Category Archives: Posts

12th IMISCOE annual conference

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From June 25th to June 27th was held the 12th IMISCOE annual conference in Geneva.

Our team took this opportunity to organise a panel on the theme “Children of refugees”.

With Catherine Wihtol de Wenden (Sciences Po Paris) as Chair person and Maurice Crul (Erasmus University Rotterdam and Free University of Amsterdam) as discussant, each team presented some insight from the fieldwork :

  • The Swiss children of refugees : Transnational but not cosmopolitan ? ( Milena Chimienti, Anne-Laure Counilh and Laurence Ossipow, University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland, Geneva)
  • School inclusion and exclusion:  Experiences of second generation from refugee backgrounds in London (Alice Bloch and Shirin Hirsh, University of Manchester)
  • Political Engagement among the Kurdish-Turk Refugees in France (Giovanna Tattolo and Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, Sciences Po Paris)

 

More details in IMISCOE Conference Program

Second Team Meeting in Paris

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On the 16th of Januray 2015, the second meeting of the Project « Children of Refugees » has been held in Paris.

Milena Chimienti, Laurence Ossipow-Wüest and Anne-Laure Counilh from Geneva and Alice Bloch and Shirin Hirsch were welcomed in Paris by Catherine Withol de Wenden and Giovanna Tattolo.

team_paris

The meeting has been precedeed by a visit of the Turkish historical neighborhood of Faubourg St-Denis and by a guided tour of the Indian and Tamil neighborhood of La Chappelle, commented by Delon Madavan, PhD in Geography from Paris-Sorbonne.

photo_temple_hindou_paris-15.01.15

Preliminary thoughts from the field work were presented and discussed during the meeting. The team discussed first interpretations and leads for analyses and agreed on further direction for the field work and publication plan.

Next meeting will be held in Geneva in June during the IMISCOE Annual Conference.

Children of Refugees in Europe

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Addressing an important gap in the literature, this research project aims to explore the lives of the European born adult children of refugees. The research will explore the following questions: What have been and are the educational and employment experiences of this group? How do they compare with their parents and with other ethnic minorities in the country of residence? What are their transnational linkages? How do they express ideas of belonging and aspirations for the future? How do they reflect on their refugee backgrounds as shaping their lives? How does the city and national contexts influence children of refugees participation and access to education, employment, belonging and inter-cultural relations? Research will be carried out in three countries – Switzerland, France and the United Kingdom – to contextualize experiences within the wider policy and political arenas. Mixed methods drawn from different social science disciplines will be used to collect qualitative data from 135 interviewees though in-depth interviews with the European born adult children of refugees from Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Turkey. Including the same country of origin groups in each research site will enable more robust comparisons of the national and local contexts and the policy environments.