Session 7: Solidarity and Justice
5th Global Conference
Friday 6th November – Sunday 8th November 2009
Salzburg, Austria
Practices of Care and the Intergenerational Solidarity in the Context of Transnational Migration (Azores to Canada)
Ana Gherghel
Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade dos Açores (CES-UA), Portugal
The practices of caring taking place between migrants and their families left behind in the origin country are more and more in focus of the scholarly research on transnational migration and networks (Baldassar, Foner, etc.). The various forms of support and care exchanged across national borders show that the intergenerational familial solidarity subsists in the context of transnational migration. How is the intergenerational solidarity reconfigured within the transnational families? What impacts have the practices of caring on migrants’ lives and on the non migrants? These are the questions examined in our research on a yet under-documented migration phenomenon, that of Portuguese population from the Azores archipelago to Canada. Starting in the mid-1950s, the Portuguese migration flows directed to Canada reached a peak in the 1970s, continuing until nowadays at lower levels. Maintaining strong ties with their origin communities through multi-directional exchanges (visits, traditional feasts, gifts, sponsorship, etc.), as well as the return migration of the first generation registered in the last years, allow us to observe the transnational migration as a historical phenomenon that perpetuates over more than five decades. Organized mainly as a family-led migration, this phenomenon involves nowadays three generations of migrants who have multiple bonds and various relations to their origin country.
Based on biographical interviews conducted with members of 2 or 3 generations of a same family living in Azores and Montreal, Canada, this paper aims to contribute to the models that conceptualize familial solidarity in a transnational context. Moreover, the practices of care at distance were mostly examined in the perspective of the migrant as giver or receiver of support from his family network, but less on the variations of these positions according to various life moments and transitions, as we intend to show in our research.
Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)
Justice the Next Frontier: Inclusion of Individuals with Mental Disorders within Liberal Theories of Justice
Melissa Matheson
Faculty of Communication and Culture, University of Calgary, Alberta Canada
Liberalism has throughout Western history attempted to ensure the just or ‘fair’ treatment of all persons in society. The past century has seen a slow but steady progression towards the inclusion of marginalized individuals, primarily within the realm of socio-cultural differences (such as gender and race/ethnicity). This has significantly facilitated the expansion of our understanding of justice within liberal theory; however, while it is difference that gives rise to political organizing, we remain unable to fully accommodate all types of difference within a liberal theory of justice, specifically with respect to individuals with mental disorders (mental illnesses).
It follows then, that since our notion of justice continues to progress and expand, and because autonomy and protection of the rights of individuals is considered to be significant, an important feature of liberalism seems to be an intuitive sense – or gut feeling – that there is something inherent about inhabiting a human form that requires some sort of just treatment. In the case of individuals with mental disorders, there is a paucity of research and theoretical development on this matter. This leaves liberalism somewhat in a state of not being fully true to itself. In order to equilibrate the dissonance created by the lack of inclusion of individuals with mental disorders within a liberal theory of justice, further exploration of this new form of inclusion is necessary if we are to truly realize justice within liberalism.
As a partial response to this dilemma, I will address the challenges posed to liberalism by consideration of justice for individuals with mental disorders, and discuss why this new form of inclusion is necessary for justice within liberal theory.
Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)
Why Shouldn’t We Care For EU Citizens?
Clemens Rieder
University of Reading, United Kingdom
This paper analyses the influence of group boundaries on the concept of solidarity. The Lisbon Treaty points out several times the importance of solidarity. However, in order to be
able to speak of “solidarity” on a supranational level it is necessary to extend the “bonds of care” which we are familiar with in the context of the family or on the national level (national citizens) to the supranational level (EU citizens).
In order to find out whether this extension of the “bonds of care” is at all possible, this paper will analyse what factors make us behave with solidarity within the context of the family and on the level of the nation state, and how the format of the group influences the type of solidarity.
Factors which are key in order to generate solidarity include the concept of identity (“identify with each other”), as well as nationality, which is certainly one expression of identification and thus contributes to the generation of trust which appears to be of importance for exercising solidarity.
In the course of this paper, identity is analysed following Luhmann’s dichotomy of personal and impersonal identity. Whereas we may speak of personal identity in the context of family and among friends, on the level of the nation state, we only find forms of impersonal identity. Using the application of impersonal identity, the difference between national and supranational identity disappears, as after all, both levels operate in an impersonal context. What remains to be discussed is whether this is a convincing argument to make or whether other aspects/markers of group identity, such as nationalism, have such a decisive impression that both levels, national and supranational, cannot be compared after all. And as a consequence, can we only develop, if at all, a rather different form of solidarity on the supranational level?
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