2021/22 Sociology Seminar Series
UCD School of Sociology Seminar Series 2021-2022
4th November 2021 13:00-14:00 | Zoom event ((opens in a new window)register here)
Shiva Bazargan | Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
Intersectionality in law and sociology: where are the gaps?
Abstract: There are two main differences between law and sociology in their approach to understanding and applying intersectionality. The first difference is the understandings of the ‘additive approach’ and how it is different from ‘intersectional approach’. Academic debates in law, treat intersectional approach at a slower pace compared to advances in the field of intersectionality studies in sociology. The second difference is related to law and sociology’s treatment of power as a relational concept. Sociology has dealt with the multiplicity of discrimination and relationality as a core idea of intersectionality in a more constructive, dynamic, and relational way than law. In order to conclude the debate, two important aspects of intersectionality could be strengthened in either discipline in order to reduce these gaps and bring the understanding of intersectionality closer to each other. In particular, paying more attention to ‘privileged positioning’ and focusing on intersectionality as ‘methodology’ would be helpful.
Bio: Shiva Bazargan (University of Shahid Beheshti) is researching intersectionality theory and its impact on anti-discrimination law with an emphasis on Iranian women. She holds a bachelor's degree in Law from Tabriz University and a master’s degree in Public Law from the University of Shahid Beheshti, Tehran. She was a fellow at University of Amsterdam researching intersectionality literature in European law.
11th November 2021 13:00-14:00 | In-person event with Zoom live broadcast | D422 Newman Building, (opens in a new window)register for zoom broadcast here
Iris Wigger | Loughborough University, UK
Challenging Anti-Black racism and white normativity: Postcolonial reflections on Angelo Soliman and our understanding of racism, cultural representation, and Othering
The main aim of this talk is to provide a historically grounded examination of contemporary and historical media representations of Angelo Soliman and demonstrate how a critical Postcolonial reading and analysis of the racist representations ascribed to him during his life as a Black man in 18th century Vienna and after his death can help us to understand the white normative underpinnings/roots and the persistence of anti-Black racism in Modern Europe, investigate it in its historical and contemporary forms, and in relation to media, cultural representations and ‘Othering’. This working paper intends to go beyond being a new interpretation of Soliman and show how this case study has broader implications for our understanding of racism in the Modern world and its link to cultural representation and Othering.
Soliman was a remarkable black man, who lived in 18th century Vienna, married into the Viennese aristocracy, served as a ‘court moor’ and established himself as a freemason and educator at the Viennese Court. After his death, his body was snatched, and prepped to serve as an exhibit of a ‘primitive savage’ in the Austrian Emperor’s Natural History Collection. The article explores relations between patterns in Soliman’s contemporary representation and his stereotypical racialised portrayal as a ‘moor’ in 18th century Viennese society. It identifies both, continuities in his portrayal as well as more recent attempts to critically question and counter the persistence of racist stereotypical images of Angelo Soliman.
Bio: Dr Iris Wigger is a sociologist at Loughborough University (LU) and Visiting Assistant Professor in Sociology at UCD. She is the School Co-Lead for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at LU. Iris Wigger’s research is specializing in issues of 'race' and racism and Intersectionality in European history and contemporary society. She has achieved a record of international excellence across research, teaching and Enterprise/research impact work. Her research output record comprises of high-calibre research papers, books, edited books and research monographs. Iris Wigger is a team-spirited, historically minded and dedicated sociologist with an established, and growing international research trajectory in critical racism analysis, contributing to topical scholarly debates on racism, white normativity and Intersectionality
18th November 2021 13:00-14:00 | In-person event with Zoom live broadcast | D422 Newman Building, (opens in a new window)register for zoom broadcast here
Aura Lousanma, University of East London, UK
Universities on the border: the politics of higher education and migration
Abstract: Only a minority of refugees, whether settled or in transition, access higher education globally. One of the key barriers is caused by hostile immigration policies, in which universities have become complicit. In addition to policing students’ immigration status, universities create their own bureaucratic barriers to refugee students with high costs, complicated admissions and application processes and the burden of proof regarding language competency and previous learning. When we understand bordering as a process we must also look at universities internal practices, pedagogies and learning environments as part of the cultural and social processes that exclude and discriminate students. Universities are politically situated both due to their relationship with the state, and due to their relationships with staff and students. In this talk I will share experiences of teaching refugee students in the Calais Jungle, in community groups in the UK and at the University of East London. I will also draw from the experiences of a European wide Refugee Education Initiatives project which drew participants from Hungary, Germany, Austria and Greece. Some of the key lessons I have drawn while directing refugee access to HE programs include the importance of navigating and resisting bordering policies within institutions and finding ways to resist them in any of our educational spaces; sharing knowledge across the sector; training staff on trauma-based practice and building anti-racism as central component of all education. To increase refugee societal inclusion and access to higher education we must rethink universities and their role in bordering politics. This will lead into universities to becoming more welcoming environments for all students.
