An archive of solidarity: The City of London Anti-Apartheid Group papers

Africa in Words Guest: Gavin Brown.

When I set out to research the history of the Non-Stop Picket of the South African Embassy in London, I knew I could trace enough former participants in that protest to make the project viable. I expected that many of these former activists would have kept their own modest archives of papers and ephemera from their anti-apartheid campaigning in the late 1980s. I knew I would be able to piece together other fragments of the story from the archives of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement, and from papers deposited in South Africa. What I didn’t anticipate was that we would discover that, in 1994, when the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group (who organised the Non-Stop Picket) ceased to exist, the entire contents of their office had been packed away and stored privately, gathering dust, ever since.

Here I probably need to give a little bit…

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CMRB and the Centre for Gender Studies (SOAS) Event: Gender, Fundamentalism and Nationalism

CMRB and the Centre for Gender Studies (SOAS) are delighted to announce the following symposium:

GENDER, FUNDAMENTALISM AND NATIONALISM

The symposium will take place 14.00-17.00 , Saturday 16th November in SOAS (room G51). http://www.soas.ac.uk/visitors/location/maps/#RussellSquareCampusMap

ALL WELCOME

The University of East London’s CMRB (Centre for research on Migration, Refugees and Belonging) and SOAS’ Centre for Gender Studies are pleased to announce the following seminar:

GENDER, FUNDAMENTALISM AND NATIONALISM

This seminar will take place at SOAS, Room G51 http://www.soas.ac.uk/visitors/location/maps/#RussellSquareCampusMap

Saturday 16th November 2013, 2–5pm

Kumud Rana, Erasmus University – Discourses of Gender, Ethnicity and Hindu Nationalism in a Constitutional Debate over Citizenship through Naturalization in Nepal (2008-2012)

Dr. Nayia Kamenou, University of Cyprus – Institutionalized Religion and the Construction of Sexuality and Gender in the Case of Cyprus

Dr. Rashmi Varma, Warwick University – UnModifying India: New Challenges for Feminism and Nationalism

Dr. Maja Korac, University of East London – Ethnicisation of Nation-State Building and Gender Relations: The Break-Up of Yugoslavia and Its Aftermath

Click here to Download Flyer.

The event is free but space is limited so please reserve a place at http://genderfundamentalismnationalism.eventbrite.co.uk

For more info on CMRB: uel.ac.uk/cmrb and facebook.com/CMRBuel

For more info on Centre for Gender Studies: http://www.soas.ac.uk/genderstudies/

Reminder for CMRB Event: Hard and Soft Borders – The Politics of European Border Enforcement, Matt Carr

Hard and Soft Borders:
The Politics of European Border Enforcement

Matt Carr

Journalist and author of Fortress Europe: Dispatches from a Gate Continent (2012)

This seminar will take place in

EB.G.18, Docklands Campus, University of East London, E16 2RD, nearest tube: Cyprus DLR

(http://www.uel.ac.uk/campuses/docklands/)

4-6pm, Monday 4^th November 2013

The event is free but spaces are limited so please reserve a place by following the below link http://hardandsoftborders.eventbrite.co.uk/

Abstract: In the last two decades, borders have acquired an unprecedented international visibility.  In Europe this phenomenon has produced a seemingly contradictory dynamic.  On the one hand European governments have dissolved national border controls that once seemed permanent and irreversible, while simultaneously expanding the EU’s external borders to absorb new states.

At the same time the EU has conducted the most extensive border enforcement program in history, based on a constant escalation of exclusionary measures and controls that extend both inside and outside its territorial frontiers – a process that is largely intended to prevent the entry of undocumented Third World migrants. Matt Carr discusses the politics of Europe’s ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ borders, based on his recent book Fortress Europe: Dispatches from a Gate Continent (2012).

Matt Carr is an author and journalist.  His books include The Infernal Machine: A History of Terrorism (2011) and Blood and Faith: the Purging of Muslim Spain (2011). His latest book is the result of more than two years research in the ‘hot zones at Europe’s external and internal borders’.  He blogs at www.infernalmachine.co.uk

See www.euborderscapes.eu for more information on the EU Borderscapes project, www.uel.ac.uk/cmrb/borderscapes for details of the UEL Borderscapes team and www.uel.ac.uk/cmrb for information on CMRB

 

Events/call for papers: CFP Diaspora and Education Workshop

Source: Forced Migration Discussion List.

Call For Papers:

Diaspora and Education Workshop
http://www.igu-cpg.unimib.it/?p=906
16th January 2014  –  Department of Geography, Loughborough University
Organisers: Liz Mavroudi and Marco Antonsich, Department of Geography, Loughborough University

We are very pleased and grateful that Claire Dwyer has agreed to act as a keynote speaker for this event.

This workshop wishes to stimulate debate on the relationships between diaspora and education/learning and views education in a broad and open-ended way. By examining diaspora and education, we wish to discuss broader impacts of education and learning on diasporic individuals, families and groups but also in relation to homeland/host country contexts. Papers are welcomed on (but are not restricted to) these themes:

. Formal education and policy. E.g.: How do schools and higher education institutions deal with diasporic pupils and students with particular religious, social, cultural, political and emotional needs and wishes?

