Postcolonial Migration and Citizenship in Multi-cultural Societies

Migration and mobility of an increasing amount of people is one of today's major global challenges. Migration means crossing borders, questioning sovereignty of national states and raising questions about belonging and citizenship. Specific laws, institutions and practices within different countries create decisive conditions for migration and migrants. These conditions determine who can migrate and to where they can migrate. These conditions exclude some people, include others and create categories that in turn determine what kind of protection, reception and settlement that will be possible. This course is intended for those who in their current or future work meet people with experience of migration as well as for those who are curious about migration and want to know more about how different societies and societal institutions respond to migration. This course concentrates specifically on three main issues: why people migrate, how ideas about migration and images of migrants are constructed, and what the impact is of different theories of nation, citizenship, diversity, sovereignty, and belonging at various levels in contemporary society. The course examines how categorizations of refugees, migrants, and their different statuses are formed in intersections between various discourses and policies in Sweden, the EU, and on a global scale. During the course, current theories, ethics and political discourses of postcolonial migration are presented and problematized. Accordingly, these theories provide the ground for more indepth study and analysis of the connection between postcolonial migration and discourses about citizenship and belonging in the context of globalization and nation state. Moreover, the course will explore how these discourses can determine processes of inclusion and exclusion and impact conditions regarding diversity in pluralistic societies. The course is combined with program students at the Faculty of Social Sciences and national-, international- and exchange students who study independent course.