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11. A Foreign Affair: Billy Wilder's American Films

Author:
Gerd Gemünden
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Berghahn Books
Abstract:
With six Academy Awards, four entries on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 greatest American movies, and more titles on the National Historic Register of classic films deemed worthy of preservation than any other director, Billy Wilder counts as one of the most accomplished filmmakers ever to work in Hollywood. Yet how American is Billy Wilder, the Jewish émigré from Central Europe? This book underscores this complex issue, unpacking underlying contradictions where previous commentators routinely smoothed them out. Wilder emerges as an artist with roots in sensationalist journalism and the world of entertainment as well as with an awareness of literary culture and the avant-garde, features that lead to productive and often highly original confrontations between high and low.
Topic:
Immigration, Media, Film, and Material Culture
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, California, Germany, and Central Europe

12. Choice of Language and the Quest for Israeli Identity in the Works of Tuvia Ruebner and Aharon Appelfeld

Author:
Michal Ben-Horin
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:
Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:
Immigration highlights the question of language and raises the dilemma of the relationship between the mother tongue and the language of the new land. For writers this question is even more crucial: should they write in the language of the place and its readers? Immigration to Israel is not exceptional, of course. What choices are open to those writers, and how are they to convey the complexities inherent in the formation of an Israeli identity? This paper focuses on two writers who demonstrate the role played by the “chosen language” in the cultural construction and deconstruction of Israeli identity. Tuvia Ruebner emigrated from Bratislava, Aharon Appelfeld from Bukovina. Ruebner shifted from German to Hebrew and back to German; Appelfeld wrote only in Hebrew. In both cases, their arrival in Israel en- abled them to survive. However, the loss of their families in Europe continued to haunt them. Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s concept of ‘translation’ and responding to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concept of ‘minor literature’, the paper shows how their work conveys a mul- tilayered interrelation between national and foreign languages, and between images of exile and homeland, past, present and future – all of which shed light on contemporary issues of Israeli identity.
Topic:
Nationalism, Immigration, Culture, Displacement, Language, and Identity
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, and Israel

13. The Influence of Economic Migration on the Polish Economy

Author:
Agata Górny, Paweł Kaczmarczyk, and Joanna Tyrowicz
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Social and Economic Research - CASE
Abstract:
In the ongoing public debate on economic migration to Poland, emotional statements, or those without any basis in data, often have the upper hand. But in order to speak rationally about Poland as a destination country for immigrants, it is necessary to fully understand the conditions – and in particular the weaknesses – of the Polish labor market. It’s also worth becoming aware of the scale of the processes being discussed. In the 149th mBank-CASE Seminar Proceedings, Joanna Tyrowicz analyzes whether immigration could be a significant labor market driver in Poland. Paweł Kaczmarczyk and Agata Górny discuss the structural consequences of the inflow of Ukrainian workers to the Polish labor market.
Topic:
Markets, Migration, Labor Issues, Immigration, and Economy
Political Geography:
Europe, Poland, and European Union

14. Breaching Fortress Europe: By Any Means Necessary: The Complications of African Migration to Europe

Author:
Mojúbàolú Olufúnké Okome
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Ìrìnkèrindò: a Journal of African Migration
Abstract:
Although African migration to Europe dates back to antiquity, Africans’ presence in Europe increased substantially from the 1960s, especially since the imposition of neoliberal reforms in the 1980s, and the political crisis that consumed some African countries in the 1990s and 2000s. There has also been increased migration to Europe by the few skilled and professional Africans allowed to take advantage of opportunities that have opened up for employment in fields where there is a dearth of expertise. Nevertheless, predominant conceptualization of Africans’ movement into Europe entails breaching an impregnable fortress, using any means at their disposal. Those making irregular migration includes as a mix of refugees, asylees, documented and undocumented migrants. However, European economic crises and the vulnerabilities spawned in consequence, have laid bare politicized, securitized, xenophobic and callous responses, particularly in the frontline states that receive what is increasingly perceived as a “deluge.” Given the siege mentality that has developed around migration, the negative xenophobic attitudes, discourses and policies that emerge from them, and the increased securitization of migration, the siege characterization seems even more apt.
Topic:
Migration, Refugee Issues, Immigration, and Refugees
Political Geography:
Africa and Europe

15. WHAT EUROPE CAN EXPECT FROM GERMANY'S CHANGING MIGRATION POLICY

Author:
Fabrizio Tassinari and Sebastian Tetzlaff
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
While the refugee crisis has exposed the severe limitations of EU decision-making, German choices have had a knock-on effect on the rest of Europe. The politicization of German migration policy will likely force Angela Merkel to take a step towards more conservative positions ahead of the 2017 federal election. This will again require the EU to adjust to Berlin’s policy turns.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Migration, Immigration, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

