’Europe Uncertain’. Marie Sandberg and Alexandra Schwell are organising this roundtable at the upcoming SIEF conference in Brno, 7.-10.th of June 2023: Submissions welcome!
This roundtable invites contributions to the study of Europe and Europeanisation, asking: what does ’the European’ entail in European ethnology, and how can we approach Europe as an uncertain, unstable, and fragile construct that raises questions about its analytical potential and usefulness?
Deadline January 10, 2023.
The third annual lecture in European ethnology will be held on Wednesday 16 November from 19:00-21:00 UTC+02. This is a hybrid event. If you would like to participate online, please contact Elisabeth Wolff at e.wolff(@)stud.uni-goettingen.de
About the lecture from the facebook page:
”The Third Annual Lecture in European Ethnology in Goettingen will be delivered by Professor Marie Sandberg with the title “With a view to temporary stay.” An ethnological perspective on Europe’s politics of exception after the “return turn”.
The significant “return turn” (Schultz 2020) of the Global North has replaced re-settlement and integration as core immigration values, resulting in prolonged uncertainty and intensified deterrence measures (DeGenova 2013). After the 2015 European refugee reception crisis, Denmark, for instance, announced a so-called Paradigm shift away from integration of newcomers and towards a focus on self-reliance and return policies. Hence, since 2019 all residence permits are issued “with a view to temporary stay” as the blanket approach for all refugees, regardless of protection status (Tan 2021). Based on preliminary research insights from the collaborative research-practice project “Boundary work. New interfaces between state and civil society: Volunteerism and refugees in a self-support and repatriation context”, I will focus on everyday life consequences of the permanent temporariness for both refugees and civil society volunteers. With inspiration from Georgina Ramsay’s (2020) critique of exceptionalizing displacement through the lens of “crisis”, I will discuss how we can make the European politics of exception into ethnological inquiry without reproducing logics of difference and othering. Further, I will reflect on what effect the enhanced deterrence measures might have on the future of Europe.
Marie Sandberg is Associate Professor, PhD, in European Ethnology, and the Director of the Centre for Advanced Migration Studies (AMIS) at the University of Copenhagen. Since 2021, she serves as the President for the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF). Marie Sandberg was the joint editor-in-chief of Ethnologia Europaea – Journal of European Ethnology 2013–2020. As PI and co-PI she has a record of managing a range of research projects and networks. She has worked systematically with integrating teaching and research. Her publications have appeared in journals such as Journal of European Studies and Identities. She has held Visiting Scholar positions at the University of British Columbia and Radboud University, and she has been a Senior Fellow at University of Zürich. Marie Sandberg is engaged in discussions within international as well as Nordic fields of migration and border studies covering a research expertise in European borders, civil society initiatives and migration practices. She has conducted ethnographic studies of the ways borders in/of everyday life are continuously negotiated, overcome, and rebuilt in interactions such as volunteer work in support of refugees coming to Europe during the 2015 “refugee crisis”.
“Boundary work. New interfaces between state and civil society: Volunteerism and refugees in a self-support and repatriation context” is developed in collaboration with the Danish Red Cross, Danish Refugee Council (DRC), University College Absalon, and the Centre for Advanced Migration Studies (AMIS), University of Copenhagen. The project is funded by the VELUX Foundations 2021‒2024, and led by Marie Sandberg.”