COST Action IS0803 Workgroups 2010
WG3: Differences and Inequalities
The Welfare Gap
Second Work Group 3 meeting
Fafo Institute for Applied International Studies
Oslo, Norway
7-8 May 2010
The WG3 2010 summary report is now available.
Convenor:
May-Len Skilbrei
mls@fafo.no
+47 22088722
Description:
When it comes to the analysis of the outer borders of the Schengen space, differences in wealth and social security often come up as one of the most striking divisions and the most obvious social boundaries. While there is a serious discrepancy in wealth, social security and mechanisms of social protection between the members within the Schengen zone, the difference with the countries from the ‘outer space’ is striking. This is particularly true for Northern Europe and especially for the Nordic countries known as a region with highest living standards, and long life expectancy and a high level of social protection and social inclusion, though similar differences exist in other parts of the EU region, many of which also share borders with much less wealthy neighbours. As with any border that can operate as a bridge and a barrier at the same time, the welfare gap can be conceptualized as both an economic and social boundary separating (and protecting?) wealthy Europe from its not so well off neighbours, and also as a driving force, an engine, a constant irritating factor that facilitates and stirs the processes which undermine, blur and exploit this economic and social divide. This is precisely the welfare and security gap that makes people cross political borders either seeking a better life in a new country or pursuing less radical and more short-term plans, such as having a vacation in a safe and presumably happier social environment or making economic profit from smuggling or petty cross-border trade.
This workshop invites papers focusing on different aspects, manifestations and outcomes of the welfare and social security gaps that exist between the neighbours in the eastern periphery of Europe. We aim to discuss various social phenomena and social processes that originate from a discrepancy in economic and social standards between the EU/Schengen and non-EU/non-Schengen countries. A wide variety of themes can be covered, from old and new routes of international migration and transborder work commuting to subversive border economies and ‘official’ projects of crossborder cooperation aiming at building a common economic and social transborder space across the welfare gap. While the proposed topic derives from the existence of international borders and different social orders, it is obviously not confined to a state-to-state framework.
Participant: Rozita Dimova
Institute for Eastern European Studies
Free University Berlin
Germany
Email: rozita@zedat.fu-berlin.de
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
The “Bridge” of Investments? The Socio-economic gap in the border area of Greece and the Republic of Macedonia
My presentation will explore the consequences of the socio/economic gap between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia in the domain of capital investments. According to the Program for Stimulating Investment in the R. of Macedonia (2003), Greece was the largest investor in the country between 1991 and 2002. Moreover, since 1994, which marked the end of the economic embargo imposed by Greece in 1992 and 1993, Greek enterprises have invested more money in Macedonia than enterprises of any other country. These intense economic exchanges between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia, heavily obscured by the highly publicized dispute between the two countries over Macedonia’s name, are nonetheless based on a major economic and social gap grounded in a neo-liberal context. As a member of the EU, Greece has dictated the “rules” of the economic investments. Hence, the central concern of my presentation will be to elaborate on the extent to which movements of goods and people across the border are shaped by the socio-economic and (welfare) gap between the two countries. In addition, I will also trace the “small openings” that enable successful subversion of this gap when many Macedonian companies achieve economic success by relying on Greek partners for export/import ventures.
Participant: Magdalena Elchinova
Department of Anthropology
New Bulgarian University
Bulgaria
Email: melchinova@hotmail.com
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
‘Wealthy’ Britons in the ‘Poor’ Bulgarian Countryside: Taking Advantage of the Welfare Gap, or Losing Social Status?
Bulgaria’s accession to the European Union was accompanied by the relatively big flow of British citizens buying houses in rural areas in Bulgaria. These are, in general, individual buyers from the middle-class, who invest in real estate in small and often underdeveloped villages, in contrast to the corporate investors and big developers who prefer to buy in the big Bulgarian cities and in the mountain and seaside resorts. By describing the social portrait, adaptation strategies and practices of inclusion in the local community of the British settlers in the village of Hotnitsa, I will try to suggest a comprehensive look at the reasons for their migration. Are they driven by the wide gap between the welfare systems and living standards in the UK and Bulgaria, which they try to make profit of and to improve their economic status? Or, on the contrary, are they buying property in Bulgaria in order to compensate for their loss of status in the country of origin, resulting from neoliberal economic policies? How big exactly is the social-economic gap between the citizens of Great Britain and their local neighbours in the Bulgarian countryside? These and related issues will be central in the proposed paper.
