It's been a month now, since I started working again after the long summer holidyas and paternity leave. At the moment, it feels like I'm there again, in the middle of the PhD jungle! In 6 weeks time, my real period of paternity leave will start, so I am about half way this autumn period, that was supposed to be a very productive time.
First of all, it took about two weeks to start it all up again. I transcribed an interview, which was a lot of work, but valuable. During this work, reflections came up about how to organise the autumn months. It all centres around three manuscripts;
- one about rural Swedish municipalities engaging in rural place marketing efforts, as descirbed earlier by Niedomysl and Heldt Cassell. However, a nordic dimension, an international approach and rural destinations make this study timely. This is supposed to result in an article, number 2 so far.
- one about ambivalence and identity shift after migration. How things that we moved away from in the country of origin can develop into triggers of return migration. This is supposed to become a chapter in an anthology with the working title "Place and Identity".
- one about the decision making process prior to moving from urban Netherlands to rural Sweden. This is the least develoepd one so far, but still it is supposed to result in article number 3.
In order to test some ideas, I will be attending the second edition of the Nordic Urban Workshop in Stockholm next week. This is a valuable platform as it consists mainly of PhD students, some of whom we met during the first edition in Örebro one year ago. A month or two later - yes I'll take a day off from my leave - I hope to attend an international conference on Place Branding in Utrecht. Many presentations are scheduled for this event, and at least two may prove interrelated with the article I'm currently working on (Art.2). One about marketing rural areas in general and another about branding coal mining identities of South Wales. Looking forward to those presentations!
In the mean time, of course, I prepare lectures for the course on Population Geography. After all, that seems to be my field!
Showing posts with label International Migration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label International Migration. Show all posts
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Monday, 22 November 2010
November 2010
Usually in Sweden (or at least here at CUReS in Örebro), academic terms start up slowly and evolve into dynamic periods. Suddenly, you find yourself in mid-term stress when you discover that a lot has to be done before the end of the term. It's at times like these that it can be good to examine the numerous different assignments and the way they relate to each other.
November 2010 is no exception to this rule. Last Thursday and Friday, we've been to Bredsjö for so-called internal seminars. Gathered together with a group of about 20 regional and urban researchers, we discussed our work in three thematic groups: "place and identity", "regional and urban development" and "sustainability and climate change". This resulted in discussions of our to organsie our work here and how to repesent the centre in external communication.
Closely related to this is the general research plan for CUReS, which we discussed at the end of the series of seminars. In between we discussed each other's papers. I commented on Andreas paper and Håkan commented on my paper. Valuable contributions were made in the field of place, space, identity and place marketing. Of course, these sessions were accompanied by an abundance of good food and drinks.
For me personally, this means that I now can continue my work on a course paper for the long-gone course of Geographical perspectives on cultural heritage. This paper was due in the autumn of 2009, when I was on paternity leave. So now I have confronted myslef with a new deadline; I want it toi be finished before the start of the Christmas holidays.
My to-do list in short:
- get rid of the text based on Anholt and Moilanen & Rainisto - these are too much of a consultancy character, rather than an academic character.
- add a more thorough study of Ashworth & Voogd (1990) as well as the other classical texts of place marketing.
- add a discussion on texts about cultural heritage provided in the course literature.
This course paper should then function as a point of departure for my second and third article, about palce marketing and decision making in the context of dutch migration to Sweden in the early 21st century (aka Orange Waves). It is still undecided where and how to draw the line between these to interrelated topics. One thing that should be done however, is to use a more problematising approach to the subjects. For instance, it could be made more political by asking why the swedish municipalities attracting ducth migrnats don't want to make more use of the existing group of asylum seekers and refugees from de Middle East and African countries already residing there. Moreover, I can also ask the Dutch migrants what they are moving away from; do they perhaps see the Dutch society as too multicultural? Do they prefer being (European, white, Christian) immigrants in Sweden over living with (non-European, non-white, non-Christian) immigrants in the Netherlands?
Besides this, we have gatherd in a two-day Nordic Urban Workshop here in Örebro in October 2010. We were about fifteen PhD students from a number of different countries and univeristies in Sweden discussing urban research in general. This resulted in teh start of a network that will hopefully be able to grow and maintain itself at the fore-front of Nordic Urban research.
