Message posted on 13/03/2018

EASA CfP: Uncertain Solidarities

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


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.

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