easa

Hi everyone,

We are thrilled to share that our panel, Uncertain Solidarities: Migration,=
Social Incorporation, and European Welfare States, has been included in th=
e program for this year's European Association of Social Anthropologists (E=
ASA) conference in Stockholm (Aug. 14-17). The call for papers is now live,=
and we hope that you will consider submitting a proposal for our panel. Th=
e abstract is included below, and proposals can be submitted here:

https://nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2018/conferencesuite.php/paperproposal/6659

All the best,

Synn=F8ve Bendixsen, University of Bergen
John Borneman, Princeton University
Kelly McKowen, Princeton University

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Uncertain Solidarities: Migration, Social Incorporation, and European Welfa=
re States

The 2004 and 2007 eastern enlargements of the European Union, as well as th=
e 2015-2016 refugee crisis, have catalyzed and intensified flows of labor m=
igrants and asylum-seekers to western and northern European welfare states.=
For these countries, a growing presence of migrants poses challenges of so=
cial incorporation. There are many "thin" notions of incorporation: learnin=
g a cultural script; acquiring legal, economic, and cultural rights to memb=
ership, extending the traditional understanding of citizenship to social ca=
tegories (e.g., post-national, post-cultural); or the cultivation of common=
values or virtues such as "mutual respect." A thicker notion would mean no=
t simply becoming a subject who possesses rights or values like those of lo=
nger-term residents but also creating a sense of "mutual belonging" oriente=
d toward new, shared categories of identification. This panel explores how =
the relationship between these two notions of incorporation shapes--and is =
shaped by--the experiences of migrants with the policies, laws, institution=
s, and customs of contemporary European welfare states. How is the extensio=
n or restriction of social citizenship framed by local metaphors of incorpo=
ration--(for example, ingestion, indigestion, disgust, fusion, combination,=
affiliation, appropriation, encompassment)? How do different modes of (re)=
distribution inflect processes and possibilities of belonging? With respect=
to incorporation, what do extant concepts--such as plurality, multicultura=
lism, civic integration, assimilation, integration, or alternately, fragmen=
tation and disintegration--contribute to framing and understanding emergent=
forms of sociality? This panel engages these questions and develops "socia=
l incorporation" as a conceptual tool for understanding the variable tensio=
n between thin and thick notions of incorporation in contemporary Europe.