300081 Transnational Migration and Integration (S) (WiSe 2006/2007)

This course is about the responses of agents, organisations and states to processes usually labelled as ¿globalization¿ in the field of cross-border mobility. We focus on transnational, or more correctly, transstate migration and its consequences for the social integration of migrants and systems integration of societies. The first part of the course surveys theories of cross-border migration, such as push-pull theories, migration systems theory, dependency theory, and middle-range theories of migration networks from various disciplinary points of view, including sociology, geography, political science and economics. The second part of the course covers approaches to the integration of migrants and the integration of societies concerned with emigration, immigration and cross-border mobility more generally. Perspectives addressed include assimilation, ethnic pluralism and multiculturalism and transnational viz. transstate social spaces. As to the latter approach, we survey the growing literature on transnational communities, diasporas, social movements and transnational spaces.

Bibliography

• Caroline B. Brettell, 2000: Migration Theory: Talking Across Disciplines. New York: Routledge
• Thomas Faist, 2000: The Volume and Dynamics of International Migration and Transnational Social Spaces. Oxford: Oxford University Press
• Tomas Hammar, Grete Brochmann, Kristof Tamas & Thomas Faist, 1997: International Migration, Immobility and Development: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Oxford: Berg
• Website of the Transnational Communities Programme at Oxford University: http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk