause staggering fatalities and make people stuck in miserable conditions at the borders, border detention, and illegality. Jason de León with Undocumented Migration Projekt team and Yannis Hamilakis have researched the people, infrastructures, and assemblages of borders and clandestine border crossing by archaeological and ethnographic approaches. The materials collected not only served as a basis to document and understand structural violence, quotidian conditions, and capabilities to act. Things are also used in interventionist displays to raise awareness about the victims and the humanitarian crisis at the borders, as the global pop-up exhibition, Hostile Terrain 94 and the Transient Matter (onsite/online Haffenreffer Museum) display impressively make present.

This questions & answers session is meant to establish a US-EU dialogue on current border developments, the capabilities, issues, and constraints of researching borderscapes and forced migrations by material culture approaches and beyond.

Please notify the organizing team ahead via sign-up_ht94ffm@posteo.de; you will then receive the access data of the respective event.

This event is part of the ’Hostile Terrain 94 Frankfurt/Main’ exhibition program and organized by the Frankfurt hosting team, namely: H. Pınar Şenoğuz/Malihé Bayat Tork/ Friedemann Yi-Neumann in collaboration with CeMig and the Materiality of (Forced) Migration Research Project (University of Göttingen).

For more information visit the website.

Border Perspectives From Afghanistan, Iran & Turkey - Meeting the "Hostile Terrain 95 Frankfurt" Contributors

09 March 2021, 18:00 CET, Online via Zoom

Online Roundtable with presentations by Ali Sadequi (artist, Iran); Kemal Vural Tarlan (documentary photographer, Turkey), and Morteza Rezai (graphic designer & artist, Iran)

Further discussants: Mostafa Mazari (photographer, Iran) Reza Heidari Shahbidak (photographer, Afghanistan)

Moderator: Hilal Alkan (Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, ZMO)

How is border politics in the Middle East captured by different aesthetics? This online roundtable brings together artists from Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey who contribute to the “Hostile Terrain 94 Frankfurt” show. The presenters, living in the border regions, reflect on the consequences of geopolitical border regimes on countries, communities and personal lives. In their works, they have intensely and creatively visualized borderlands, border crossers, from people fleeing war to nomadic populations, and how conflict and shifting regimes produce im/mobilities. The roundtable will reflect how their work relates to the border realities and the various approaches, genres, and styles they apply and develop in their art pieces and documentaries. Art is not just representation but rather an active form of engagement and can serve as a form of resistance and intervention to these border realities.

Please notify the organizing team ahead via sign-up_ht94ffm@posteo.de; you will then receive the access data of the respective event.

For more information visit the website.

On Current Occasion

Grenzen der Demokratie

EU-Europa, Grenzgewalt, Rassismus und postkoloniale Theorie

CeMig-Direktorin Sabine Hess in einem Beitrag für den Verfassungsblog.

CeMig Director Sabine Hess in a post for the Verfassungsblog (in German).

Centre for Global Migration Studies (CeMig)
Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14
37073 Göttingen
Tel.: +49 551 39-25358
Email: jelka.guenther@uni-goettingen.de