Suchergebnisse

This article offers a sociological analysis of the migration motivations of highly skilled people who left Spain after 2008. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews, I map the role that the crisis played in highly skilled individuals' migration narratives. Using the recently emerging migration flow between Spain and Norway as a point of departure, I analyse migration from one of the most crisis-stricken regions of Europe to one of the least affected regions. This analysis establishes that the migrants' educational and occupational resources help to protect them from the threat of unemployment. Their reluctance to use the crisis as a reason to leave is further analysed as part of their symbolic and social boundary work. The article concludes that what Durkheim conceptualized as anomie provides an apt label for the particular set of societal problems cited by people who migrated from Spain after 2008.

Multiculturalism is a fiercely debated subject. This article argues that ambivalence is a central feature of people's perspectives on societal diversity. Data are interviews with leaders from three Norwegian social movement organisations. Qualitative analysis reveals that despite leaders' very different organisational and political vantage points, they share a common ambivalence towards multiculturalism. This perspective on political and organisational leaders' views on diversity provides an important supplement to analyses aimed at classifying specific political preferences on multiculturalism. Considering ambivalent multiculturalism is therefore key to understanding those elements of public debate that are not 'either/or'. In addition to showing the wider relevance of ambivalence, the concluding discussion speculates on the link between ambivalent and extreme expressions in the Norwegian case.

This article examines how women's and gender-equality issues form part of social movement organizations' ideological framing and discusses how this tendency is mirrored in discourses at European and nation-state levels. Focusing on one of Western Europe's few non-EU member countries, the article compares how two Norwegian social movement organizations draw on gender issues in their argumentation. The analysis is empirically based on written material produced by the organizations and takes recourse in a feminist methodological approach rooted in the tradition of discourse analysis. The analysis suggests that gender-related issues discussed by the organizations are coloured by an implicit North–South hierarchy which frames some areas, nations and cultures as more gender-equal and women-friendly than others. By drawing on notions conceptualized by Nira Yuval-Davis, it is argued that social movement organizations' tendency to frame women's issues and gender-equality in a way that implicitly marks and maintains symbolic boundaries between North and South is coloured by a 'politics of belonging' at the macro-level. The final discussion suggests some of the ways in which it may be problematic to see Nordic gender-equality traditions and current EU initiatives as universal solutions that fit all women living in Europe.

AbstractThis article investigates disagreement over how to respond to the establishment of asylum seeker centres in local communities. Building on interviews with individuals in one rural and one urban community in Norway, we analyse experiences and outcomes of the neighbourhood information meetings organized by the Directorate of Immigration before opening the new centres. We demonstrate that such meetings hold a broader social function, and they become arenas to raise concerns and manage disagreement among neighbours. When anti‐immigrant opinions expressed at the meetings are published in the media, community members counter the negative place representations that are not aligned with their own self‐identification. We identify three strategies of contestation deployed to counter negative media coverage: foreseeing conflict, claiming exceptionalism and mobilization to volunteer. Broader implications involve immigration authorities' management of conflict when establishing such centres; their scope should not be limited to host‐guest relations but should include horizontal contestation within the community.

International audience ; Motivations for migrating within the European Union have mainly been attributed to economic, career and lifestyle choices. This article suggests that political dissatisfaction is also an important motivator of recent intra-European migration. In our analysis of in-depth interviews with Romanian migrants in Spain and with Spanish migrants in Norway, we found a common emphasis on the political dimensions of their decision to migrate. In the interviews, the economic component of migration was often related to bad governance and negative perceptions of the state. The similarities of Spanish and Romanian migration narratives are especially striking because Spain and Romania represent substantially different migratory, political and economic contexts. However, migration is more obviously intertwined with conventional acts of political protest in the Spanish case. We suggest that differences in democratic contexts are pivotal in people's reactions to and framing of their deep dissatisfaction with domestic politics, as found in many European countries today.

Motivations for migrating within the European Union have mainly been attributed to economic, career and lifestyle choices. This article suggests that political dissatisfaction is also an important motivator of recent intra-European migration. In our analysis of in-depth interviews with Romanian migrants in Spain and with Spanish migrants in Norway, we found a common emphasis on the political dimensions of their decision to migrate. In the interviews, the economic component of migration was often related to bad governance and negative perceptions of the state. The similarities of Spanish and Romanian migration narratives are especially striking because Spain and Romania represent substantially different migratory, political and economic contexts. However, migration is more obviously intertwined with conventional acts of political protest in the Spanish case. We suggest that differences in democratic contexts are pivotal in people's reactions to and framing of their deep dissatisfaction with domestic politics, as found in many European countries today.

Motivations for migrating within the European Union have mainly been attributed to economic, career and lifestyle choices. This article suggests that political dissatisfaction is also an important motivator of recent intra-European migration. In our analysis of in-depth interviews with Romanian migrants in Spain and with Spanish migrants in Norway, we found a common emphasis on the political dimensions of their decision to migrate. In the interviews, the economic component of migration was often related to bad governance and negative perceptions of the state. The similarities of Spanish and Romanian migration narratives are especially striking because Spain and Romania represent substantially different migratory, political and economic contexts. However, migration is more obviously intertwined with conventional acts of political protest in the Spanish case. We suggest that differences in democratic contexts are pivotal in people's reactions to and framing of their deep dissatisfaction with domestic politics, as found in many European countries today. ; publishedVersion

International audience ; Motivations for migrating within the European Union have mainly been attributed to economic, career and lifestyle choices. This article suggests that political dissatisfaction is also an important motivator of recent intra-European migration. In our analysis of in-depth interviews with Romanian migrants in Spain and with Spanish migrants in Norway, we found a common emphasis on the political dimensions of their decision to migrate. In the interviews, the economic component of migration was often related to bad governance and negative perceptions of the state. The similarities of Spanish and Romanian migration narratives are especially striking because Spain and Romania represent substantially different migratory, political and economic contexts. However, migration is more obviously intertwined with conventional acts of political protest in the Spanish case. We suggest that differences in democratic contexts are pivotal in people's reactions to and framing of their deep dissatisfaction with domestic politics, as found in many European countries today.