Session 9: Transformation,
Migration and Asylum
Chair: Sofie van
Bauwel
Isabel
Sendlak - Adaptation of Migrants to a New University Culture:
Perceptions, Expectations, and Reality
University of Newcastle, Australia
In recent years, many countries around the globe have
experienced increasing participation of migrants and temporary residents.
The meaning of cultural difference and "otherness" varies
depending on specific characteristics of the original and the host culture.
This paper presents an attempt to analyse some of the most common though
rarely recognised effects of "cultural encounters" occurring
in one specific type of institution in one country: Australian universities
with their relatively high ethnic and cultural diversity of students
and academic staff. These effects are observed in several dimensions:
educational and intellectual values, concepts of knowledge and the social
role of intellectuals.
Observations presented here were made during a longitudinal study involving
local and migrant academics and students in several universities. Views
of the Australian academic culture and of academic cultures of their
mother countries, held by migrant students and staff, are analysed and
compared. This will reveal not only some significant inconsistencies
in the current, real university system, but also their much more active
and critical approach their new environment than usually recognised.
It is suggested that this specific group is motivated to and can play
a more creative, active role in the system.
The second part of the paper presents five distinct adaptational patterns
of migrants in Australian universities, identified in the study, correlated
with several factors characterising migrants' education achievement,
previous experience, self-image and life situation. Finally, an analysis
of the relationship between the types of adaptation and the sense of
"otherness" reveals significant immanent cultural factors
limiting the role of migrants in the Australian university system.
Tamara Gurtueva
- Zinaida Gippius: Philosopher, Critic and Poetess of Russian Emigration
Fatih University, Faculty of Sciences and Literature, Istanbul, Turkey
It is difficult to imagine the life of “Russian Paris” without Zinaida Gippius – one of the greatest Russian philosopher, critic and poetess of X1X-XX centuries. Turning to this literary phenomenon, we should not forget about that role of intellectual catalyst, which Z.Gippius has played in public life of emigration. First of all, it can be seen on “literary evenings”, which were hold in Parisian halls. Z.Gippius “for herself” and “for others”. What’s the nature of her bifurcation? Could it be just by chance that irony, laughter, sometimes affectation and intrigues became her safety implement, her shelter. What stood behind all her spiritual impulses, creative and even just every day attainments and disappointments – may be persevering desire to get her freedom? We think, that deep personality was hiding from people’s eyes under mask of extravagance, trying to save secret recesses of her soul that way. It is possible to say, that the way her poetry was develop was not submit to author’s logical, conscious world view. Nietzsche’s motives in combination with Verlen’s “music above everything” had perceptible influence on her poetry. Melancholy, languor, consciousness of separation with people – are the themes, which were dictated her by difficult relations with after revolutionary Russia. Egocentrism, need of belief, pathos of prayer, feeling, God, but her sinners as well – these are the poles of Zinaida Gippius’s world view. It is possible to watch the history of Russian Modernism by her works.
Eugenia Siapera
- Asylum Politics in Cyberspace
Amsterdam School of Communications Research, University of Amsterdam,
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX, Amsterdam, NL
The movement of people across the globe, be it for reasons of political persecution or in a quest to escape poverty and destitution, has placed important challenges not only to nation-states, but also to our understandings of politics, of inclusion/exclusion, equality and justice. This paper poses the question of ‘virtual’ asylum politics: If we look at the virtual or online counterparts of the main players in asylum politics, the state, the mass media, and NGOs, what is the picture emerging? And how can we make sense of it, in terms of our current understandings of (multicultural) politics and the Internet? In addressing this question this paper has focused on a single country, the UK, and performed an analysis of the web sites of the main participants in the asylum debate: the web sites of the 4 terrestrial TV channels (BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5), 5 newspaper web sites (Sun, Mirror, Daily Mail, Guardian, Telegraph), one state web site (Immigration National Directory), and a selection of 5 national NGO sites (Refugee Council, Immigration Advisory Service, Oxfam UK, National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns, Institute of Race Relations). These web sites were analysed on the basis of the following questions: who do they address and how? Who do they attempt to involve in the debate and how? What type of interventions do they make in the debate on asylum/immigration? The analysis of the mass media web sites made use of their online archives, containing articles or programmes on the subject of asylum/immigration, while in examining the state and NGO sites, the analysis traced the links provided. Responses to these questions have provided an initial mapping of ‘virtual’ asylum politics, and enabled a discussion of the range of political uses of the Internet, which were subsequently assessed within a framework drawing on Jürgen Habermas’s public sphere theory.