Events

As part of the Lunchtime Seminar Series, the African Centre for Migration & Society invites you to a seminar titled The Meanings of Women’s Mobilities: Gender Ideals and Female Mobility in West Africa presented by Dr Gunvor Jónsson (Departmental Lecturer, Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford). Despite increasing global attention to women’s involvement in migration in recent decades, very little research has looked at Malian women’s different forms of mobility, beyond the “rural exodus” from the countryside into towns. Gunvor's fieldwork in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, focused on both mobile and settled female traders from Mali, the neighbouring country. Many of these women were heads of their own households; many were single – unmarried, divorced, widowed. In this presentation she will look at the various mobilities that these and other Malian women were engaged in, to examine the kinds of meanings and experiences they were associated with. She will start by discussing the role of local Islamic, patriarchal and Mande ideals in relation to women’s mobilities. Gunvor then moves on to examine the kinds of mobilities that were associated with womanhood, focusing specifically on how conceptions of womanhood were linked to liminal or perpetual conditions of strangerhood. By looking […]

The African Centre for Migration & Society invites you to a seminar titled Lagos Budding 50: Storytelling project on Migration and Resilience presented by Helen Gebregiorgis (Project Manager, African Photo Stories). Inspired by the May 2017 'Lagos @ 50 Celebrations' highlighting prominent and influential Lagosians, Lagos: Budding 50  is a visual storytelling project that honours and recognises the contributions of young, everyday Lagosians in the development of the megacity. Different storytelling methods were utilized throughout the interviews with participants, such as photography, videography, and audio recording. Through exploration of identity, migration and resilience, Lagos: Budding 50 celebrates the stories of diverse, ambitious and resilient young Lagosians as they strive to better themselves and their communities. The project is inspired by and dedicated to the people of Lagos. Striving to contribute towards a balanced perspective of Africa, the Africa Photo Stories website is an initiative to build bridges of connection between the global community and the African community through storytelling methods, one story at a time. Biography Helen Gebregiorgis is a visual storyteller, passionate about Africa, peace-building, and human connection. It wasn’t until her first trip to the continent, that she truly understood that Africa was more than just a handful of stories. It was […]

As part of the Lunchtime Seminar Series, the African Centre for Migration & Society invites you to a seminar titled The Safe Country Concept in International Agreements: Past, Present and Future of State Practice presented by María-Teresa Gil-Bazo (Senior Lecturer in Law and Convenor of Newcastle University Research Group on International Studies in Forced Migration). One of the expressions of international cooperation among States in the field of refugee protection is the adoption of international agreements that implement the “safe country” concept. This presentation examines the legal background to these concepts and State practice by considering three select case studies: South Africa, Spain and the US. The presentation analyses the legal implications and significance of issues arising and provides a critique of the system and its premises. In particular, the presentation considers whether a multilateral arrangement – such as the Dublin III Regulation or the Canada-US Agreement – has the potential to become a model for the development of an inter-State agreement whereby one of the State Parties effectively delivers all relevant international obligations (including the right to asylum) on behalf of all States bound by such system. The dual nature of the system is analysed, as an operational instrument creating obligations between […]

As part of the Lunchtime Seminar Series, the African Centre for Migration & Society invites you to a seminar titled The Regional Protection of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa presented by Dr Romola Adeola (Postdoctoral Researcher, African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand). Internal displacement has emerged as a pertinent challenge in Africa. Yearly, millions of people are internally displaced on the continent due to conflict and other factors.  With the reality that more than half of the continent was internally displaced in the early 2000s, African leaders developed the Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa in 2009. This presentation examines the content of this framework, regional developments towards its realization and some key challenges that must be addressed in fostering compliance of states with the legal framework. Biography Dr Romola Adeola is a lawyer with expertise in international law specifically in areas of migration, refugee protection, development and human rights law and policy. She has lectured and presented at various conferences on the protection of refugees, internally displaced persons and migrants at various Universities. She has served extensively as a consultant for governments and international institutions on issues of migration. She has a Doctorate in […]

Today, youth migration is becoming an increasingly important phenomenon in the field of transnational migration studies. Yet, migration scholarship and immigration law continue to presume that migrants are first and foremost adult actors making relatively autonomous consensual decisions to become mobile. When youth migration is discussed, it is often normatively assumed that parental neglect or a breakdown in parental care are the cause. Adults are frequently seen as the primarydecision-makers and providers for children and, thus, are often responsible—or culpable—for a young person’s migration. The corresponding position of the child as inferior or somehow exclusively dependent on parents stands in marked contrast to the integral roles children often assume in familial decision-making processes, as well as to the decisions they make as social actors and migrants in their own right. This interdisciplinary conference seeks to disrupt the adult bias in migration literature by uniting emerging and established scholars and practitioners to investigate both the conceptual and territorial migration of children and youth across diverse international contexts. Hosted by the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and co-sponsored by the Migration and Health Project (maHp) and the American Anthropological Association’s Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG), this conference promises to engage a […]

