300017 The Economic Sociology of Immigration (BS) (WiSe 2014/2015)

The purpose of this eight-week seminar is to introduce students to the interface between two fields in the discipline of sociology – international migration and economic sociology. For this purpose, we will consider a series of mid-range concepts drawn from economic sociology and examine their application to different aspects of international migration. We will also identify several “strategic research sites” in the field of immigration that offer unusual promise, both for theoretical development and for a deeper understanding of the dynamics of long-distance human displacements.

The seminar will commence with an introductory lecture on the field of economic sociology and its interface with the study of migratory movements. The following seven sessions will combine one-hour lectures on diverse aspects of migrant flows with student presentations on assigned readings, followed by class discussion. Each of these seminar discussions will focus on a particular concept, its origins, and its significance for theory and policy.

---

Syllabus

I. Economic Sociology and the Sociology of Immigration: An Introduction
Portes, The Economic Sociology of Immigration, Chapter 1
Portes and de Wind, Rethinking Migration, Ch. 1.

II. The Concept of Embeddedness
Granovetter and Swedberg, The Sociology of Economic Life,Chs. 1, 2 and 6
Portes, Economic Sociology, Ch. 2; Portes, The Economic Sociology of Immigration, Ch. 6.

III. The Concept of Social Capital
Portes, Economic Sociology. Ch.5
Granovetter and Swedburg, Chs. 16, 22
Portes and de Wind, Ch. 2.

IV. The Concept of Transnationalism
Portes, Economic Sociology, Ch. 9
Portes and de Wind, Ch. 6; Eckstein and Najam, How Immigrants Impact Their Homelands, Chs. 1, 3, 5.

V Modes of Political and Economic Incorporation
Portes and de Wind, Chs. 3-5
Portes, The Economic Sociology of Immigration, Ch. 4
Granovetter and Swedberg, Ch. 19.

VI Ethnic and Immigrant Entrepreneurship
Portes, Economic Sociology, Ch. 8
Portes and de Wind, Ch. 8,
Granovetter and Swedberg, Chs. 3, 7.

VII The Second Generation
Portes, The Economic Sociology of Immigration, Ch. 7
Portes and de Wind, Chs. 11, 12, 13.

VIII Immigration and Development
Eckstein and Najam, Chs. 2, 4, 8, 10, 11.

_

Bibliography

Eckstein, Susan and Adil Najam. How Immigrants Impact Their Homelands. Durham, N.C.:
Duke University Press, 2013.

Granovetter, Mark S. and Richard Swedberg. The Sociology of Economic Life, Third Edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001.

Portes, Alejandro. Economic Sociology: A Systematic Inquiry. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 2010.

Portes, Alejandro. The Economic Sociology of Immigration. New York: Russell Sage
Foundation, 1995.

Portes, Alejandro and Josh de Wind. Rethinking Migration: New Theoretical and Empirical
Perspectives. New York: Berghahn Books, 2008.