Meanwhile, I have also been teaching again, at the same course as last spring, when my father so sadly passed away. I feels strangely awkward to take up the same topics and study the same subjects as I was doing then. I am currently reflecting on what to discuss during the two remaining lectures, to be given in early December. These are the lectures that I was simply not able to give last Spring. It looks like I will summarise a PhD course that I took earlier on this year, called "Mobility in time and space". This summary should be about 45 minutes and it will give an overview of the interdisciplinary theme of mobility studies. Another part of the lecture should discuss migration in general and its different types (partly based on the course literure by Khalid Koser). It should also focus on different types of migration in different periods of time.
That would be a good bridge to the final lecture, about international migration to the Swedish countryside. For this lecture, I could rely on my own studies. General overviews of Migration to Sweden during the recent decades should be followed by a specific presentation of Dutch migrants in Sweden. Possibly, I will add a short intercultural seminar on population geography, in order to contribute to "internationalisation at the home ground".
Last but not least, I'm co-organising a meeting with a Swedish Population Geograper's network, to be held here in Örebro on 2 February 2011. This is quite an informal meeting that takes place every year in the early spring (or in Sweden this would be mid-winter). It looks like we have been able to arrange an interesting programme!
More news next-time!
November 2010 is no exception to this rule. Last Thursday and Friday, we've been to Bredsjö for so-called internal seminars. Gathered together with a group of about 20 regional and urban researchers, we discussed our work in three thematic groups: "place and identity", "regional and urban development" and "sustainability and climate change". This resulted in discussions of our to organsie our work here and how to repesent the centre in external communication.
Closely related to this is the general research plan for CUReS, which we discussed at the end of the series of seminars. In between we discussed each other's papers. I commented on Andreas paper and Håkan commented on my paper. Valuable contributions were made in the field of place, space, identity and place marketing. Of course, these sessions were accompanied by an abundance of good food and drinks.
For me personally, this means that I now can continue my work on a course paper for the long-gone course of Geographical perspectives on cultural heritage. This paper was due in the autumn of 2009, when I was on paternity leave. So now I have confronted myslef with a new deadline; I want it toi be finished before the start of the Christmas holidays.
My to-do list in short:
- get rid of the text based on Anholt and Moilanen & Rainisto - these are too much of a consultancy character, rather than an academic character.
- add a more thorough study of Ashworth & Voogd (1990) as well as the other classical texts of place marketing.
- add a discussion on texts about cultural heritage provided in the course literature.
This course paper should then function as a point of departure for my second and third article, about palce marketing and decision making in the context of dutch migration to Sweden in the early 21st century (aka Orange Waves). It is still undecided where and how to draw the line between these to interrelated topics. One thing that should be done however, is to use a more problematising approach to the subjects. For instance, it could be made more political by asking why the swedish municipalities attracting ducth migrnats don't want to make more use of the existing group of asylum seekers and refugees from de Middle East and African countries already residing there. Moreover, I can also ask the Dutch migrants what they are moving away from; do they perhaps see the Dutch society as too multicultural? Do they prefer being (European, white, Christian) immigrants in Sweden over living with (non-European, non-white, non-Christian) immigrants in the Netherlands?
Besides this, we have gatherd in a two-day Nordic Urban Workshop here in Örebro in October 2010. We were about fifteen PhD students from a number of different countries and univeristies in Sweden discussing urban research in general. This resulted in teh start of a network that will hopefully be able to grow and maintain itself at the fore-front of Nordic Urban research.
Meanwhile, I have also been teaching again, at the same course as last spring, when my father so sadly passed away. I feels strangely awkward to take up the same topics and study the same subjects as I was doing then. I am currently reflecting on what to discuss during the two remaining lectures, to be given in early December. These are the lectures that I was simply not able to give last Spring. It looks like I will summarise a PhD course that I took earlier on this year, called "Mobility in time and space". This summary should be about 45 minutes and it will give an overview of the interdisciplinary theme of mobility studies. Another part of the lecture should discuss migration in general and its different types (partly based on the course literure by Khalid Koser). It should also focus on different types of migration in different periods of time.
