Processes of inclusion and exclusion in different fields and at different levels characterize many aspects of social action. Inspired by the Weberian idea of social closure and conceived of as relational concepts, inclusion and exclusion refer to the practices, mechanisms and rules which grant or refuse an individual access to and participation in rights, resources, opportunities and activities. Inclusion or exclusion are neither absolute nor static, but should be looked at in a dynamic and gradual way in different societal fields (e.g. social, political, economic, cultural), including the spatial dimension. Furthermore, differentiating between a structural perspective (referring to rules and rights) and an action-oriented perspective is a useful approach in order to understand the social and political dynamics of differentiated inequalities. It enables us to take into account the formal conditions and criteria for in- or exclusion as well as the individual agency as regards access to resources and participation in order to arrive to a fine and nuanced understanding of the processes at stake.

Our focus

We are interested in processes of inclusion and exclusion in particular in the field of migration. Thereby we focus both on state rules and practices towards non-citizens and on the way migrant individuals navigate within and around these rules. This implies for instance questions around rules and practices of granting or refusing access to the territory of a state (border control and admission policy and practice for different categories), measures of spatial exclusion (deportation, immigration detention), access to public services (health services, social security, social welfare) for different categories of migrants (asylum-seekers, undocumented migrants), integration requirements as criteria for legal in- or exclusion, access to and deprivation of citizenship.

Transnational Studies

What are transnational Studies ?

Adopting a transnational perspective has become essential in understanding the contemporary practices taking place across borders since the early 1990s, especially with respect to migrants and other persons on the move. Most social scientists agree that a transnational perspective brings to light the multiple connections that migrants or persons on the move maintain simultaneously at different places across the globe and which result in transnational social fields and spaces or forms of belonging. This view suggests that to be transnational involves a mode of acting and performing (i.e. building up transnational social relations and practices) as much as it involves a mode of thinking, feeling and belonging.

One strand of work theorizes transnational processes with a focus on established migrants settled in their host countries. Another focuses on various continuous forms of mobility and the subsequent establishment of transnational circuits.

Our Focus: A transnational perspective as a means to investigate social processes of contemporary societies – Linking transnational perspectives with social theories and going beyond the ‘migration container’

We understand ‘transnationalism’ as a research perspective which allows us to tackle particular social processes which go beyond the ‘national container’ (but are influenced by national categories), rather than as a specific theoretical concept. Hence, we do not limit our interest to delivering descriptive research about migrants and their way of being and acting transnationally. Rather, we pioneered a number of new approaches to this work: Firstly, we link the transnational perspective to general social theories. For example, to theories of ethnicity, mobility, social inequality, gender or religion. Secondly, we include not only migrants, but also non-migrants in our empirical work, thus overcoming the common asymmetry present in transnational studies, which tends to primarily focus on migrant populations. Thirdly, we address different forms of mobilities, allowing us to explore differentiated forms of transnational practices and identifications. The following topics are currently under investigation by our researchers:

• The (re)production of ethnicity and family in transnational space among non-EU-migrants through marriage, in the context of restrictive migration regimes and the ethnicization of migrant-marriages
• The transnational circulation of early career academics and the effects in terms of gender and career progression
• Transnational practices and subjectivities of Salsa dancers, focusing on the (re)production of ‘authenticity’, ‘Latin-ness’, and female and male bodies
• Transnational networks of particular groups in the perspective of ‘locality’ and social inequality
• Social inequalities in transnational social fields, investigated through the analysis of Somali migrants’ mobility practices
• The transnational spaces of graffiti writers
• The fandom of Korean television series, K-Dramas

Migration Law and Policy

Migration governance has become a major field of interest within migration studies. The rules and mechanisms by which states aim at regulating and administering the social processes related to international mobility can be approached from different disciplinary and methodological angles. Within this vast field we adopt a socio-legal perspective that takes migration law and policy as its research objects and analyses their societal roles. Thereby we understand law both as resulting from social processes and as an important structuring factor of these very social processes. An interest in law and policies implies putting the state centre stage. With regard to migration today’s states’ characteristics as nation-states are of particular importance. Nevertheless, nation-states should not be taken as isolated and natural units of analysis, but are to be analysed as particular social formations, within their interlinkages to other states or supranational frameworks (international human rights regime) and embedded in transnational processes. A socio-legal perspective on migration law and policy implies an interest in the following aspects and levels of analysis: creation and transformation of legislation; implementation of legal texts in the practices of state representatives (administrations and courts); migrants’ way of dealing with and reacting to migration law and its implementation.

