(Re)creating gender hierarchies within northern landscapes: a study of stories about nature and gender

This article examines how gender hierarchies are (re)created within the context of northern landscapes. We analyse data from fieldwork and interviews with middle-class female Russians having settled in a small town in northernmost Norway, most of them as marriage migrants. Inspired by the phenomenology of the body, feminist phenomenology and gender theory, the analysis shows how the participants talk about nature as ‘recreation’ and ‘poetry’, but also as a venue that is vital for (re)shaping their gendered identities. In particular, the Russian women talk about their strong, skilful outdoors Norwegian husbands as ‘experts’ in nature, and about themselves as ‘novices’. This ‘expert–novice’ relationship creates a hierarchical distinction between the Norwegian man and the Russian woman, but also attributes additional value to the equality-oriented, but in several cases neither highly educated nor highly paid, Norwegian husband. Through this ‘re-masculinisation’ of their Norwegian partners, the Russian women create a complementary, but subordinate space for themselves. The analysis reveals that our participants situate themselves in contrast to the Norwegian equality ideal while creating a room of their own where they can form a separate and unique Russian femininity. This illustrates how constructions of gender are interwoven in translocal ‘minoritising’ and ‘majoritising’ processes.     

Trivial pursuits? Serious (video) games and the media representation of refugees

This article critically analyses the representational practices of serious (video) games that focus on refugees. It argues that the technological form of serious games can simulate the historical, political and socio-economic factors that shape why refugees leave their home country and their experiences when travelling to host countries. They are able to mobilise intellectual agendas which challenge the de-contextualised representations of refugees typical in traditional media. As such, they challenge players to critically reflect on the complexities of refugee experiences and politics, thereby presenting a potential to move away from grand emotional discourses of pity and compassion.     

Refugees,Economic Capacity,and Host State Repression*

Does hosting refugees affect state repression? While there have been numerous studies that examine the link between refugees and the spread of civil and international conflict, an examination of the systematic links between refugees and repression is lacking. We contend that researchers are missing a crucial link, as the dissent-repression nexus is crucial to understanding the development of armed conflict. Drawing upon logics of the relationship between refugees and the spread of conflict as well as economic capacity, we argue that increased numbers of refugees lead to increased repression. We contend that willingness to increase repression when hosting refugees is in part conditional on a host state’s economic capacity. We argue that, on the whole, the greater the population of refugees in a host state, repression becomes more likely. That said, we argue that increased economic capacity will moderate this relationship. We find empirical support for both predictions.     

A humanitarian mission in line with human rights? Assessing Sophia,the EU’s naval response to the migration crisis

This article adds to our understanding of the role of norms in the European Union’s (EU) response to the migration crisis by conducting a critical assessment of the EU’s anti-smuggling naval mission “Sophia”. Is Sophia in line with the normative standards the EU has set for itself in its foreign policies? Conducting the analysis in two steps in line with the main criteria of a humanitarian foreign policy model – first exploring Sophia’s launch and then assessing Sophia’s in theatre behaviour – findings suggest that although concerns for migrants at sea mobilised the initial launch of the mission, the mission is not conducted in line with key human rights principles. As the operation mandate is amended and updated with new tasks, and as the EU-NATO in theatre cooperation increases, the EU is moving further away from what one would expect of a humanitarian foreign policy actor.     

The Stein Rokkan Lecture 2016 Mission impossible? Reconciling economic and social Europe after the euro crisis and Brexit

During the crisis, the European Union's ‘social deficit’ has triggered an increasing politicisation of redistributive issues within supranational, transnational and national arenas. Various lines of conflict have taken shape, revolving around who questions (who are ‘we’? – i.e., issues of identity and inclusion/exclusion); what questions (how much redistribution within and across the ‘we’ collectivities) and who decides questions (the locus of authority that can produce and guarantee organised solidarity). The key challenge facing today's political leaders is how to ‘glue’ the Union together as a recogniseable and functioning polity. This requires a double rebalancing: between the logic of ‘opening’ and the logic of ‘closure’, on the one hand, and between the logic of ‘economic stability’ and ‘social solidarity’, on the other. Building on the work of Stein Rokkan and Max Weber, this article argues that reconciliation is possible, but only if carefully crafted through an extraordinary mobilisation of political and intellectual resources. A key ingredient should be the establishment of a European Social Union, capable of combining domestic and pan‐European solidarities. In this way, the EU could visibly and tangibly extend its policy menu from regulation to (limited, but effective) distribution, reaping the latter's benefits in terms of legitimacy. The journey on this road is difficult but, pace Rokkan, not entirely impervious.     

Refugees,economic migrants and weak cosmopolitanism

This article takes issue with several features of David Miller’s account of justice with respect to refugees and to economic migrants, as outlined in Strangers in our Midst. It suggests that even within the terms of his own weak cosmopolitanism, the requirements of justice are more demanding than he acknowledges. In particular, the argument advanced criticizes Miller’s ‘fair shares’ argument concerning obligations to refugees and his recourse to ‘mutual advantage’ in theorizing economic migration.     

Italy’s Migration Policies Combating Irregular Immigration: from the Early Days to the Present Times

Italian migration policies combating irregular immigration from the early 20^th century to the present times have been increasingly debated and controversial. Four phases are detectable: the absence of a legal framework while Italy was still an emigration country, the first regulations of the 1980s, policies influenced by both the European integration process and the increase in immigration until 2002 and, lastly, the country’s controversial approaches since 2004. What is noticeable is a dichotomy in Italy’s migration policies, with generally consistent internal measures and often contrasting external ones.     

Migration diplomacy in the Global South: cooperation,coercion and issue linkage in Gaddafi’s Libya

Despite a recent resurgence in research on the politics of migration, foreign policy analysts have yet to approach cross-border population mobility as a distinct field of inquiry. Particularly within the Global South, scant work has theorised the interplay between migration and interstate bargaining. This article proposes the framework of migration diplomacy to examine how mobility features in states’ issue-linkage strategies, in both cooperative and coercive contexts. Drawing on Arabic, French and English primary sources, it empirically demonstrates the salience of its framework through an analysis of Libya’s migration diplomacy towards its Arab, African and European neighbours under Muammar Gaddafi.     

Who Migrates? Tracking Gendered Access to Migration Within Households “In Flux” Across Time

ABSTRACT

In Indonesia, traditional gender ideals tend to depict men as legitimate migrants while women who move are deemed “out of place.” This male migrant-as-breadwinner household arrangement has been complicated in the past 30 years by gendered migration systems and practices in Asia that favor women. Drawing upon a household survey (N = 1,203) and in-depth interviews (N = 55), we use “time tracks” (Robertson, 2014 Robertson, S. (2014). The temporalities of international migration: Implications for ethnographic research. ICS Occasional Paper Series, 5(1), 1–16. [Google Scholar]) to interrogate gendered dynamics within the household “in flux” (Huijsmans, 2014 Huijsmans, R. (2014). Becoming a young migrant or stayer seen through the lens of “householding”: Households “in flux” and the intersection of relations of gender and seniority. Geoforum, 51, 294–304.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Foregrounding active negotiations within migrant households, we illustrate the continuously changing gender relations as they interact with, and respond to, the gendered migration systems and practices over time.