Transatlantic Conference - Canadian Embassy Berlin, November 7 - 9, 2005

Citizenship - Ethnos - Multiculturalism: North American Models in Comparative Perspective is a major conference organised by the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation, Berlin, the University of Toronto and the Canadian Embassy. The conference will bring some of the most distinguished scholars, journalists and practitioners from Canada and the USA to Berlin into debate with colleagues from Europe (Please find attached a list of invited speakers). We would like to invite you and would be delighted and honoured if you could join us.

This conference is a follow up meeting to a conference we held in Toronto in October 2003. While the earlier conference focused primarily on European conditions, we will now address the North American situation in greater detail. First, we shall need to present and analyze basic issues in North American migration at large, sketching how it has evolved since 1945 and focusing on new developments since the early 1980s. We will then look at the ways in which the citizenship debate has proceeded and how the problem of citizenship, in relation to immigration, has been dealt with by Canada and the United States. We need to take a look, furthermore, at how migrants have responded to their situation, most importantly, what sort of institutional structures they have elaborated and how these structures—religious organisations, landsmannschaften, political and other types of ethnic clubs—relate to the host society.
 
More specifically, we shall address a number of case studies that highlight how North American and European structures may differ, and we will organise respective sessions, accordingly:

• Citizenship in North America and Europe (Citizenship laws and possible repercussions; what lessons are to be learned from across the Atlantic?)
• Transnationalism, Multiculturalism and “New Assimilation” (Theories about incorporating immigrants into host societies, case studies: how are immigrants adapting to their host societies?; the role of education and the labour market)
• Muslims in Western Democracies (Immigrant religious networks and institutions; cultural and ideological conflicts such as the headscarf debate; the turban debate in Canada)
• Immigrant Mobilization and Political Representation (Political Parties, NGOs and Immigrants)

This conference shall draw comparisons to the incorporation of immigrants in Europe and in North America.  Canada has long been pointed to as an example of  “successful” incorporation and its multiculturalist policies have served as a model.  Although there are apparent differences, the same holds for the United States. It is expected, therefore, that the participants will enter into a dialogue with Americans and Canadians in order to further not only their knowledge of the North American conditions, but also of their understanding of the European situation and of migration at large.

Programme

Date
Monday, 07^th until Wednesday, 09^th November 2005

Venue
Canadian Embassy in Berlin
Leipziger Platz 17, D-10117 Berlin

Registration
closed

congress fees
none

Information
multiculturalism@boell.de

Keynote Addresses

Aristide Zolberg  -  Old-Fashioned Borders, Up-to-date Migrants: The Challenges of Integration in the 21st Century (Abstract)

Marieluise Beck  -  Citizenship and Multiculturalism in Germany and Europe

Himani Bannerji  -  The state of difference or a different state? (Abstract)

Barbara John  -   A multicultural society - a land of promises?


Session I: Citizenship in North America and Europe

Aristide Zolberg  -  Citizenship and Multiculturalism in the USA

Thomas Faist  -  The New Politics of Citizenship in Germany (Abstract)

Phil Triadafilopoulos  -  Comparative Citizenship – Canada and Germany (Abstract)

Sylvia Corona  -  The American experience and the transformation of the British Race-Relations’ paradigm (Abstract)

Session II: Transnationalism, Multiculturalism and “New Assimilation”

Catherine Audard  -  Multiculturalism and Politics of Recognition: The Case of France (Abstract)

Eric Fong  -  Ethnic Residential Boundaries in a Multicultural City (Abstract)

Halleh Ghorashi  -  How Dual is Transnational Identity?  (Abstract)

Peggy Levitt  -  God Needs No Passport: Transnational Migration and Religion (Abstract)


Session III: Muslims in Western Democracies

Fiona Adamson   -  Political Entrepreneurs, Identity Politics and the Emergence of ‘Muslim’ as a Political Category (Abstract)

Jocelyne Cesari   -   Islam within Multicultural Democracies: A Transatlantic Comparison (Abstract)

Donald Forbes  -  Liberal Values and Illiberal Cultures: The Question of Sharia Tribunals in Ontario (Abstract)

Jytte Klausen  -  The Challenge of Islam: Politics and Religion in Western Europe (Abstract)

Val Moghadam   -   Iranian Immigrants in the US  (Abstract)


Session IV: Immigrant Mobilization and Political Representation
  
Pedro Cavallero  -  A Promising 'Threat'?  - The Emergence of Hispanic America

Patricia Landolt  -  Narrating the Diaspora, Organizing the Translocal: Salvadoran Migrant Associations in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Toronto  (Abstract)

Caroline Nagel  -  The Mobilization of Arab Identities and Communities in Multicultural Britain (Abstract)