Our focus

In our research, we deal with the different aspects of migration law, including the regulation of immigration, integration, access to citizenship, asylum and concerning both EU and non-EU citizens. More specifically, we analyse the application and the role of legal regulations regarding irregular migration and undocumented migrants, border control, in different aspects related to asylum procedure and refugees, integration policy, naturalization and deprivation of citizenship and regarding deportation and detention (of irregular migrants, rejected asylum seekers and foreign-national offenders). Within these fields, we are interested in a variety of actors (different state sectors, non-state actors, migrants) and their respective instruments and practices (e.g. Country of origin information).

Les études genre à l’Université de Neuchâtel

Le genre relève d’un ensemble de processus de classification et de hiérarchisation des personnes en deux catégories très distinctes auxquelles n’échappent que de rares exceptions, les femmes et les hommes. En cela, il est incontournable et engagé quotidiennement dans toutes les sociétés. C’est ce caractère transversal qui rend son étude indispensable pour mieux appréhender et expliquer les phénomènes sociaux dans leur ensemble. Depuis les années 1970, les études genre sont ainsi devenues une discipline universitaire en soi qui cherche à comprendre ces processus, leurs implications et leurs conséquences en les mettant en regard des contextes culturels, sociaux, politiques et historiques respectifs dans lesquels ils s’insèrent.

Par le biais de la Faculté des lettres et sciences humaines, l’Université de Neuchâtel propose un enseignement institutionnalisé et centralisé en études genre depuis 2003 pour tous les niveaux de formation (BA, MA, doctorat et formation continue). Au fil des années, l’offre s’est étoffée, d’une part avec la création d’un poste de maître-assistante à mi-temps, et d’autre part avec l’accroissement des possibilités de mobilité nationale pour les étudiant-e-s.

Comment devient-on « femme » ou « homme » ? Quelles représentations et normes du genre circulent au travers des flux culturels? Comment sont-elles (re-)produites et reçues ? Comment le genre est-il agencé dans les institutions, professionnelles ou scolaires notamment, ou les flux transnationaux et migratoires ? Comment est-il imbriqué avec d’autres catégories classificatoires telles que l’ethnicité, la classe ou l’âge ? Ce sont là quelques exemples de questions qui sont abordées aussi bien dans l’enseignement que dans les recherches menées au sein de la MAPS à l’université de Neuchâtel, avec une spécialisation pour les questions mettant en regard genre et migration et genre et transnationalisme.

Formation

L’enseignement des études genre à l’Université de Neuchâtel s’inscrit dans une approche interdisciplinaire et transversale – orientation de base des études genre en général–, raison pour laquelle les études genre sont ancrées institutionnellement au sein de la MAPS.

Cet enseignement intervient aux niveaux BA, MA et doctoral, ainsi que dans le cadre d’un cours de formation continue. Vous pouvez retrouver l’ensemble des cours et séminaires intégrant une perspective genre ici:

• Le genre dans les cours et séminaires

Bachelor

Au niveau BA, les concepts et théories-clé sont abordés dans le cours « Introduction aux études genre » qui a pour but de sensibiliser à la perspective analytique du genre et de fournir une base théorique solide pour aborder des thématiques de recherche avec une perspective genre.

Cours « Introduction aux études genre »
Semestre de printemps
2h / 5 CP

Master

Au niveau Master, un cours thématique, qui s’inscrit dans le master en sciences sociales, est offert. Ce cours établit un lien entre les perspectives analytiques genre et des thématiques spécifiques liées aux questions de la circulation des personnes, des connaissances et des richesses, dont la MAPS est spécialisée. Ainsi, l’enseignement Master vise à appliquer les outils analytiques appris dans le cours d’introduction à des thématiques spécifiques, démarche qui s’avère fondamentale dans la conduite d’une recherche personnelle et l’écriture d’un mémoire de fin d’études.

