Migration, Power and Identity
Summary
This course provides you with in-depth insights into processes and theories of global migration. It builds on an ethnographic perspective, which means that you will gain an insider’s view into themes such as migration trajectories, the migration industry, and challenges and issues in receiving societies. The course includes a field study, in which you will practice ethnographic interactive methods.
About
This course provides you with in-depth insights into processes and theories of global migration. Thus, it gives theory-driven insights into one of the most topical issues of our time. You will study contemporary patterns of global mobility and discuss different analytical approaches exploring these processes. You will also examine the role of the nation-state in migration processes as well as globalized forms of belonging and identity, such as diasporas and transnational communities.
The course builds on ethnographic perspectives, which means that you will gain an insider’s view into different actors’ practices and ideas. You will follow migrants in their trajectories between countries of origin and destination and you will learn how migration brokers navigate systems of migration control in order to facilitate the departure of their clients. You will also get an insight into the migration industry itself, and its production of the “illegal migrant”. Moreover, you will learn about the challenges and issues in receiving societies. Based on critical whiteness studies, the course also explores empirical examples of how people categorized as “immigrants” respond to discursive and structural violence.
The course develops through different themes:
- global migration
- migrants’ trajectories
- transnationalism and diaspora
- critical whiteness studies
- challenges and issues in receiving societies
Each theme is presented in a lecture and discussed at a seminar. Examination includes individual seminar papers and a field study. The field study shall focus on how a selected group of people experience mobility, identity, and/or belonging in relation to one or more of the course’s themes. This study gives you the opportunity to apply ethnographic perspectives and carry out qualitative interviews and analysis.
Prerequisites and selection
Requirements
A completed core course of 15 higher education credits in the second cycle within the field of global studies. Alternatively a completed undergraduate degree in social sciences, or the equivalent competence. Language requirements: English 6/English B from Swedish Upper Secondary School or the equivalent level of an internationally recognized test, for example TOEFL, IELTS, or alternatively a bachelor's degree from an education held in English.
Selection
Selection is based upon the number of credits from previous university studies, maximum 285 credits
After graduation
This course gives you in-depth knowledge of migration and gives you an advantage in the labor market since many workplaces request specialist knowledge on migration, identity, and power. Both on the Swedish and on an international level, there is a wide range of government and non-government organizations concerned with issues of globalization, migration, refugees, integration, and segregation. Graduates from migration studies typically work with planning, advocacy, and investigatory work.