Participant: Katja Franko Aas
Criminology and Sociology of Law
University of Oslo
Norway
Email: katja.franko@jus.uio.no
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Insecure identities
This paper examines the various police and state identification practices directed at immigrant populations in the EU in general and Norway in particular. These practices, as Lyon (2005) observes, disperse and delocalize the border. As a result, 'the border is everywhere'. The paper examines the processes of construction of secure and insecure identities and various state and police strategies which aim to solve the problem. Particular focus will be directed at biometric technologies and the data systems where biometrics is used as a forms of identification.
Lyon, D. (2005) ‘The border is everywhere: ID cards, surveillance, and the other’ in E. Zureik and M. Salter (eds.) Global Surveillance and Policing: Borders, Security, Identity. Cullompton: Willan Publishing.
Participant: Carola Häntsch
Department for Philosophy
University of Greifswald
Germany
Email: haentsch@uni-greifswald.de
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
"Relative poverty" – the former GDR between East and West
From the perspective of Eastern Europe the former GDR seems to be a part of the West, from the perspective of the West it is some kind of “East”. The reality of the reunified Germany is still characterized by a remarkable welfare gap between West and East. A lot of people in “East Germany” depend on the help of the “West German” welfare system, the unemployment rate is as double as high as in “West Germany”. Especially woman (with children) are confronted with this situation. Many young and well educated woman already left the North Eastern part of Germany in order to find a job in the “West”. Nevertheless poor people are often confronted with the slogan, that their poverty is “only” “relative poverty”
compared to poverty outside of Schengen or Europe. In my paper I would like to discuss the following questions – starting from a short description of the practical situation: What kinds of national and gender identities have been constructed in the former GDR during the last twenty years? What does this mean for the future of “East Germany” – at the border to “Eastern Europe”?
Participant: Damir Josipovic
Institute for Ethnic Studies
Slovenia
Email: damir.josipovic@guest.arnes.si
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Cross-border solidarity: a case of peripheric cross-border ethnic community in Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary
After the break-up of Yugoslavia and introduction of market economy, the successor states suffered a long and still ongoing process of transition. In the circumstances of permanent shock, each of the successor states has been trying to overcome economical transiency. In years of post-Yugoslav wars notorious for massive human rights violations, many communities were forced to develop hidden networks of reciprocal help. On the other hand the current politico-economical situations in successor states vary considerably. As there were different paths of capital transgression in the region, so are there various levels of socio-economical austerity. I analyse empirical evidence from Slovenian-Croatian-Hungarian border region. The central question is how the national and regional-specific mode of latent suppression shape the social relations among members of cross-border ethnic community.
Participant: Carolin Leutloff-Grandits
Centre for South Eastern European History
University of Graz
Austria
Email: carolin.leutloff@uni-graz.at
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Labour migration and its impacts on intergenerational and transnational care: the case of Croats and Turks in Austria
The paper wants to look at the ambivalent consequences of migration on notions and practices of family care by migrants from Turkey and Croatia in Austria. Due to the fact that Austria has an advanced social security system and the sending countries, primarily rural Turkey, but also (post-)socialist Croatia, are less developed in this direction and rely to a greater extent on family and kinship networks to provide care, movement between states and social security systems challenges the ways in which migrants deal with care. Based on a field study among migrants from Turkey and Croatia in Austria, the paper will explore in which way the Austrian welfare state may enable migrants to rely individually on state social security rather than depend solely on family-based security, and in which way their migration project creates care gaps, especially for those who are left behind, be it the fragile elderly or dependent children. On the other hand, the paper will explore in which way migrants can also strengthen family support systems, either because they are and feel excluded by welfare provisions, by sending remittances to relatives at home, and/or by adopting notions of care and support to less instrumental, and more emotional ones.