En outre, ces enseignements offrent aux étudiant-e-s les instruments leur permettant de poursuivre un cursus approfondi dans d’autres universités de Suisse, francophones et germanophones. Dans le cadre des accords BENEFRI, les étudiant-e-s se voient encouragé-e-s à suivre des enseignements au niveau du BA et MA à Berne et Fribourg, dont l’offre en études genre est complémentaire à celle de Neuchâtel. De plus, la formation à l’Université de Neuchâtel s’insère plus largement dans un réseau national – unique en Suisse – qui permet, grâce aux accords avec toutes les autres universités suisses qui proposent un enseignement en études genre, une mobilité facilitée pour les étudiant-e-s. L’offre actuelle de tous les cours en études genre en Suisse et disponible sur le site Gender Campus, plateforme nationale des études genre Suisse.

Cours thématique spécifique
Semestre d’automne
2h / 5 CP

• Gender Campus

Doctorat

Au niveau doctoral, l’école doctorale CUSO en études genre, à laquelle la MAPS est étroitement associée, offre un encadrement complémentaire des thèses incorporant une perspective en lien avec les études genre.

• Conférence universitaires de Suisse occidentale

Enfin, le Service de l’égalité des chances et la Commission Egalité de l’Université travaillent quant à eux à établir des stratégies visant à réduire les inégalités encore persistantes entre femmes et hommes au sein de l’Université, tout en maintenant des liens étroits avec la recherche.

• Service de l’égalité des chances
• Commission Egalité de l’Université

Migration-Security Nexus

The nexus between migration and security issues has emerged as a lively, yet contested academic field at the end of the 20^th century. Scholars from different disciplines deal with the link between cross-border mobility and the presence of people not considered to belong to a specific nation-state and a context marked by diffuse fears around transnational threats associated with organized crime, drug trafficking, terrorism, etc. To frame the phenomena related to migration as a security issue and thereby assign particular meaning to it and has an impact on migration related legislation and practices. Security language and practices set into motion a specific framework of meanings: with its idea of an existential threat endangering a specific referent object (such as the political order or the population of a particular state), security discourse and practices convey a sense of urgency and crisis that function as a powerful argument allowing the imposition of measures and technologies difficult to legitimate otherwise. The capacity of security rhetoric to frame a policy problem was captured by the concept of “securitization” which has been increasingly used to illustrate how security works as a trigger in the reproduction of political communities through the establishment of boundaries of belonging eventually leading to the inclusion of those considered as threatened and the exclusion of those deemed as threatening. However, despite the recent start of these academic debates, the construction of such a migration-security nexus has not merely started with relatively recent discussions on terrorist threats, but date back to the beginnings of the regulation of migratory movements and the presence of non-citizens.

Our focus

Within this vast and contested field, we adopt a critical and constructivist perspective and are particularly interested in the way migration and migrants are being securitized, i.e. framed as a security issues by the means of discourses, practices, institutions and technologies, how this creates specific categories of migrants and how it provides legitimacy for e.g. the legal and spatial exclusion of unwanted migrants. In contrast to many studies on the migration-security nexus we approach it with qualitative and historical empirical methods aiming at questioning and understanding its relevance and rationalities in written and applied migration law and policy as well as its societal consequences (e.g. on civil liberties, human rights of migrants). This implies an interest in analyzing what “security” means when used in migration related legislation and policies. Furthermore, we want to contribute to a critical reflection on how to produce scientific knowledge on the migration-security nexus without contributing to its construction. More specifically, we deal with the following research topics: meaning of “security” in migration law and policy; evolution of the securitization of migration over time; securitization of migration law through parliamentary discourses and through institutions and administrative practices (e.g. asylum procedures, deportation, detention, border control); processes of “crimmigration” and criminalization.

Ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity: the social organization of difference

What is diversity?

A central issue in current political and societal debates is the so-called growing “diversity” and corresponding “ethnic, cultural and religious difference” which characterizes post-industrialized societies. Even now, politicians (and sometimes also academics) conceptualize diversified societies, in general, as composed of a mosaic of groups whose boundaries are defined by the national, ethnic, religious or racial backgrounds of their members.
This common sense “community view” came under fire for its tendency to essentialize culture, ethnicity and any other category of difference. Hence, treating migrant, ethnic or national minorities (or majority groups) as substantial entities to which interests and agency can be attributed. This tendency to essentialize has also been criticized for its underlying methodological nationalism. In order to tackling this criticism we adopted theoretical approaches which are aimed at explaining the role of ethnicity, religion and culture in the social organization of “difference”, rather than treating them as explanatory categories. We understand any form of salient difference as the result of social processes, to which a broad range of actors contribute (i.e. the nation-state, institutions, media, schools, individuals, etc.).