. Learning and performing identities. E.g.: The informal, active ways in which those in diaspora construct and negotiate their cultural, national, religious, political identities in relation to factors such as space, place, gender, generational differences, language, religion and diasporic/transnational connections. What is the importance of strategic uses of nationalism and citizenship?

. Educating ‘our’ diaspora and homeland. E.g.: the more formal ways diasporic leaders or the sending state attempt to mould and guide diasporas. How do those in diaspora engage with their homeland by creating educational, academic and skilled/highly skilled/professional networks aimed at stimulating change and development?

. Gaining an education. E.g.: clarifying and understanding the role and importance of education to those in diaspora. Is education seen as the key to career ‘success’ or diasporic survival?

This is a free workshop but numbers are limited.

Please send abstracts (300 words maximum) to Liz Mavroudi (e.mavroudi@lboro.ac.uk) by December 1st 2013

 

Events: Online Seminars: UK Climate Change and Migration Coalition

Source: Forced Migration Discussion List.

Hello, I wanted to let you all know about a series of online seminars we are running on migration, displacement and climate change. Details of the online events are available here: http://climatemigration.org.uk/events-migration-and-climate-change/.

The events are:

Climate change, migration and legal protection: The legal status of people who move in the context of environmental change. Online seminar http://climatemigration.org.uk/online-seminars-climate-change-migration-and-legal-protection-27-and-28-november/

Wednesday 27th November, 10-11am GMT

Thursday 28th November 4-5pm GMT

Click on the above link to read more and register, or email alex.randall@climateoutreach.org.uk and state which time and day you’d like to attend.

Migration as climate change adaptation: Can migration be a way for some people to adapt to climate change? Online seminar http://climatemigration.org.uk/online-seminar-migration-as-climate-change-adaptation-4th-and-5th-december/

Wednesday 4th December, 10 am-11am GMT

Thursday 5th December 4pm-5pm GMT.

Click on the above link to read more and register, or email alex.randall@climateoutreach.org.uk and state which time and day you’d like to attend.

The ‘Migration as climate change adaptation’ event explores how migration could become a way for some of the most vulnerable communities in the world to adapt to climate change. Millions of people are already using migration as a way of improving their livelihoods. Increasingly people are using migration as a way of responding to the impacts of climate change. Can and should this existing trend be harnessed as a form of climate change adaptation? The ‘Climate change, migration and legal protection’ event will explore the legal status of people who move in the context of environmental change. When people move in the context of environmental change they often fall between the gaps of existing legal protection. How should the law protect people who move in the context of environmental change? Does existing legislation provide enough to protect such people? Or are new laws and frameworks needed?

Technical information: Details of how to join the seminar will be emailed to participants after registration. You will need a computer with an internet connection but no other special equipment. Full details and technical help can be provided. Please get in touch if you have any questions.

Alex Randall, Project Manager: UK Climate Change and Migration Coalition.

Climate Outreach and Information Network www.climatemigration.org.uk

We exist to challenge the lack of long-term strategies to support and protect people at risk of displacement linked to environmental change.

 

Event: Undocumented workers, ethnic enclaves and networks conference, 6th December

Undocumented Migrants, Ethnic Enclaves and Networks: Opportunities, traps or class-based constructs

UndocNet

End of project conference

The Graduate Centre, London Metropolitan University, N7 8DB

9:30 AM to 6 PM, 6^th December 2013

Register now

UndocNet, a two-year project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, will be holding its end of research project conference in London on Friday 6 December 2013. UndocNet has been exploring the labour market experiences and aspirations of 55 irregular migrants in London from three countries of origin – Bangladesh, China and Turkey (including Kurds) – and 24 minority ethnic entrepreneurs employing people from these three groups. The context of the research has been the economic downturn, increasingly restrictive immigration controls, raids on businesses suspected of employing people without correct documentation and the deportation of irregular migrants. Within this contemporary context the project has been concerned with understanding decisions to use or not to use social capital in the form of co-ethnic networks in the search for work and for workers, in or out of ethnic enclaves, from the perspectives of workers and their employers. The research has investigated the ways in which migrants and their employers use their social networks and other resources in relation to work and the ways in which working relationships operate within frameworks of ethnicity, class and gender (www.UndocNet.org)

Findings from the conference will be presented by the research team:

Professor Alice Bloch,University of Manchester

Professor Sonia McKay, London Metropolitan University

Dr Leena Kumarappan, London Metropolitan University

Plenary lectures:

Professor Bernard Ryan, Law School, University of Leicester:

Irregular Migrants: Legal Dilemmas

Dr Hannah Lewis, School of Geography, University of Leeds:

The increasingly hostile environment: discomfort as a policy goal

Professor Louise Ryan, Social Policy Research Centre, Middlesex University:

Making Connections: re-appraising social networks, family and social capital

Professor Bridget Anderson, COMPAS, University of Oxford:

“Illegal immigrants are not criminals!” Aren’t they?

PAPER PRESENTATIONS IN THE MORNING AND AFTERNOON

All welcome to a drinks reception after the conference

Registration is free but places are limited
Registration deadline: 15 November 2013 (Email: L.Kumarappan@londonmet.ac.uk)

FURTHER DETAILS WILL BE SENT FOLLOWING REGISTRATION