That would be a good bridge to the final lecture, about international migration to the Swedish countryside. For this lecture, I could rely on my own studies. General overviews of Migration to Sweden during the recent decades should be followed by a specific presentation of Dutch migrants in Sweden. Possibly, I will add a short intercultural seminar on population geography, in order to contribute to "internationalisation at the home ground".
Last but not least, I'm co-organising a meeting with a Swedish Population Geograper's network, to be held here in Örebro on 2 February 2011. This is quite an informal meeting that takes place every year in the early spring (or in Sweden this would be mid-winter). It looks like we have been able to arrange an interesting programme!
More news next-time!
Thursday, 5 February 2009
Norrköping
Monday 19 January was not a usual Monday.
Caroline, Lucas and me were driving the car to Norrköping, because I was going to take a course there. We also had my mum in the car, who had visited us for some days and who would now take the coach from Norrköping to Skavsta Airport that same day. The weather Gods were not with us, as we had heavy snow. Road 51 between Örebro and Norrköping is not exactly a highway and most of the time wewere stuck behind a truck. Due to the bad weather and road conditions we weren't driving faster than 40 km/h instead of the allowed 90. Very frustrating, since I didn't want to start the course by missing the first lecture, and my mum didn't want to end her visit by missing the coach to the airport.
However, after 2 hours we arrived in Norrköping, about 110 km from Örebro. I was lucky to find the campus quite soon and I only missed some minutes of the inaugural lecture. My mum notified me some minutes later that se made it to the bus. Everything alright, and Caroline and Lucas could take it easy on their way back to Örebro. I think they even took a rest in Katrineholm.
The campus in Norrköping is wonderful! In the middle of this town, situated in some old buildings that once were the blooming centre of the textile industry, are now some faculties of Linköping University's Campus Norrköping. One of the buildings at the entrance is now the Louis de Geer theatre, marking the importance of this Dutch entrepreneur that initiated some of the industries in Norrköping in the 18th Century. For entering the campus you have to walk through a small tower, or campanille, which reminded me of Trinity College Dublin. The Motala Ström meanders through the area and waterfalls cascade beside bridges and pathways. Pleasant surroundings!
The course is called Theories and Politics of International Migration. It is part of the Graduate School in REMESO (Institute for on Research Migration, Ethnicity and Society) and lasted from Monday to Friday. Accomodation was taken care of by the course administrator. We were about 20 students from all over Europe, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Greece, Poland, Turkey, Scotland, Lithuania and Spain. Some of us had a more difficult story, such as the girl from Spain who actually was from Mexico, a guy from Bosnia that had been living in Sweden for many years, the girsl from Scotland who's parents are Czech but who lived most of their life in Denmark, and me, a Dutch guy from Sweden (or the other way around). It was like an Erasmus Exchange and we never had a dull moment. Either we were in class, some days 11 hours of lectures and seminars, or we hung out in one of the town's bars and restaurants. We also met in the hotel/youthhostel where we stayed. You can imagine that I was completely exhausted when I sat in the coach back home on Friday afternoon!
What was the course about? Yeah, well, there were 5 themes. The first day, Professor Russell King (University of Sussex) lectured about the state of the art in International Migration Research. Very interesting lectures, especially from a Human Geography point of view. He told about the somewhat artificial divide between internal and international migration and about a new map of migration in Europe. Here is where my study fits best; lifestyle migration. The second day, Political scientist Peo Hanssen - one of the initiators of the course - told us about the European Integration of Migration. Also an interesting subject, especially since I am interest in the EU and it's "internal migration". Day three started with an extra lecture by Russell King on his newest work about Albania. Very inspiring for my forthcoming article! Later that day, Branka Likić spoke about Irregular Migration, Changing Labour Markets and Perspectives on Global Governance. Interesting, but not directly related to my research interests. Migrant Experiences of Integration and Discrimination was the subject of the next-last day. Stefan Jonsson, a critic writing about social and cultural phenomena for the Swedish Newspaper DN, showed us the movie "La raison du plus fort". Together, we took the role of philosophers and talked bout different experiences of migrating to a completely different society. Most focus was put on the politics of the veil in France and difficulties between Muslim and other ethnic groups in Europe. The course was concluded by a panel discussion on Friday. Theme for the discussion was Migration and Development and here guest lecturer Charles Woolfsson from Glasgow University but living in Lithuania painted a picture about Lithuanian membership in the EU and the role of migration and development for this Baltic state. You can imagine it took me some days to sort all the information I got, it was a very intensive week!
