The largest European research network of academics and professionals in the areas of migration and integration met for its first annual online conference on the 1st and 2nd of July 2020. Four CIES-Iscte researchers participated in this meeting with papers.

The IMISCOE Annual Conference aims to support the exchange of ideas and knowledge among its members, giving them the opportunity to present and discuss papers and get feedback.

In response to the current pandemic and its effects, the plenary sessions theme was "Mobilities and Immobilities in Pandemic Times".

CIES-Iscte integrates the IMISCOE - International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe Network, with researcher Raquel Matias as representative.

 


 

CIES-ISCTE PAPERS AT IMISCOE CONFERENCE

 

Panel 36. Migrant political participation in contexts of increased mobility, migrant criminalization and solida-rity: comparing cases from Europe

Remaking community unionism. Labour and political activism among Spanish and Italian migrants in Germany
Author(s): Simone Castellani, Beltran Roca. CIES-Iscte – Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, Universidad de Cadiz

Abstract:
This paper explores labour organizations and collective actions among Spaniards and Italians who have migrated to Germany during the last economic recession. Even if the majority of this people who move freely within the EU are highly educated and have a ‘cosmopolitan’ profile, by and large they have ente-red the German secondary labour market in jobs below their academic qualifications. Moreover, when they seek to claim for social and labour rights as EU citizens they have had to face an increasing ‘welfare chauvinism’. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with activists and ethnographic observations of mi-grant organizations in Berlin, the paper reflects on the processes of organizational ‘bricolage’. The authors show, first, how migrant workers combine creatively elements from different ethnic, national and political traditions in order to develop innovative forms of community unionism, including organizational forms, practices and repertories of collective action. Secondly, the paper points out how migrants play actively with these tools transnationally in relations with existing trade unions and political organizations both in contexts of origin and destination.


Panel 81. Family Transformations and Gender Dynamics


Gender dynamics throughout migrants’ life course. The case of older Portuguese migrants in Switzerland
Author(s): Liliana Azevedo. CIES-Iscte, Iscte / NCCR-on the move

Abstract:
How does migration regime interplay with gender regime? Which consequences can we observe at the time of migration and throughout the life course? This communication focuses on the period before the Swiss-EU bilateral agreement on the free movement of people (< 2002)

 
Panel 94. Brazilian Migration in Time of Crisis: A New and Diverse Flow

Brazilian in Portugal: discussing waves and policies.
Author(s): Beatriz Padilla. CIES-Iscte, Iscte/ University of South Florida

Abstract:
Since the 1980s, Brazilian migration to Portugal has been studied through the concept of waves. The first wave in the 1980s was composed by a reduced number of qualified works, computer programmers, advertising executives and dentists. From the late 1990s, flows profile changed: increasing growth, fe-minization and unbalanced labour market insertion and diverse qualification levels. Based on this fact, academics and migration experts supported the existence of a first and second wave of Brazilian migrant to Portugal. From 2011-2016, Brazilian immigration presented signs of decline in Portugal, both in the stock number and in the entry flows, mixed with an increase of the return of settled Brazilians to the home country, however since 2016, Brazilians started to arrive again, exhibiting different features, which we name third wave, revealing a profile associated to investment, international students and professionals. Along with analyzing the waves, this paper aims at analyzing how waves interwave with policies in the field of migration and integration.


The “new” skilled Brazilian flow to Portugal: fleeing the crisis arriving in the Eldorado.
Author(s): Thais França. CIES-Iscte

Abstract:
In 2010, after, almost two decades of intense a constant growth, for the first time Brazilian immigration to Portugal decreased. The effects of the Portuguese economic crisis (2008-2014) affected the most vulnerable communities, especially immigrants that in general held a precarious position in the Portugue-se labour market. Seven year later, however, the flow of Brazilian immigrants to Portugal began to grow once more. While, the Portuguese economy recovered from the crisis and the country started to grow again, Brazil faces one of its worse political, economic and social crisis, with an unprecedented advance of the conservative discourse and striking raise of unemployment rates and cuts in social benefits. In this presentation, we explore the recent mobility experiences of skilled Brazilians in Portugal, focusing on the role played by crisis contexts in Brazil. Following a qualitative approach, based on the analysis of 15 inter-views with Brazilians who arrived in Portugal after 2016, we are able to assess the role played by political instability and urban violence in Brazil as push factors and the attractiveness of discourse about Portugal emphasising its prosperous and growing economy.
 


 

 

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