Migrant and minority mobilization
Prerequisiti
Optional for all the PhD and MA students
Programma
The movement of peoples across national boundaries, which became particularly visible in Western Europe since the 2015 “long summer of migration”, has encountered both the support and opposition of domestic actors. Moreover, in the last decade migrants and racialized subjects have mobilized to reclaim their right to settle, to receive a decent wage and to access citizenship rights. The goal of this seminar is to address migration as a contentious issue, focusing in particular on its significance for collective action. The course will provide students with the analytical tools necessary to understand the dynamics of migrant and minority mobilization, and the different forms of contentious politics they engaged upon. The course will explore undocumented migrants’ collective actions as acts of emancipation and will touch upon the multi-scale perspective of political contention around migration. To offer an extensive overview on the effects on the everyday life of racialized subjects, the course will also explore the mobilization for citizenship rights of second-generation migrants, which contested the national boundaries of citizenship regimes, as well as racial justice struggles at the local and global level, such as the Black Lives Matter movement. Furthermore, it will look at the literature on migrant support actors, such as anti-racist groups and refugee solidarity movements, exploring their moral and emotional dilemmas.
Obiettivi formativi
By the end of the course students will have acquired a clear understanding of the main debates in the literature investigating the contentious politics of migration, as well as a deep knowledge of the diverse actors engaged in it. They will be able to critically approach the scholarship on the topic, demonstrate the acquaintance with and evaluate contemporary theoretical approaches. Furthermore, they will be able to identify and apply in an appropriate way the conceptual tools and theoretical approaches learnt throughout the course, and to adopt them in their empirical research.