Participant: Anais Marin
Political science and International Relations
Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies
Finland
Email: anais.marin@helsinki.fi
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Cross-border employment agencies: a comparative assessment from Eastern European Euroregions
In this paper, I present empirical data gathered during trans-border fact finding missions and interviews I conducted in 2008 -2009 in four transborder regions (TBR) situated at the Eastern peripheries of the EU: Euroregion Karelia and South-East Finland/Leningrad-St.Petersburg ENP CBC (FI/RU), Euroregions Neman (BY/LT/PL/RU), Lower Danube (MD/RO/UA)
and Slobozhanshchina (RU/UA). Apart from the last one, these are socio-economic fault-lines and objects of historical border changes between (recent) EU member countries and their (non-EU) Eastern neighbors. In these peripheries, development gaps and diverging socio-economic models created legal loopholes, economic discrepancies and mental borders. However, local communities are involved in intertwined networks of socio-economic interdependence through family linkages, cross-border tourism and transborder work commuting activities. This contribution is an attempt to measure and compare how transborder region-building strategies (the establishment of Euroregions) and cross-border cooperation projects (supporting SMEs, R&D and employment in each Euroregion) succeed in filling the welfare gap in these Eastern EU borderlands. The objects of the comparison are cross-border employment institutions (NGOs and project-oriented organizations) that operate under the flagship of their respective TBR, although with different sources of funding.
Participant: Elena Nikiforova
International Migration Group
FAFO - Institute for Applied International Studies
Norway
Email: elena.nikiforova@fafo.no
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Discussant
Participant: Petros Petsimeris
Geography
Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne
France
Email: petros.petsimeris@wanadoo.fr
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
New Migration New Borders? The impact of eastern European migration on the social structuration of the west European Metropolis.
The aim of this paper is to study the impact of eastern European migration in the structure of the west European city. The new migration flows have an impact on the structuration of the metropolitan space of cities, including London, Milan TurinBarcelona, Athens, Rome and Madrid. This has as a consequence new forms of appropriation of intra-urban space and the creation of new frontiers within the metropolitan space of the receiving cities. These frontiers are material in terms of spatial concentration and immaterial in terms of perception of the local population. The paper shows new forms of social division of metropolitan space, new forms of ‘living together’ in terms of the residential and business locations of the various ethnic groups.
Participant: Emanuela Rinaldi
Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Italy
Email: emanuela.rinaldi@unicatt.it Sociology
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Migrant teenagers crossing borders: transformations of perspective on agentic power and gender differences
The paper proposes a reflection on the way crossing borders for migration influence adolescents’ socialization, in particular the value they give to education, money, personal effort and good relationships with the family of origin. It is divided into two parts. First, it focuses on the concept of agentic power, considered as actor's ability to act independently of the constraining power of social structure. Secondarily, it explores differences among foreign adolescents who have recently experienced border crossing (to join or to accompany their parents) to come to Italy, and those who have non-Italian ethno-affiliation but have born in Italy (the so- called “second generation of immigrant”). This comparison is done buy using a database of 1.173 foreign students (aged 14-19) all living in the North of Italy. Differences between students boys and girls as well as between those coming from the East of Europe and those coming from the North of Africa are investigated. Preliminary results are discussed, showing how the experience of migration affects teenagers’ cultural perspective (self-perception of their agentic power) and their opinions on the importance to have positive relationship (roots) with their families.
Participant: May-Len Skilberi
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Fafo Institute for Applied International Studies
Norway
Email: mls@fafo.no
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Convenor WG3 2010
Participant: Vladislav B. Sotirovic
Political Sciences Department
Mykolas Romeris University
Lithuania
Email: vsotirovic@mruni.lt
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
"Fair Trade" and European Union
The European Union is known for being economically liberal. It means that the EU believes in a free market where goods, services and people can cross freely the boarders. This is what are telling the treaties since the very beginning of the European construction. From the European Coal and Steel Community and the free market of coal and steel to nowadays and the accomplishment of a whole process, free market economy has always been an objective to achieve. While the economic European construction was going on, another economic construction was on its way. An economy where partnerships are based on dialogue, transparency and respect, which seeks greater equity in international trade. That contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized
producers and workers. That construction is so-called «fair trade» movement. Between those two movements, which at first seem not to fit together, can we make any connections? Are they any common goals and interests ? If yes, how it is expressed on the political and social fields?
