The IMISCOE (International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe) research network started in 2004 as an EU-funded Network of Excellence and is now an independent research network uniting 29 institutional members and over 200 researchers in Europe and beyond (see www.imiscoe.org).
Research Groups are initiatives by IMISCOE members who join forces to address new themes and methodologies and strengthen the migration research field. They are typically multidisciplinary and focus on international comparative research.
From 2013, NOVA initiated and co-ordinates a new five year Research Group, Contested childhoods and multiple crises: When children and young people form part of migration processes, new questions arise at the intersection of childhood studies and migration studies. Tensions between different value systems may normally have little practical importance, but a crisis reveals what usually remains invisible and, as such, constitutes a moment of truth.
Childhood is a complex and changing concept in complex and changing environments. Families, nation-states, markets and children themselves are central actors engaged in contesting the meaning of childhood. Childhood thus becomes a battleground, where battles may range from minor tensions and everyday negotiations to conflicts involving violence and law enforcement.
We seek to address questions that become especially pressing in times of crises, such as:
- How are children regarded as representing the future of the societies of emigration or immigration, the future of their families, or their own futures?
- How do societies strive to include the children of immigrants/migrant children?
- How do children and young people seek to establish their positions, and how may these efforts conflict or converge with families' struggles for continuity and belonging?
- Which ideas, ideals, and practices of childhood do diverging interests represent and how are they negotiated in different social fields?
- How may migration lead to changes in the understanding and practicing of childhoods?
Contact person: Marie Luise Seeberg, marie.l.seeberg@nova.no
Source: http://www.nova.no/id/26809