Social and Cultural Consequences of Voluntary and Forced Migration in Europe V4Net
Organized by: Department of Anthropology and Ethnology at AMU and Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (MPI)
1-2 April 2019
The conference addressed a highly pertinent issue of the contemporary world, important also for Central and Eastern European societies. It attracted scholars from Poland, Hungary, Georgia, Russia, Finland, Germany, Czechia, Slovakia, the UK and Israel, among others Chris Hann from (MPI), Michael Stewart (University College London) and Frances Pine (Goldsmith College).
Michał Buchowski (Poznań) and Chris Hann (Halle) at the opening of the conference
Topics included, among others, the effects of migration on family structure and kin relations, linguistic practices of migrants, the integration of highly skilled professionals and unskilled Roma, motivations for migration, and the impulses behind volunteers’ assistance to migrants.
Continuity and change in the ritual practices of transnational families were scrutinized, as was the erosion of emotional relations.
Other subjects explored included alienation and nostalgia for pre-migration forms of sociality; parenting practices; the bureaucratic practices of the authorities and officials’ linguistic hegemony; vicious circles of poverty; local educational institutions unable to harness the experiences of returning pupils; class differentiation in migration encounters; stereotypical nomadisation of migrant Roma, accentuating their discrimination and systemic segregation; religious relations between hosts and immigrants; forms and motivations of refugee solidarity; the politicisation of migration and refugees’ treatment in reception centres.
The rich ethnographic materials presented were elucidated with the help of a range of conceptual instruments, old and new. This combination of empirical data and conceptual armature generated lively and insightful discussion through two full days.