Key words: European Union, trade, economy.
Participant: Meri Stojanova
Ethnology
NI "Institute and Museum" - Bitola
Macedonia
Email: etno_m@yahoo.com
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Borders are almost always perceived as a “door” or entrance in some other reality than the one that we are living into.
Especially when we are talking about the perception or the contextual meaning of the borders of people that were closed in their own country almost without any chance to travel abroad, we have to have in mind that sudden change of the situation can provoke either fear or curiosity. Can these feelings become a driving force in the process of seeking a better life conditions? Can the “fall” of the borders or implementation of the Schengen regime become “an open door” to a better or wealthier life? These mixed feelings are especially strong when we are talking about the countries with almost same historic background, similar politic systems but different economic development. This situation brings us to the point when we start to wonder how, why and when the social and welfare gaps were created, and is it possible to overcome them.
It is expected that in the case of Macedonia and Albania this situation might be partially overcome by the Cross-border cooperation project that are about to be implemented starting from 2010 and followed during the next several years, but that is something that is going to be perceived in the future.
Participant: Joni Virkkunen
Karelian Institute
University of Eastern Finland
Finland
Email: joni.virkkunen@uef.fi
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Gender, Materiality and Sexuality in Post-Soviet Context
Apart from well-researched transformations in economy and ideologically-led political system, the collapse of the Soviet Union altered also the existing gender systems. Unemployment, poverty and social challenges of the new economic system led to new strategies of survival that varied from alternative economic activities to migration and international marriage. One of the strategies is so-called sponsorship / sponsor relationship. That refers to a very particular form of relationship that combines economic with other benefits such as sex. Be these relationships situated at or across borders or not, be they expressions of free will or not, they are based on different socio-economic differences and inequalities.
The proposed paper discusses the concept of sponsorship in the post-Soviet gender / sexuality context. In Western social sciences (i.e. sociology), this form of people-to-people sponsorship is unrecognizable while in post-Soviet societies that is not only a well-known phenomenon in everyday talk and dating but also a recognized concept in gender studies. Scholars such as Zdravomyslova, Temkina and Rotkirch (e.g. Temkina & Rotkirch 1997, Zdravomyslova 2004) talk about sponsorship as modern, morally acceptable model of relationship that is typical for the post-Soviet generation especially. Being normalized in Russia, how can the “market script" (Temkina) be interpreted from Finnish or Scandinavian perspective?
Participant: Christian Voß
Philosophische Fakultät II, Humboldt-Universität
Institute for Slavic Studies
Germany
Email: christian.voss@staff.hu-berlin.de
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Convenor WG3 2009
Differences of prosperity and transborder small-scale trade along the German-Polish and the Greek-Bulgarian border
The papers deals with the “gap within”, i.e. differences in wealth within the new EU borders since 2004 and 2007 (more precisely in the border region of Frankfurt/Oder and to the north of Salonica). Since there are considerable price differences in the adjacent countries, the inhabitants on the “poorer” part of the border suffering from the political transformation process organise legal trade markets in several small towns and villages close to the border (selling clothing, electronic devices, food, alcohol, cigarettes etc.). A crucial point to discuss will be the comparability of the two case studies. A striking difference is that, due to the existence of the GDR, the German-Polish border was not part of the Iron Curtain. On the other hand, both border regions are characterised by the legacy of national antagonism that excalated in the first half of the 20th century. A key aspect of the paper is the discursive interaction between Germans and Polish or Greeks and Bulgarians respectively on the markets and the linguistic varieties they use: How do economic interests cope with ethnic and political stereotypes dating from the Cold War as well as with the still existing irredentist discourses and mental maps?
The paper is based on fieldwork carried out in both regions.