Masaryk University Faculty of social sciences Final exam SOC585 Anja Kralj, 429580 1. Discuss the relationship between nationalism and cosmopolitanism using the example of arts and museums. (8 points) Nowadays the world is experiencing the huge rate of migrations. This brings huge challenge for migrants themselves and also for the national states that are dealing with new migrants. Migrants are facing obstacles when living in a new country. It depends on the host country how big those problems will be because the countries are in charge of the polices that are more or less helping the migrants to live in the country. As Levitt (2012:29) puts it: “In general, while more and more migrants live some aspects of their lives across borders, they continue to be served by legal, educational , and health care systems that remain stubbornly inside the boundaries of the nation- state.” As the world is on the move, the cosmopolitanism became a necessity because there is a need “to create participatory institutions that reflect and respond to contemporary global integration (Levitt 2012: 30)” rather than insisting on old institutions and polices that rather than include exclude the new comers all over the world. If the polices are to be changed, first the people need to except new diversity and become aware of the new situation. The countries have different philosophies of integration and narratives about who is allowed to join to the nation. Museums are central stages where these imaginings are articulated (Levitt 2012: 30). Therefore they play a crucial role in creating a narrative of the nation and the ideal of citizens that are allowed to be in the nation. Moreover, on the narrative they present depends if people are perceiving that new comers have a potential to become the citizens of their host country. Director of the Sweden museum Anders Bjorklund illustrates that with the words: “Museums are like hospitals and schools, we just use different tools to do our work.(Levitt 2012: 37)” Peggy Levitt gives an example of two countries; Denmark and Sweden and their museums. The museum exhibits in both of them have roots in their national narratives and culture. Also the policies they use to handle the migrants are different and the reflection of their culturally pre-determine views on nationality and migrants. Denmark value a strong national feeling, Danish political system does not officially recognize minorities, and integrated immigrants had to accept Danish values. On the other hand, Sweden is recognizing minorities and Swedish constitution makes provision for the promotion of opportunities for ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities to preserve and develop a cultural and social life of their own. Sweden is not putting the national pride first and often the nationalistic displays are seen as intolerant therefore they are embracing global rather than national. Nevertheless they are both challenged with including global dimension and cosmopolitanism but due to the cultural difference they see the relationship between national and global different way and differences can be seen in their museum practice, in how they include the migrant stories into the national narrative through art. “Danish museums took on global primarily to understand and reassert Danishness while Swedish museums saw creating a globally-minded public as a valid goal”, explains Levitt (2012: 44). For instance, in Danish national museum there is a division between two exhibitions People of the world and New Danish prehistory exhibit. Even though they have significant piece of arts in the People of the world collection that global dimension is neglected and not explained well enough for the visitors while on the other hand the more “national exhibition downstairs “ stands out and is emphasized to great extend in contrast with the People of the world. The Danish museum exhibitions are as Levitt concludes despite the global attempt still primarily a celebration of national pride and some think that “foreign is only interesting in that it pertrains in some aspect the Danish history”. On the contrary, Sweden museum focuses on global themes rather than national history and thus include both immigrants and natives because of the global issues that are appeal to them as well. To conclude different countries have different visions about the nationalism and cosmopolitanism based on their cultural armature and museums are the reflection of that. While one connect immigrants in their national story others rather than doing so present the global issues that are important worldwide. In doing so they create an image of who is welcome in the country and who is not. Some countries are becoming more open and also through museum exhibits teach their citizens the sense of cosmopolitanism while others still put their national dimension first. Literature: Levitt, Peggy. "The bog and the Beast: Museums, the Nation, and the Globe." Ethnologia Scandinavica. 42. (2012): 29-46. Web. 14 Jan. 2014. 2. What state is responsible for social protection of the migrants? Answer this question using at least 2 readings from the syllabus. (8 points) The migration these days is really complex, people are migrating to really different countries possibly thousands of kilometres from their origin country and therefore this question is hard to answer since the countries have different policies about migration social protection. The receiving states are often using social policies to manage immigration: “social security and civic integration are used by governments as instruments to help realise restrictive immigration policies; by making it more difficult for immigrants to access the social security system and by increasing the civic integration requirements, an attempt is made to make the country less attractive for some immigrant groups”, explains Van Walsum. In addition, “The host country regulates what benefits migrants have access to under what conditions”, explains Sabates Wheller (2011: 97). But If migrants benefit from origin states could be questionable since the migrants contributed to host country social schemes: “They could benefit from the origin country’s welfare system, although they have spent most of their productive life working abroad but this could have important fiscal implications for social systems in origin country” (Feldman and Sabates-Wheeler 2011: 21). “Holding of full citizenship is increasingly the condition of access for a growing range of social welfare services,” explains Flynn (in Sabates- Wheller and Feldman 2011: xi). It is also common that the social protection and welfare system is really different in the countries of origin and host countries. For instance the health system in the country of origin might have significantly lower status than in the host countries where migrants lived and worked before returning back home. Furthermore “migrants are often purposely excluded from welfare systems and social protection initiatives (Feldman and Sabates-Wheller 2011: 20)” and are left to the good will of their employers. Another thing I would like to mention is that migrants are often illegal and thus completely vulnerable and left to themselves, without any kind of social rights. Therefore a lot of authors are proposing a global or transnational social protection nets, as Feldman and Sabates- Wheeler(2011: 14) are arguing: “Social protection is question of meeting individual welfare needs and the rights of people to have these needs met, whatever their residence status or citizenship. “ This means that the social security rights should be portable which is important “ because portability ensures the ability to preserve, maintain and transfer vested social security rights, independent of nationality