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CeMig Newsletter

02 June 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. 

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New Publications by CeMig Members

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The Impact of COVID-19 Government Responses on Remittances in Latin American Countries 

New Paper by CeMig-Members Adriana Cardozo, Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso and Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann

Cardozo, Adriana; Pavez, Luis R. Díaz; Martinez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada;  Nowak-Lehmann, Felicitas (2021). The Impact of COVID-19 Government Responses on Remittances in Latin American Countries. Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research. Discussion Papers, Nr. 252 (May 2021).

Abstract: Workers’ remittances sent to Latin America declined sharply as the COVID-19 pandemic spread in the first half of 2020, rebounding in the second half. This paper uses a gravity model to estimate the impact of containment and economic support measures, as well as travel restrictions, on remittances sent to Latin America. The results indicate that containment measures and restrictions in internal and international movement in receiving countries are the factors mainly explaining the fall in remittance flows. Moreover, the business cycle in sending countries and the real exchange rate in receiving ones help explain the subsequent recovery of remittances.

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Die Fleischindustrie in der CoronakriseEine Studie zu Migration, Arbeit und multipler Prekarität

New Paper by CeMig Member Peter Birke (in German)

Birke, Peter (2021). Die Fleischindustrie in der Coronakrise: Eine Studie zu Migration, Arbeit und multipler Prekarität. Sozial. Geschichte Online 29: 41-87.

Abstract: In May 2020, the German government announced a new law aiming at a prohibition of the use of subcontracted, outsourced and/or temporary labour in the core parts of abattoirs and meat processing plants. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the industry saw repeated plant closures, as in many countries worldwide, due to both mass infections of workers, given the lack of health and safety regulations in the workplace, and dismal accommodation provided to the predominantly migrant workforce. Based on interviews conducted as part of a larger research project at the Sociological Research Institute Göttingen (SOFI), this article examines the labour disputes and social conflicts impinging on the German meat industry during the COVID-19 crisis.

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Refugees, Migration and the Tightening Borders in the Middle East. A Perspective From Biographical Research on the Re‐Figuration of Spaces and Cross‐Cultural Comparison

Becker, Johannes (2021). Refugees, Migration and the Tightening Borders in the Middle East. A Perspective From Biographical Research on the Re‐Figuration of Spaces and Cross‐Cultural Comparison. Forum Qualitative Social Research 22(2), Art. 8.

New Paper by Johannes Becker

Abstract: With its diachronic focus on socio-historical processes and life and family histories, sociological biographical research can analyse the emergence of new spatial figurations. It does so from the perspective of the experiences of individuals in their changing belonging to different groupings at different times. In this article, I investigate changing (meanings of) spaces in the Bilad ash-Sham region (roughly today's Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and parts of Jordan and Syria). I discuss how the process of the formation of nation-state borders and citizenship in the twentieth century transformed translocal relations into transnational networks, combined spatial diffusion with (forced) emplacement in nation-states, and initiated accelerating national closure processes. At the family level, the growing relevance of citizenship and borders in the region came about with knowledge of, and family dialogue about, border crossing, and the increasing spatial diffusion of the family, as well as intrafamilial discussions on the "value" of different nation-states. These processes affected all families in the Bilad ash-Sham region to a varying extent. They constitute a type of figuration of space that influenced the gradual formation of societies within the framework of nation-states defined by colonial rulers. As an example, I will discuss the regional family history of a Syrian refugee in Amman, Jordan.

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New Issue of movements

Issue 6 (1): Re: Open Call [prepub]

Abstract: Since the beginning of 2020, the situation at the borders in and around Europe has intensified. The crisis of the EUropean migration regime has once again deepened, and repressive approaches are further entrenched. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated many developments. At the same time, it created a new situation that affects migrants severely and disproportionately. We would like to address these current developments with three pre-publications of the upcoming issue of movements. In the form of a dialogue with each other, Jens Adam and Valeria Hänsel analyze the developments in the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, and make references to broader developments and theoretical debates on borders, violence, and the politics of leaving-to-die. On a more programmatic level, and with the “New Pact for Migration and Asylum,” Charles Heller and Bernd Kasparek observe the emergence of a continuity of anti-migrant political solutions. Polina Manolova and Philipp Lottholz’s intervention, on the other hand, demonstrates concrete examples of negotiations on corona-related travel restrictions at the Frankfurt airport, and discuss how these border closures enacted “spectacles of security” and disrupted transnational lives.

You can access the publication here. 

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On Current Occasion

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„Die Vergangenheit in der Gegenwart – Post/Kolonialismus in der Lehre“

11 June 2021, 14:00 - 16:00 CET, Online via Zoom

 

In der Veranstaltungsreihe „‚Alle gleich anders?!‘ Diversität in Theorie und Praxis“ steht in diesem Jahr der Umgang mit der (deutschen) Kolonialgeschichte in der Lehre im Mittelpunkt. Die Sichtbarmachung und Benennung von Rassismus und kolonialen Kontinuitäten, vornehmlich durch Schwarze zivilgesellschaftliche und wissenschaftliche Akteur*innen sowie zivilgesellschaftliche und wissenschaftliche Akteur*innen of Color, haben in jüngster Zeit zu einer verstärkten Auseinandersetzung mit dem so genannten kolonialen Erbe in Deutschland geführt. Diese Debatte adressiert auch die Wissenschaft und ihre Institutionen, die im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert wesentlich zur Legitimation und Reproduktion von Rassismus und Kolonialismus beigetragen haben. Gleichzeitig war und ist Wissenschaft ein Ort, an dessen marginalisierten Rändern kontinuierlich Kritik und Widerstand formuliert und praktiziert wurde und wird.

Vor diesem Hintergrund werden in der Podiumsdiskussion ausgewiesene Expert*innen - unter Einbezug studentischer Perspektiven - über den Umgang mit kolonialen Kontinuitäten in der universitären Lehre diskutieren.

Eingeladen sind:

BIPoC-Kollektiv Göttingen

Dr. Amma Yeboah, Psychodynamische Supervisorin & Coach sowie Fachärztin für Psychiatrie & Psychotherapie

Dr. Michael Kraus, Kustos der Ethnologischen Sammlung der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, u.a. Kooperationspartner im niedersächsischen Provenienzforschungs-Verbundprojekt PAESE

Moderation: Tsepo Bollwinkel

For more information and registration visit the website of the Equal Opportunities and Diversity Unit.

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Outstanding Dissertation Award 

CeMig-Member Arne Worm has received the award for outstanding dissertations of the Section "Migration and Ethnic Minorities" in the German Sociological Association (DGS) for his doctoral thesis on “Refugee Migration from Syria. A Biographical and Figurational Study of Life Histories of Syrian Refugees” (“Fluchtmigration aus Syrien. Eine biographietheoretische und figurationssoziologische Studie”. His book was one of two award-winning dissertations. The award ceremony took place on the 20th May 2021 during the conference "The Fragility of Global Migration" in Göttingen.

The dissertation project was part of DFG research project “The social construction of border zones: A comparison of two geopolitical cases” (2014-2019) at the Center of Methods in Social Sciences (MZS)

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