Academic Events

Migration, Social Inequalities, Inter-Generational Relations and Life Course Transitions

1 February 2018

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Overview

One day workshop led by the Development Studies Association ‘Migration, Development and Social Change’ Study Group and COMPAS

Date: 1st February 2018
Time: 10am-5pm
Venue: Thomas Coram Research Unit (Room: The Library), UCL Institute of Education, University College London, 27-28 Woborn Square, London. For map see here: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/departments-centres/centres/thomas-coram-research-unit

Organisers: Dr Katie Wright, (Global Studies, University of East London) Professor Julia Brannen (Institute of Education, University College London) and Dr Caroline Oliver (Department of Social Sciences, University of Roehampton).

This workshop examines migration and life transitions and how these are linked to broader social inequalities using three key concepts: thinking relationally, moving beyond individual outcomes to consider linked lives, and addressing intersectionality. The focus is on inter-generational relations and life transitions as a broad category of study, particularly in relation to mobility. These may be experienced in families, for example, as children, in adolescence, in adulthood or by older people (e.g. becoming a parent, being widowed or ageing). More broadly, life transitions may be focused on other areas that go beyond the family or inter-generational relations, for example, in the domain of work, including linkages between production and reproduction.

Dr Katie Wright is a Reader in International Development, University of East London working on gender and development, international migration, human wellbeing and Latin America. She is the author of ‘International Migration, Development and Human Wellbeing’ based on ESRC-funded primary research on the construction of human wellbeing amongst Peruvian migrants based in London and Madrid and their relatives in Peru (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). The focus of her next book is on inter-generational transfers amongst London-based Latin American migrant mothers and their daughters. She has also recently extended this research to explore the case of migrant fathers and their sons.

Professor Julia Brannen is a Professor in Sociology of the Family at the Thomas Coram Unit, (Institute of Education, University College London). She has an international reputation for her research on family life, work-life issues, and intergenerational relations. One of her most recent books (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) focuses on Fathers and Sons: Generations, Families and Migration, exploring change and continuity in men’s lives as fathers and the ways in which masculinities and fatherhood are transmitted and transformed across three family generations. It explores unique insights into men’s lives, migration, employment, fatherhood, father-son relationships and intergenerational transmission over the life course.

Dr Caroline Oliver is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Roehampton. She works on life course transitions especially on international retirement migration, on which she published a book entitled Retirement Migration: Paradoxes of Ageing (Routledge, 2008). She also works on how state practices influence 'integration' processes, with a particular focus on rights to education and migrant families' experiences of education. Her current work explores city-level innovation in asylum-seeker reception, where she is leading a research and evaluation project of the Utrecht Refugee Launchpad (funded by the Urban Innovative Action scheme of the ERDF) a novel co-living and learning initiative bringing together asylum seekers and people from the local neighbourhood to improve skills, wellbeing and social connections.

Programme

10.00- 10.30 Registration and Coffee

10.30 -11.15 Plenary Speaker: Majella Kilkey (Reader in Social Policy, University of Sheffield). Ageing, Migration and Care: (Im)mobility in utilitarian migration regimes.

Session 1: (11.15-12.15) Intergenerational Relations and Transfers

Chair: Margaret O Brien tbc

(11.15am) Professor Julia Brannen (University College London).

Intergenerational relations among two waves of migrants to the UK.

 (11.35am) Dr Katie Wright (Global Studies, University of East London). Human Wellbeing Transfer from a Gender and Life Course Perspective: The Case of Latin American Migrant Mothers and Daughters in London, UK.

 (12.00-12.20pm) Session 1: Discussion.

12.20– 1.15pm Lunch

1.15pm – 2.15pm Session 2: Intergenerational Narratives and Practices

Chair: Katie Wright

 (1.15pm) Professor Ann Phoenix, Ann (University College London).

Intergenerational narratives of home and migration.

 (1.35pm) Dr. Caroline Oliver (University of Roehampton) and Vanessa Hughes (Goldsmiths)

Educational hiatuses: Intersections of immigration status, gender and life course in the production of educational inequalities.

 (2-2.20pm) Session 2: Discussion.

2.20 – 3pm Coffee

Session 3: ‘Life Course Transitions’ 3-4.30pm Chair: Julia Brannen
(3pm) Dr Elaine Chase (UCL) Precarious transitions:  Unaccompanied Migrant young people becoming ' adult' in the UK. 

(3.25pm) Dr. Laura Morosanu (University of Sussex) Growing Up Abroad: Italian and Romanian Migrants’ Partial Transitions to Adulthood.

(3.50-4.15pm) Session 3: Discussion

Next Steps 4.15-4.45pm

Close 4.45pm