or country of residence (Sabates-Wheeler and Feldman 2011: 21)”. One of such systems that is frequently proposed is the system of European Union. As writes Flynn (in Sabates- Wheeler and Feldman 2011, xi) the best protected in that system are those that hold citizenship of a member state but EU also provides for the position of long-term migrants. But still the citizenship is necessary to access all the social rights and benefits. To conclude the migrants are vulnerable group since they are often omitted to claim social benefits. Even those that hold legal status are not always able to gain all the benefits, whereas the illegal migrants are completely unprotected and left to a good will of employers. The host states are despite the fact that migrants often contribute to their social schemes, and should therefore be able to access the social benefits, often intentionally disrespecting them and limiting the benefits they can get. The countries of origin on the other hand might provide the benefits but they are often not on the same level as the ones in the host country, and furthermore the question remains to what extend the migrants contributed to their social schemes, if of course the country has a welfare system at all. Scholars therefore propose global security networks that would allow portable social benefits independent on country of residence. Literature: Sabates-Wheeler, R. , Feldman, R. 2011. “Introduction: Mapping Migrant Welfare onto Social Provisioning.” In Migration and Social Protection. Claiming Social Rights Beyond Borders. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 3-35 Sabates-Wheeler, R. , Feldman, R. 2011. “Social Security for Migrants: A Global overview of Portability Arrangements” In Migration and Social Protection. Claiming Social Rights Beyond Borders. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 91-116 Vonk, G., Van Walsum, S. 2012. “Access denied: Towards a new social protection approach for excluded migrants.” Gijsbert Vonk (ed.). Cross-Border Welfare State: Immigration, social security & integration. Intersentia, pp. 3-59. 3. Discuss immigrant integration using the concepts of ‘cultural armature’ and ‘city scale’. (8 points) When migrants arrive at their new host country they settle in different cities that all have different history, demography, and thus their very own culture. While a lot of cities is talking about themselves as global, cosmopolitan there is a discrepancy between what they present themselves as, and how they really treat newcomers and diversity. This can be seen in the attitude and behavior toward migrants and in polices they establish to manage migration. Scholars are arguing that it depends on economical, demographical factors , and personality of migrants how well the migrants will be able to integrate in new city, but recently there has been an emphasize on another significant factor that contributes to migrant’s integration. Jaworski et al. (2012: 78) are arguing that we also need to consider cultural armature of the city, if we want to understand why “certain places integrate immigrants with greater ease than others.” They defined cultural armature “as a combination of each city’s: history and cultural geography, urban-self presentation, cultural responses to demography, and prevailing ethos toward immigrants.” They emphasized that “they understand culture as the process of meaning making.”, and secondly “it is important to recognize that culture interacts with demographic, economics, and other independent factors that affect the ease with which the immigrants are welcomed in the city”. For instance, they gave an example of two both small cities Portland and Danbury, that both say they are migrant welcome and friendly, but actually there is a difference in extend of their openness, Portland is more opened to migrants, while Danbury is less. “Throughout its history, and because of its cultural geography, Portland has always interacted with newcomers. The city’s self- representation and ethos stressed the benefits of welcoming newcomers, which was, in turn, an integral part of its strategy to reposition itself economically”. On the other hand, Danbury responded to newcomers in ways different than in Portland. “Danbury welcomed travelers over time but not with the regularity or diversity of people in the port city of Portland. Danbury has not long been producing global citizens, which, in combination with demographical factors, likely influenced tense relations with immigrants (Jaworski et al. 2012: 82)”. In addition, “while Portland has long been home to global citizens and there are many locations in the city where immigrants and natives mix, global citizens do not have a history in Danbury, where native-born and immigrants are more spatially segregated and view each other more warily (Jaworski et al. 2012: 82).” Another concept that is also helpful in discussing the immigrant integration, and we could already sense it in the previous example of Portland and Danbury, is the concept of city scale. Some cites might want to attract migrants because they can contribute to the greater value of the city because their cultural diversity can improve the city status and thus improve their competitive position. Schiller and Caglar defined city scale as: “differential positioning of citis determined by the articulation of institutions of political, cultural and economic power within regions, states and the globe. This approach produces a concept of city rescaling that projects a continuum in which various cites are positioned as a result of neoliberal restricting measures”. This is important because migrants might contribute to the rescaling of the city: “Migrants contribute to the the positioning of cities in national and global markets, and within national, regional, and global hierarchies as they labour, produce wealth, raise families, and create and reproduce social institutions. They thereby contribute to the cultural representation of the city and become engaged as facilitators of neoliberal governance (Schiller and Caglar 2009:189).” This is why there might be, depending on a city, a different perspective about which migrants are welcome and which are not. For instance, the city would welcome high skilled migrants that could improve their position on a global scale, but might be less opened to migrants that are recognized as “low skilled.” This would be an example of an UP-scale cities, that need both highly educated professionals and unskilled workers. But since the first are more vital for the city and contribute more to the city scale they might be integrated with greater ease than the latter. Basically, which migrants are welcome also depends on the needs of the city that are results of the city’s position in the national, regional, or global scale. To conclude the integration of migrants depends not only on the demographical and economical factors of the state. It is also important to consider and include the understanding of the cities – their cultural armature and their position on a national, global, and regional scale that result in their effort to be more competitive and increase their power. How much migrants can contribute to that will likely be influencing their integration in the city, combined with the culture of the city, that can predetermine who is more likely to integrate in the city. Literature: Jaworski, N. B. et al. 2012. New Perspectives on Immigrant Contexts of Reception: The Cultural Armature of Cities. Nordic Journal of Migration Studies 2 (1), pp. 78-88. Glick Schiller, N. and Caglar, A. 2009. Towards a Comparative Theory of Locality in Migration Studies: Migrant Incorporation and City Scale. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 35 (2), pp. 177-202.