Theme 8: Problems of migration

1
Theme 8 Problems of migration

• Newcomers in communities
• Migrants
• Immigrants risks and profits
• Voluntary and compulsory migration
• From alienated situations to newly constructed
• cultural identities

2
Foreign citizens in Finland
3
Foreigners in Finland

• Country of citizenship 1990 1995 2004
• Russia - 9720 24626
• Estonia - 8446 13978
• Sweden 6051 7014 8209
• Somalia 44 4044 4689
• Serbia and Montenegro 75 2407 4090
• Iraq 107 1341 3392
• United Kingdom 1365 1865 2655
• Germany 1568 1748 2626
• China 312 1412 2613
• Iran 336 1275 2555
• Turkey 310 1335 2359
• Thailand 239 763 2289
• USA 1475 1844 2040
• Bosnia and Herzegovina - 928
  1641
• Afghanistan - - 1588
• Vietnam 292 2084 1538
• India 270 454 1343
• Other 13811 21886 26115

4
The process of integration of a newcomer in a
community

• Newcomers in communities (border-crossers) need
  to be integrated to become members of the society
  like any member-group
• the family membership
• the membership in an association, in a local
  community (a workmates community etc.)
• Citizenship in the nation-state
• Basic demands for the membership as a citizen
• inner feeling of togetherness
• incorporation of cultural symbols (belonginess)
• adoption of cultural habits (inculturation)
• trust on the legality of social rules,
• recognition of the citizen rights
• political participation, representation and the
  use of power

5
Migrants rights

• Migrants moving from one nation-state to another
  (or inside larger international communities like
  the EU) have to cross both concrete and symbolic
  borders
• Citizen rights are allowed to the newcomers in
  stages or from step to step
• The legal rights to cross the border are checked
  by means of
• The passport or other kind of identity control
• a tourist ticket (to come, stay a defined time
  and leave as agreed (packaged trip, rucksack
  travel)
• A study place ? a work permit? a residence
  permit,
• an asylum asylum seekers position allowed
  (living in exile is alienated life without
  citizen rights)

6
Immigrants risks and profits

• Immigrants can carry risks and costs with them
• but
• migration can be profitable for the progress of
  economic, social and cultural exchange in a
  certain society
• The economic and social expectation in the place
  of departure
• newcomers bring more profit than problems ?
  integration
• The cultural expectation ?acculturation
• we tolerate your different character (rules,
  habits, language etc.)
• if you are
• grateful, satisfied, humble enough towards us
• or
• creative enough to add sub-cultural elements into
  our culture to make it more multicultural than
  before

7
Voluntary and compulsory migration

• Voluntary reasons to migrate (the pull factors)
• to learn, to study, to be educated
• to work, to practice a profession, to improve
  specific qualifications
• to marry, to have a family at the place of
  destination
• To find an ideal place for ones residence
• Compulsory reasons to migrate (the push factors)
• when needing to find a job - in the case of
  unemployment or the risk of the lack of work
• when seeking for trust and safety - in a case of
  local insecurity, uncertainty or human threat in
  the place of departure)
• when being threatened by violence because of
  ideological reasons in the place of departure
  (totalitarianism, fundamentalism)

8
From an alienated situation to the new
construction of identity

• Nomadic situations
• Wandering around
• as evacuated from the home area
• displacement of population transfer to a
  specific area
• escape and hiding of refugees without a permanent
  residence
• Staying at camps on the borderland
• a liminal situation in the no-mans land
• Sense of alienation
• Adoption of piecemal cultures or cultural
  mixtures to stay alive day-by-day (hybrid
  identities)
• Living in diaspora
• nostalgic ties connect migrants symbolically back
  to the place of departure the place of birth

9
Global citizens of multicultural world

• The continuous need for constructing, processing
  and performing social identities
• Identity work becomes more and more conscious
  work of art in the new culturally produced public
  world
• Problems between
• individual citizen rights - the cultural
  dimensions of citizenship - and
• equal social responsibility - the social
  dimension of citizenship
• may increase

10
Challenging cultural citizenship in cosmopolitan
democracy (Delanty)

• Demands for the citizens of the globally changing
  world
• Capacities for adopting always new socio-cultural
  elements for hybrid identifications
• Awareness on cultural differences and their
  qualifications
• Equal access to democratic institutions
• Social flexibility (sociality)
• Moral values for constituting humanity are
  demanded more and more