12/10/2015
The Departments of Anthropological Sciences, and International Relations,University of Malta,
and the Organization for Intra Cultural Development (OICD)
AT THE BORDERS OF IDENTITY:
FORCES OF COHESION AND DIVISION IN EUROPEAN MIGRATION AT
LOCAL, NATIONAL, & EUROPEAN LEVELS
A ONE DAY WORKSKOP
15 October 2015
The Sir Jack Goody Library, Valletta Campus, St Paulâs Street, Valletta, Malta.
9.30.am -12.35.pm; and 2.00pm - 5.00pm
Migration of peoples into Europe is more than a challenge to the physical capacities, the political or economic systems, or the policy infrastructures that have been built to manage migration in the past. Migration has always challenged, and will increasingly threaten, the
established âborders of identityâ that have been built to contain ideas about who it is that âweâ are.
This oneâday workshopâconference aims to combine academic, practitioner and governmental perspectives to uncover how, under the influence of migration, identities can shift to challenge, sometimes divide â and at other times reâconstellate â our senses of who âweâ are, as well as that of âothersâ. Divisions occur, for instance, at the point of entry into the EU, as ânonâEuropeansâ pose new challenges to different concepts of identity:
those based on locality, on national citizenship (with all its attendant comfortable cultural baggage), and on âEuropean Valuesâ. Migrations can thus severely challenge different, and sometimes competing, senses of identity, posing new identity, ethical and political dilemmas and re-definitions for the self and others affecting both hosts and migrants.
Current events in Europe raise further questions not just about the immediate responses to âhumanitarian crisesâ (and how it is presented, worked out, and âmanagedâ by the different political actors, including national states, the EU, civil society, the media, and populist movements), but also about the courses of action that European citizens and their political representatives, have engaged in â and, in some cases, the active and/or passive
inaction that has led to such massive, historically unprecedented, population movements.