Conference :  « FAMILIES, CONSTRUCTIONS OF FOREIGNNESS AND MIGRATION IN 20th CENTURY WESTERN EUROPE ». KU Leuven, Belgium, May 15-16 2008.

This conference aims at comparing policies, perceptions and experiences with regard to family and migration in twentieth century Western Europe. It will discuss how family figured in political and cultural constructions of foreignness in the past century, as well as how these policies and stereotypes shaped and were shaped by family-related strategies, experiences and identities of migrants or their relatives. A selection of the conference proceedings will be published in History of the Family. An International Quarterly.

Programme

THURSDAY 15 MAY 2008

9.30-11.00 Session 1: Concepts and challenges

 Chair: Idesbald Goddeeris

 Commentator: Kristen Stromberg Childers *

1. Leen Beyers (MoSa, KU Leuven)

Welcome

2. Mary Chamberlain (History, Oxford Brookes University)

'Migration and families. History and memory'

3. Marlou Schrover (History, Leiden Universiteit)

'Vulnerability and constructions of family and gender'

11.00-11.30 Coffee

11.30-13.00 Session 2: Constructions of foreignness and migration politics

 Chair: Idesbald Goddeeris

 Commentator: Frank Caestecker

4. Johanna Leinonen (History, University of Minnesotta)

'Marriage, migration, and the nation-state: Twentieth century Finns and Americans in Finland and the U.S'

5. Flavia Cumoli (Histoire contemporaine, Université Libre de Bruxelles; Università di Bologna)

'Migration, housing policies of the welfare state and 'the nuclear family' in Italy and Belgium in the 1950s'

6. Amin Perez (Ecole Normale Supérieure et Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris)

'The 'state thinking', the media and the making of a 'second generation' citizenship in France (1970-1990)'

13.00-14.00 Lunch

14.00-15.30 Session 3: Family strategies and experiences of migrants I

 Chair: Marlou Schrover

 Commentator: Mary Chamberlain

7. Heike Drotbohm (Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Freiburg)

 'Frontiering proximities. Inequalities, vulnerabilities and disconnections in transnational Cape Verdean families'

8. Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot (Unité de Recherche Migration et Société, URMIS, Université Paris 7 Denis Diderot)

 'Reinforcing motherhood through migration. Family in the perspective of Filipino migrant mothers in France'

9. Leen Beyers (MoSa, KU Leuven), Chris Timmerman (Centrum voor Migratie en Interculturele Studies, Universiteit Antwerpen)

 'Continuity and change in the economic and marriage migration from Emirdag (Turkey) to Belgium'

16.15-17.45 Session 4: Children and migration

 Chair: Louis Vos

 Commentator: Heike Drotbohm

10. Hanna Markusson Winkvist (Historiska Institutionen, Göteborg University)

 'The Orphan Myth. Adoption on the Swedish agenda'

11. Vera Hajto (MoSa, KU Leuven)

 'De hongaartjes. Experiences of Hungarian children living with Belgian foster families in the interwar period'

12. Idesbald Goddeeris (MoSa, KU Leuven)

 'Divided families? The children of Polish domestic workers in Belgium'

FRIDAY 16 MAY 2008

9.30-11.00 Session 5: Family strategies and experiences of migrants II

 Chair: Machteld Venken

 Commentator: Marlou Schrover

13. Louise Ryan (Policy Research Centre, Middlesex University)

 'Work, family, agency: Irish and Polish women in Britain in the post-war period'

14. Albert Kraler, Veronika Bilger, Elisabeth Strasser (ICMPD, International Centre for Migration Policy Development, Wenen)

 'Doing family. Responses to the constructions of 'the migrant family' across Europe'

15. Konstantinos Mantzos (University of Ioannina, Griekenland) en Athina Peglidou (University of Thessaly, Griekenland)

 'Families and lines. Family-related migration at the Greek-Albanian Border'

11.30-13.00 Session 6: Public and private representations of family among migrants and their descendants

 Chair: Leen Beyers

 Commentator: Louise Ryan

16. Cristina Johnston (School of Languages, Cultures and Religions, University of Stirling)

‘Ta mère, ta race’: filiation and the sacralisation and vilification of the mother in French banlieue cinema'

17. Fabienne Lentz (Laboratoires d'Histoire, Université du Luxembourg)

'Private memory, family and gender versus the myth of the exemplary integration of Italians in Luxemburg'

18. Machteld Venken (MoSa, KU Leuven)

'Families and silences: Ostarbeiterinnen in Belgium'

14.00-15.30 Session 7: (Post)colonial foreignness and family migration policies

 Chair: Michel Dumoulin *

 Commentator: Chris Timmerman *

19. Kristen Stromberg Childers (History, University of Pennsylvania)

'Departmentalization, migration, and the politics of the family in the post-war French Caribbean'

20. Sarah Van Walsum (Rechten, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

'Sex and the regulation of belonging. Dutch family migration policies in the context of changing family norms'

16.00-17.30 Concluding discussion

 Chairs: Leen Beyers, Machteld Venken

 Discussants

 Leo Lucassen (History, Leiden Universiteit)

 Jan Kok (International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam)

(*: to be confirmed)

Organizing committee

Dr. Leen Beyers (Modernity and Society - MoSa, 1800-2000, KU Leuven)

 Machteld Venken (MoSa, KU Leuven)

 Prof. dr. Idesbald Goddeeris (MoSa, KU Leuven)

 Prof. dr. Louis Vos (MoSa, KU Leuven)

 Prof. dr. Marlou Schrover (Geschiedenis, Universiteit Leiden)

 Prof. dr. Michel Dumoulin (Histoire contemporaine, Université Catholique de Louvain).

Inscription

http://www2.arts.kuleuven.be/info/mosaconference