Bio: Aura Lounasmaa is a senior lecturer in Political Science and the director of the Open Learning Initiative (OLIve) course for refugees and asylum seekers at the University of East London. She studied European Economics and Law at UCD and completed her PhD at NUI Galway on Moroccan women’s NGOs’ political and discursive strategies. Her recent publications focus on participatory practices in education and research with refugee learners, ethics of participatory research and barriers to forced migrant inclusion into higher education. She is a co-director of the Association for Narrative Research and Practice.
25th November 2021 13:00-14:00 | (opens in a new window)Register for zoom broadcast here
Utsa Mukherjee, Brunel University, UK
Diasporic Lived Religion in the Times of COVID-19: The Case of Durga Puja Festivals in Pandemic Britain
Abstract: In this paper, I will use the sociological lens of lived religion to unpack the way diasporic Hindu Bengalis in Britain dealt with the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in staging their autumnal Durga Puja festival which centres around the worship of the goddess Durga. The public health measures introduced in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible for community groups to host in-person indoor Durga Puja festivities which are pivotal to the social calendar of diasporic Hindu Bengalis. Instead, in the autumn of 2020, many UK-based Durga Puja organisers staged small-scale ritual worship of the goddess in private and then livestreamed it to their members through social media. Based on participant observation of these festival livestreams and remote interviews with Durga Puja organisers from across Britain, I demonstrate that far from being a break with the past these blended Durga Puja festivals built on established templates of mediatisation of religious practices and are part of the wider continuum of adaptations that characterise diasporic lived religion. I also reflect on how internal hierarchies within the diaspora played out vis-à-vis blended Pujas amidst the pandemic.
Bio: Dr Utsa Mukherjee is a Lecturer at Brunel University London. He was previously an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Postdoctoral Fellow in Sociology at the University of Southampton. His research interests include migration and diaspora, race, ethnicity and racism, and childhood studies. He is currently the Book Review Co-editor for the journal Children & Society.
Further details to follow
2nd December 2021 13:00-14:00 | Zoom event ((opens in a new window)register here)
Juan J. Fernández, University Carlos III of Madrid
New Politics and the Long-term Decline in Class Voting in Affluent Democracies, 1956-2018
Description: The role of social class divides in voting choices has long been a central topic in analyses of political behaviour. Many studies examine either empirical patterns of this phenomenon or formulate theoretical causes to account for it. Yet despite extensive work, critical questions remain unanswered such as what socio-economic and political country-level properties help account for the long-term decline in class voting. Using a novel database of 16 affluent democracies covering 1956-2018, this study contributes to this literature with an analysis of long-term changes in class voting. Drawing on the New Politics theory, we argue that the increasing political empowerment of women contributes to the decline in class voting. Since gender-equality issues cut across class issues, they help undermine the salience of class in domestic public spheres. Fixed effects models support our hypothesis. Keeping other things equal, countries that display a stronger increase in women’s political empowerment display a stronger decrease in total class voting.
Bio: Juan J. Fernández is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social Sciences at the University Carlos III of Madrid and member of the Carlos III-Juan March Institute of Social Sciences (IC3JM). His research addresses the relationship between social inequalities, state structures and political conflicts. His research is conducted from a quantitative and comparative perspective and covers four main areas: social policy, political behavior, gender & politics and European integration. He is currently the PI of two projects funded by the Spanish State Research Agency: one regarding the mechanisms of class voting and another one regarding the democratic governance of private pension funds. His recent publications include: (1) “Pension Policy Literacy and Retirement Expectations: A Cross-Country Survey Experiment” (Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, Forthcoming) coauthored with Jonas Radl; (2) “Gender Quotas and Public Demand for Increasing Women’s Representation in Politics: An Analysis of 28 European Countries” (European Political Science Review, 2021) coauthored with Celia Valiente; (3) “Socio-Economic Determinants of Survival in a Nazi Concentration Camp: The Experience of Spanish Prisoners at Mauthausen” (Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Forthcoming) coauthored with Jordi Domènech.
Further details to follow
20th January 2022 13:00-14:00 | Zoom Event ((opens in a new window)register here)
Rik Huizinga, Utrechet University, The Netherlands
Where do I belong?: Lived experiences of young Syrian men in the Netherlands.
Abstract: In this presentation I aim to provide nuanced insights into the everyday experiences and actions of young Syrian male refugees in the Northern Netherlands. In social and political debates, Syrian male identities tend to be reduced to only a few aspects, such as gender, race and religion. Representations of Syrian refugee men in the Netherlands therefore tend to portray them as unwilling, unassimilable or a dangerous Other. Consequently their emotions, inconveniences and vulnerabilities rarely surface, even though men are both the object and the subject of power relations and social violence.
I seek to disrupt these narratives by exploring how young Syrian male refugees establish meaningful and emotional relationships with their everyday environment. I use findings from in-depth and walking interviews to provide a rich illustration of their daily routines and activities, and the opportunities and vulnerabilities they experience as they seek to achieve security, home and belonging. The insights show that Syrian men represent a diverse, complex and dynamic population in contrast to social discourses and political debates. They actively explore and occupy local spaces to
find a sense of home and belonging, and demonstrate various strategies to cope with cumulative change in their everyday life. At the same time, they experience slow violence in multiple social domains due to social and institutional marginalisation. The emotional relationships that Syrian men establish and maintain are thus complex, and relate to various times and spaces due to personal biographies, aspirations and desires.