But now, I should start writing the paper for the course, if I want to receive my 7.5 ECTS credits! Cheerio!
Caroline, Lucas and me were driving the car to Norrköping, because I was going to take a course there. We also had my mum in the car, who had visited us for some days and who would now take the coach from Norrköping to Skavsta Airport that same day. The weather Gods were not with us, as we had heavy snow. Road 51 between Örebro and Norrköping is not exactly a highway and most of the time wewere stuck behind a truck. Due to the bad weather and road conditions we weren't driving faster than 40 km/h instead of the allowed 90. Very frustrating, since I didn't want to start the course by missing the first lecture, and my mum didn't want to end her visit by missing the coach to the airport.
However, after 2 hours we arrived in Norrköping, about 110 km from Örebro. I was lucky to find the campus quite soon and I only missed some minutes of the inaugural lecture. My mum notified me some minutes later that se made it to the bus. Everything alright, and Caroline and Lucas could take it easy on their way back to Örebro. I think they even took a rest in Katrineholm.
The campus in Norrköping is wonderful! In the middle of this town, situated in some old buildings that once were the blooming centre of the textile industry, are now some faculties of Linköping University's Campus Norrköping. One of the buildings at the entrance is now the Louis de Geer theatre, marking the importance of this Dutch entrepreneur that initiated some of the industries in Norrköping in the 18th Century. For entering the campus you have to walk through a small tower, or campanille, which reminded me of Trinity College Dublin. The Motala Ström meanders through the area and waterfalls cascade beside bridges and pathways. Pleasant surroundings!
The course is called Theories and Politics of International Migration. It is part of the Graduate School in REMESO (Institute for on Research Migration, Ethnicity and Society) and lasted from Monday to Friday. Accomodation was taken care of by the course administrator. We were about 20 students from all over Europe, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Greece, Poland, Turkey, Scotland, Lithuania and Spain. Some of us had a more difficult story, such as the girl from Spain who actually was from Mexico, a guy from Bosnia that had been living in Sweden for many years, the girsl from Scotland who's parents are Czech but who lived most of their life in Denmark, and me, a Dutch guy from Sweden (or the other way around). It was like an Erasmus Exchange and we never had a dull moment. Either we were in class, some days 11 hours of lectures and seminars, or we hung out in one of the town's bars and restaurants. We also met in the hotel/youthhostel where we stayed. You can imagine that I was completely exhausted when I sat in the coach back home on Friday afternoon!
What was the course about? Yeah, well, there were 5 themes. The first day, Professor Russell King (University of Sussex) lectured about the state of the art in International Migration Research. Very interesting lectures, especially from a Human Geography point of view. He told about the somewhat artificial divide between internal and international migration and about a new map of migration in Europe. Here is where my study fits best; lifestyle migration. The second day, Political scientist Peo Hanssen - one of the initiators of the course - told us about the European Integration of Migration. Also an interesting subject, especially since I am interest in the EU and it's "internal migration". Day three started with an extra lecture by Russell King on his newest work about Albania. Very inspiring for my forthcoming article! Later that day, Branka Likić spoke about Irregular Migration, Changing Labour Markets and Perspectives on Global Governance. Interesting, but not directly related to my research interests. Migrant Experiences of Integration and Discrimination was the subject of the next-last day. Stefan Jonsson, a critic writing about social and cultural phenomena for the Swedish Newspaper DN, showed us the movie "La raison du plus fort". Together, we took the role of philosophers and talked bout different experiences of migrating to a completely different society. Most focus was put on the politics of the veil in France and difficulties between Muslim and other ethnic groups in Europe. The course was concluded by a panel discussion on Friday. Theme for the discussion was Migration and Development and here guest lecturer Charles Woolfsson from Glasgow University but living in Lithuania painted a picture about Lithuanian membership in the EU and the role of migration and development for this Baltic state. You can imagine it took me some days to sort all the information I got, it was a very intensive week!