As part of the Lunchtime Seminar Series, the African Centre for Migration & Society invites you to a seminar titled Do Migrants Matter? A Comparative Analysis of the Causes of Death Among Sub-Saharan Immigrants and Local South Africans, 2009-2015 by Lorena Nunez Carrasco (Department of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand); Abha Jaiswal (Research and Information System for Developing Countries); Michel K. Muteba (School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand) and Jairo Arrow (Statistics South Africa). Migrants form an integral part of South Africa. In line with South Africa’s status as a signatory of the Refugees Act, migrants have been included in the population that will receive basic health care services under the National Health Insurance (NHI). Understanding the burden of disease of migrants will play a significant role in the sustainability of NHI. Against this backdrop, this presentation analyses the causes of death registered by Statistics South Africa  (Stats SA) for the years 2009 to 2015 and compares African migrants from four countries with the largest population in the country (Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe,) and local South Africans. Initial findings show a much higher percentage of unnatural deaths among foreign nationals from these countries when compared with the local population. Using the CDC10 coding and […]

As part of the Lunchtime Seminar Series, the African Centre for Migration & Society invites you to a seminar titled Immigration and the Labor Market Outcomes of Natives in Developing Countries: A Case Study of South Africa by Nzinga Broussard (Millennium Challenge Corporation). Using South African census data from 2001, 2007, and 2011, Nzinga examines the effect that immigration had on labor market outcomes of native-born black South Africans. Using instrumental variables to control for the potential endogenous location choices of immigrants to South Africa, the results show that immigrant inflows decreased the employment-to- population ratios and total annual income of black native-born South Africans. Additionally, results suggest a negative effect of immigrant inflows on the employment ratio and total annual income of black native-born South Africans employed in the formal sector. Results show that immigration caused an intersectoral employment shift. For black male South Africans, the composition of the employed labor force shifted to the formal sector, and for black female South Africans, the composition of the employed labor force shifted to the informal sector. Biography  Dr. Nzinga Broussard is an applied micro-economist with over nine years of experience in the areas of development, labor, and agricultural economics. She has several publications in peer-reviewed […]

As part of the Lunchtime Seminar Series, the African Centre for Migration & Society invites you to a seminar titled Gathering family histories from migrants and the women left behind: A methods perspective by Grascious Ncube (Development Studies, University of the Witwatersrand). Within the growing scholarship on transnational migration, the methodological approaches and time perspective employed in these studies have received some criticism. One of the major critiques is that research tends to focus more on the transmigrants (those who move) and neglects those who remain behind. In addition, studies have failed to trace processes of intergenerational flows in migrant families over multiple generations, thus failing to incorporate family migration trajectories from a historical perspective. Indeed, relatively few migration studies are anchored on tracing the historical interactions and dynamics of migrant families and some criticisms have been levelled against the methodological approaches used by these studies. For example, these have been criticised for proffering situational realities based on individuals’ narratives whose standpoints are fluid and shaped by the continual changes in their context. This issue questions the adequacy, authenticity and epistemological validity of the reality presented in these family history accounts. This presentation addresses  some of these criticisms through the use of multi-sited ethnography to […]

As part of the Lunchtime Seminar Series, the African Centre for Migration & Society invites you to a seminar titled Why Europe should NOT serve as best practice: A critical view on how Europe tries to approach the continuous movement of refugees to Europe by Ulrich Stege (International University College of Turin). As many other regions in the world, also Europe has faced a significant growth of asylum seekers and refugees in the recent years. Often this phenomenon is referred to as the “European Refugee Crisis”. Although the growth in numbers of asylum seekers and refugees is a fact, this situation should however be better named as the “Crisis of the European Asylum System”. We can indeed observe, that the current practice in relation to asylum is characterised by a large and growing gap between the humanitarian or human rights rhetoric of the European states and their actual behaviour. While there are certainly a number of elements of the Common European Asylum System, which could be considered as best or at least interesting practices, this presentation however will focus on the demonstration of why the current asylum practice in Europe is failing to achieve its aims and therefore should not be considered a positive example […]

As part of the Lunchtime Seminar Series, the African Centre for Migration & Society invites you to a seminar titled Pentecosmopolis: Lagos and its Pentecostalisms by Dr. Obvious Katsaura (Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand). Based on an ethnography of Lagos – one of the most Pentecostal cities in the world – this presentation develops the conceptual metaphors of ‘Pentecosmopolis’ and ‘pentecosmopolitanism’ to capture the role of Pentecostalisms in the crafting of urban diversities and vibrancies. The presentation disbands the ideas of Pentecosmopolis and pentecosmopolitanism into three derivative and interconnected sub-concepts of ‘pentecosmopolitan spatialities’, ‘pentecosmopolitan lifeworlds’ and ‘pentecosmopolitan practices’. The sub-concept of pentecosmopolitan spatialities analyses the role of Pentecostalisms in the diversification and complexification of the spatial character and life of the city. That of pentecosmopolitan lifeworlds explicates the place of Pentecostalisms in the making of urban imaginations relating to domains and ecologies of spirits, beliefs and symbolisms. The translation of pentecosmopolitan lifeworlds into economic, social and political practices is analysed through the sub-concept of pentecosmopolitan practices. This study, thus, contributes to the projects of ‘religionising urban theory’ and ‘urbanising theories of religion’. Biography Dr. Obvious Katsaura is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand. He previously worked […]