16. PEOPLE FACE INSECURITY AND THREATS AFTER FORCED RETURNS

Author:
Maybritt Jill Alpes and Ninna Nyberg Sørensen
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The current European Agenda on Migration aims at reducing the arrival of asylum seekers and irregular migrants. For this purpose, various mechanisms of ‘effective and humane return’ are introduced. But can deportation ever be humane and what would be required? VU postdoc researcher Maibritt Jill Alpes and DIIS senior researcher Ninna Nyberg Sørensen take a closer look at international cooperation on migration and the risks migrants and rejected asylum seekers may face upon a forced return. They argue that international cooperation on migration has criminalized departure and consequently contributed to put forcible retuned people at risk not only of economic and psychosocial harm, but also of monetary extraction, arbitrary detention and criminal persecution in the hands of state agents. They argue that more emphasis must be put on different post-deportation risks and measures to avoid them in order to guarantee the safety of border apprehended and returned persons.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, International Cooperation, Immigration, and Refugee Crisis
Political Geography:
Europe

17. Hotspots, Rights Denied: The lack of a legal framework is threatening the rights of migrants reaching Italy

Author:
Guilia Capitani
Publication Date:
06-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The flow of migrants into Italy continues to be dealt with as an 'emergency' situation. The EU's 'hotspot' approach, outlined in the European Agenda for Migration of May 2015 as a short-term measure, has been implemented in Italy and Greece and is an approach involving EU officers, in collaboration with national authorities, in the identification, fingerprinting and registration of migrants. This paper from Oxfam Italia examines the hotspot approach in Italy through the experiences of humanitarian agencies and civil society organizations on the ground, and through the voices of migrants themselves. It concludes that, due to the lack of a legal framework, the hotspot approach seriously violates the fundamental rights of people reaching Italian shores. Oxfam calls for the Italian government and the European Union to define hotspot procedures and activities in EU and national regulations and to take medium-term action to expand the capacity of the receiving and support systems in Italy.
Topic:
Migration, Diaspora, Immigration, Refugees, and Legal Theory
Political Geography:
Europe, Greece, Italy, and Mediterranean

18. European Union Boarders in the Face of Insecurities (2015-2016)

Author:
Mira Kaneva
Publication Date:
09-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Security and International Studies (ISIS)
Abstract:
The associative definition of borders implies the separation or the connection between two contrasting units (even in terms of their coloring on the geographic map). Thus the inherent intermediate position of borders has always marked the bordering practices between and within political communities. In international relations studies, though, despite the centrality of borders in policy-making, border studies are reduced to a marginal position. Ironically, border studies are driven to the periphery of academic research due to the prevailing misconception of them as epiphenomena at the expense of core phenomena such as state, sovereignty, and territory
Topic:
International Organization, Immigration, and Political stability
Political Geography:
Europe

19. Producing Undesirables at the Border. Border Control Practices at a European Airport | La fabrique des indésirables Pratiques de contrôle aux frontières dans un aéroport européen

Author:
Andrew Crosby and Andrea Rea
Publication Date:
09-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cultures & Conflits
Institution:
Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:
Based on empirical research in a European airport, this article analyses how border guards control third-country nationals by advancing an anthropology of the power of border control as exhibited by the use of symbolic violence and discretionary state power. Leaning on the theories of street-level bureaucracies and organizations, we analyze the work practices, professional routines and organization of the work of border guards in order to show how border guards activate and constitute the border and the control of mobility. We argue that control at the airport is based both on the influence of the network-border and on a dramaturgical performance of bureaucratic governance, which is meant to create legitimate travelers and undesirable passengers, while circumventing potential protests of the latter and simulating accountability toward the broader public of citizens. As such, border control is more of a symbolic act than an efficient tool of immigration policy.
Topic:
Immigration, Border Control, Borders, and Bureaucracy
Political Geography:
Europe

20. Europe Facing its Migration and Refugee Challenges: EU, Nation States and Civic Society

Author:
Vaclav Havel Library
Publication Date:
05-2016
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Vaclav Havel Library
Abstract:
The Václav Havel European Dialogues is an internation- al project that aims to initiate and stimulate a discussion about issues determining the direction of contemporary Europe while referring to the European spiritual legacy of Václav Havel. This idea takes its main inspiration from Václav Havel’s essay “Power of the Powerless”. More than other similarly focused projects, the Václav Havel Euro- pean Dialogues aims to offer the “powerless” a platform to express themselves and in so doing to boost their posi- tion within Europe. The Václav Havel European Dialogues is planned as a long-term project and involves cooperation with other organisations in various European cities. Indi- vidual meetings, which take the form of a conference, are targeted primarily at secondary and third-level students, as well as specialists and members of the public interested in European issues.
Topic:
Migration, Regional Cooperation, Immigration, Border Control, European Union, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Europe