But now, I should start writing the paper for the course, if I want to receive my 7.5 ECTS credits! Cheerio!
Tuesday, 8 April 2008
Emigrate 2008
Well, it's been a while since I last wrote, but here's an update about a trip I made: to Emigrate 2008. This is an Emigration Fair in Utrecht, the Netherlands. I was 'back home' during the first 11 days in March for this fair, but of course also for visiting friends and family. The idea of the fair is to bring people from the demand and the supply side together: certain regions or organisations anywhere in the world that want to attract immigrants on the one hand, and migrants that want to leave the Netherlands and look for a live elsewhere on the other hand.
During the two days of the fair, I conducted a small survey by taking questionnaires from all but one stand at the swedish part and 33 Dutch visitors that are interested in moving to Sweden. It was very interesting just to observe how this industry is arranged and even more interesting to hear the (live)stories of some potential migrants. Their reasons for wanting to move in a nut shell: looking for "Rust & Ruimte" (quiet & space), nature and a more relaxed pace of life, and being fed up with the rat race, traffic jams and 'overregulated Dutch society'. More about this can be found in a Survey Report that I wrote; just send me a mail if you're interested: marcoeimermann@gmail.com.
It has been a very useful pilot project and it helped me in orientating how I want to structure my research! More to come soon about the third course and the research prosposal.
During the two days of the fair, I conducted a small survey by taking questionnaires from all but one stand at the swedish part and 33 Dutch visitors that are interested in moving to Sweden. It was very interesting just to observe how this industry is arranged and even more interesting to hear the (live)stories of some potential migrants. Their reasons for wanting to move in a nut shell: looking for "Rust & Ruimte" (quiet & space), nature and a more relaxed pace of life, and being fed up with the rat race, traffic jams and 'overregulated Dutch society'. More about this can be found in a Survey Report that I wrote; just send me a mail if you're interested: marcoeimermann@gmail.com.
It has been a very useful pilot project and it helped me in orientating how I want to structure my research! More to come soon about the third course and the research prosposal.
Monday, 18 February 2008
IMER Congress
IMER stands for International Migration and Ethnic Relations. This field of study is interdisciplinary, with ethnologists, sociologists, social work scientists and human geographers amongst the interested. Botkyrka, a Stockholm suburb, hosts a multicultural centre where the Swedish IMER Society has its seat. A congress was arranged by them on the last day of January and the first day of February 2008.
It was my first congress outside Örebro and I was curious to see what the multicultural centre looked like and what kind of people there would be. It was a nice old building amidst the concrete suburbian flats, where we - a group of about 25 people - discussed IMER for two days. The group was mixed in age, gender and ethnic backgrounds. Young "ethnic" PhD candidates like myself (Dutch, Polish and other nationalities) were sitting side by side with experienced researchers from England, India, Denmark, Iceland, Turkey and of course Sweden.
We talked about diaspora, bilingual children and what it's like to be a "suburb-kid". Very interesting and it resulted in a nice idea for taking part in an IMER Seminar series at Uppsala University, amongst other things.
Completely exhausted, but many experiences richer, I returned to Örebro.
It was my first congress outside Örebro and I was curious to see what the multicultural centre looked like and what kind of people there would be. It was a nice old building amidst the concrete suburbian flats, where we - a group of about 25 people - discussed IMER for two days. The group was mixed in age, gender and ethnic backgrounds. Young "ethnic" PhD candidates like myself (Dutch, Polish and other nationalities) were sitting side by side with experienced researchers from England, India, Denmark, Iceland, Turkey and of course Sweden.
We talked about diaspora, bilingual children and what it's like to be a "suburb-kid". Very interesting and it resulted in a nice idea for taking part in an IMER Seminar series at Uppsala University, amongst other things.
Completely exhausted, but many experiences richer, I returned to Örebro.
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