Our focus: A post-migration/post-ethnic approach towards understanding the social organization of “difference” and its effects

In this line we argue that in order to understand the actual place of “difference” and hence inclusion and exclusion in diversified societies it is necessary to go beyond so-called ‘community-studies’ (about the Turks, Albanians, Swiss, etc.). We strive to address different forms of boundary work as actors undertaken by various actors, as well as investigating social networks through ‘cross-cutting-ties-studies’. Approaches such as these allow us to understand how “diversity” is socially organized, (re)produced, both relationally and in the interaction between ‘us’ and ‘them’, in different social fields, power constellations and by different actors, with varying outcomes. We are interested in the mechanisms leading to such boundaries and corresponding “differences”and their effects, as well as in the strategies developed by those being considered as “others”, and stigmatized by the dominant groups in society.
Our research covers the following topics:

• Strategies developed by stigmatized groups (i.e. Muslims, Albanian speaking migrants) in reaction to bright boundaries and the corresponding exclusion processes
• The fabrication of differences within institutions, for example in relation to domestic violence
• The Ethnicization and culturalization processes in relation to “forced marriage”
• The role of family, ethnicity and gender in cross-border marriages of non-EU-migrants in relation to restrictive migration regimes and ethnicization of migrant marriages in immigration countries
• Boundary work on behalf of ethnicity, religion and gender among young adults in Switzerland
• The role of ethnicity, gender and religion in Swiss immigration and integration policies and corresponding variable boundary processes
• The role of ethnicity and ethnically-defined networks in the development of Somali migrants’ “post-migration mobility practices”, in the light of internal differences based on gender and social class

Social Networks

What is social network analysis?

‘Social network analysis’ (SNA) can be considered simultaneously as a theoretical approach and as a specific methodology. The basic premise of network analysts is that the social embeddedness of actors within a web of specific relationships says something about their position in society. Thus, network researchers do not regard social systems as a collection of isolated actors with certain categorical characteristics. Rather, their attention is directed toward examining the relations of the actors in a social network, describing its pattern(s) as well as understanding the emergence of such specific network structures. These patterns of embeddedness in social relations do not emerge by chance, but should be regarded as structural patterns which are therefore intrinsically linked with the possibilities, as well as the constraints, of the social actions of the actors; thus, social networks influence the resources available to actors.

Our focus: Qualitative social network analysis, regarding issues of migration, mobility and ethnicity

While SNA has today in general a strong quantitative orientation, we mainly work and develop qualitative-interpretative approaches, using ego-centric networks, following a research tradition which evolved in the 1970s among urban social anthropologists (Manchester School), and which experienced a revival over the last few years. Our researchers are pioneering qualitative network analysis, particularly in the field of migration, mobility, and ethnicity. SNA is well suited in order to tackle the various critiques which have been formulated towards migration and mobility studies, particularly the critiques of methodological nationalism and groupism as well as the tendency to categorize groups a priori in terms of ethnicity: As SNA places the focus on the structure of social relations rather than on preliminary (ethnically, nationally) defined groups, the exploration of multilevel and crosscutting ties are explored, which in turn allows the “unbounding” of problematic concepts such as “ethnicity”, “groups” and ‘culture’.

We investigate topics as diversified as the following:

• The structures and development of ‘mobility networks’ of early career researchers circulating transnationally between different universities with regard to gender and career progression.
• The way family, ethnicity and gender is‘done’ in ‘marriage networks’ in the case of cross-border-marriages of non-European-migrants under conditions of restrictive migration regimes and ethnicization of migrant marriages in immigration countries
•  The diversity which characterizes contemporary cities, as reflected in the social networks of the inhabitants, and the role played by ethnicity and other categories of difference in the network structures
•  The structures and meanings of transnational networks among migrants as well as non-migrants and their links to the transnationalisation processes which are currently at stake in post-industrialized societies
• ‘Mobility and support networks’ of mine workers circulating between different African countries, and the resources and meanings they incorporate
• The structures of co-authorship research networks and the relationship between the positions in this network and citation-based research performance.