Background

Significant migrant groups in Western and Northern European Countries originate from other European countries, both EU and non-EU member states. These “intra-European” migrants consist of groups as different and differently regarded as for example: Swedish and Icelandic young workers in Norway; Romani groups all over Europe, former Yugoslav war refugees from the 1990s; the old “guest workers” from the 1960s, 70s and 80s  from South and South-East Europe in countries such as Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Luxembourg; the new groups of “work refugees” from the economic crisis in Greece and Spain, for example, and many other migrants from all sorts of backgrounds, on all sorts of migration paths and with all sorts of reasons for migration.

The conference will choose case studies and papers that reflect on issues raised by these migrants’ presence in the host societies,  primarily issues concerning who is regarded as European and non-European, and in which contexts. Europe , being a discursive construction and not only a geographical term (although not having clear-cut geographical borders), can include and exclude different geographic areas depending on one´s point of view. It can be imagined as narrowly as including only European Union states (and even those judged as differently “European”), or as widely as including the Russian Federation, Turkey, the Caucausus , etc.

The main questions we are bringing to the debate are these:

• What is imagined as Europe and who is European?
• How does "intra-European" migration influence the way we look at the questions raised by immigration?
• How do "European" immigrants experience their status in relation to their lands of origin and their host countries?
• How do "European" immigrants experience their status in relation to other migrants and the majority groups?
• What role does "Europeanness" play in relation to questions regarding the integration of migrants, discrimination and “othering”?

Approaches

We are interested primarily in, but not limited to, contributions from discourse and narrative studies. The approaches may be historical or contemporary, transnational or local. In particular we encourage applications from PhD students who conduct research on topics related to the conference theme, but we welcome applications from all researchers in related fields.

Key Note Speakers

We are pleased to announce key lecturer by professor Andreas Mussolf (University of East Anglia) and Klas Grinell (Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg)

General info:

Cost: The conference is free to attend and will include complimentary  lunch and coffee for all participants on both days. All paper presenters will be invited to an official dinner on Thursday, 7 November.

Financial help: A limited number of travel and accomodation scholarships will be available for researchers without travel funds. Please specify in your application whether you wish to be considered for  this financial help.

Location: The conference will be hosted at the Blindern Campus of the University of Oslo. Rådsalen at “Lucy Smiths hus” (administration building): http://www.uio.no/om/finn-fram/omrader/blindern/bl01

Titles and abstracts (app. 500 words), along with a short bio-note (less than 100 words) are to be sent to by 1st of September 2013 to email moreorless@hf.uio.no

Organizers

The conference is organized by:

Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages 

Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages

Department of Cultural studies and Oriental languages Department of Archeology, Conservation and History