300140 International Summer School mit Universität Cluj & Augustana College (S) (SoSe 2011)

Transnationalization ("transnationalism") and diaspora are widely-used concepts in academic as well as political discourses. Such an inflation of meanings goes hand in hand with a danger of essentialising collective identities. This course therefore presents diaspora and transnationalization as research perspectives rather than as characteristics of particular social groups and social formations. It focuses on the implications of such perspectives for membership in political communities -- citizenship. Is citizenship transnationalizing or still primarily bound to the national? At the core is the disaggregation of citizenship, namely the decoupling of territory, authority, people which signal far-reaching social and political transformations of national societies. Disaggregation can be observed in processes of international migration and its consequences. The ongoing reassemblage of citizenship is analyzed on the local, national, transnational and global realms. The issues discussed, among others, concern transnational elements of citizenship, such as dual citizenship, political participation within and across the borders of national states, efforts at local development involving transnational agents, and the prospects for global social citizenship. The discussion of substantive topics is embedded in methodological reflections and the question of how to apply methods appropriate to avoid methodological nationalism.

Preliminary Schedule and Course Topics
1st Day: Transnationalisation, Diaspora and Citizenship:
Diaspora and transnationalism: theories and concepts
The disaggregation and reassemblage of citizenship

2nd Day: Transnational Methodologies and Methods
Transnational methodologies
Political socialization effects of migration in Romania and Moldova: a multi-level modelling approach

3rd Day: Political Transformation, Citizenship, and Support for Democracy
Dual citizenship in Central and Eastern Europe
Support for democracy and international development in post-communist contexts

4th Day: Transnational / Diasporic Citizenship and Social Transformation
The migration-development nexus, membership, and local development
Migration, local development, and socio-cultural change in Central and Eastern Europe

5th Day: Citizenship and Migration in Global Perspectives
Transnational, global and cosmopolitan imaginations of citizenship
Mobilities and citizenship in the 21st century

Requirements for participation, required level

Diese Lehrveranstaltung richtet sich an MA- und PhD-Studierende.

Bibliography

Rainer Bauböck & Thomas Faist (eds.), 2010: Diaspora and Transnationalism: Concepts, Theories and Methods. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Nina Glick Schiller & Thomas Faist (eds.), 2010: Migration, Development and Transnationalization: A Critical Stance. Oxford: Berghahn.