Bio: Rik Huizinga is a social and cultural geographer interested in the intersections of gender, migration and identities. In 2021, he completed a PhD at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. His doctoral thesis explores lived experiences of young Syrian refugee men in the Netherlands with a focus on security, home and belonging in the context of social change. Currently, he is working as a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University in the HERA project ‘Refugee Youth in Public Space’, a collaboration between Newcastle University, Institut Universität Bonn, Utrecht University and Université de Liège.
3rd February 2022 13:00-14:00 | In-person event with Zoom live broadcast | D422 Newman Building or register (opens in a new window)here for webinar
Ana Liberato, University of Kentucky, USA
Racism and the Lived Experience of Dominican Immigrants in Switzerland
Abstract: Drawing from qualitative research conducted in Switzerland, this study examines first-generation Dominican immigrants’ experiences of racism and their sense of belonging. It examines racist events and interactions and their relationship with the respondents’ sense of identification with Swiss society. The findings suggest going beyond the often-assumed negativerelationship between belonging and everyday racism and paying more attention to mediating micro, meso and macrolevel factors. The study also directs us to pay more attention to majority-minority interactions and the strategies adopted by immigrants in managing intense emotions within specific life realms. Furthermore, our analysis broadens our understanding of these issues in a context located outside of the “metropolis-colony sphere” that’s so commonly represented in the migration literature. It also sheds light on how racism and belonging interact in a context marked by linguistic and cultural diversity, with no institutionalized discourses of race, but that strongly stresses white ethnicity as part of the criteria for belonging.
Bio: Ana S.Q. Liberato was born and raised in the Dominican Republic. She received her master’s in Latin American Studies and doctoral degree in sociology from the University of Florida in 2001 and 2005 respectively. She has a B.S. in Statistics from the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo. Dr. Liberato's interests include race, ethnicity, and gender and their interplay with political identity and political attitudes. Dr. Liberato has a special interest in the cultural and political impacts of migration, and the well-being of immigrant populations. She also has a special interest in the political, cultural, and socioeconomic processes taking place in Caribbean and Latin American societies as a consequence of globalization and democratization.
17th February 2022 13:00-14:00 | Zoom event ((opens in a new window)register here)
Alejandro Miranda-Nieto, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway
Shared flats in Madrid: Social anchoring and the development of migrants' sense of home
Abstract: Many migrants opt for shared accommodation as a way of coping with the shortage of affordable housing in large cities. As a distinct type of co-housing, flat sharing has been described as one of the many forms of housing precariousness, and even as a type of homelessness. This seminar presents a series of issues arising from an ethnographic study conducted with Peruvian migrants in Madrid. It examines how people anchor a sense of home in the context of transnational migration, and how this process takes place in the context of dwelling in a shared flat. It argues that, while dwelling in a given place and anchoring a sense of home are closely related, they do not always go hand in hand. The (in)congruence between living in a given place and evoking feelings of home partly depends on the role that dwellers play within the shared household and the degrees of control that they have over different settings within the flat. The usage of the domestic space and the ways in which its settings become compartmentalised constitute entry points to the conceptual elaboration of social anchoring and its purchase to understand migrants’ sense of home.
Bio:
Alejandro Miranda-Nieto is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Diversity Studies Centre Oslo, OsloMet. His research focuses on the relationship between social practice and various forms of mobility, dwelling and social change. He is the author of academic articles on migration, mobilities, home, music and ethnography. His monograph Musical Mobilities has been published in the Routledge Advances in Ethnography series, and the co-authored book Ethnographies of Home and Mobility in the Routledge Home series.
3rd March 2022 13:00-14:00 | In-person event | D422 Newman Building
Fataneh Farahani, Stockholm University, Sweden
The afterlife of migration: Some reflection over an intellectual and personal journey
Abstract: My main field of study is migration and displacement. For the purpose of this presentation, by reflecting over my personal and intellectual journey (not mutually exclusive entities), I will engage with issues of displacement, otherness, marginality and (be)longing through an intersectional lens. In sum, I will reflect over following themes.Gendering diaspora studies: By placing gender and sexuality at the centre of my research, I have traced how gender and sexuality are constitutive of migratory processes and vice versa. In doing so, I examine the intersection of the discourses through which (un)desirable femininities and masculinities are constructed in different diasporic spaces. Gendering and racializing knowledge production: Theoretical and methodological attention on overlapping gendered and racialised power relations in which the process of knowledge production is embedded in. Gendering hospitality: The social values attached to hospitality are highly gendered. By paying specific attention to the gendered aspects of hospitality within the migration context, I highlight both the gendered characteristics of responsibility for hospitable practices as well as how gender inform the (un)deservingness of the displaced subjects.
Bio: Fataneh Farahani is an Associate Professor in Ethnology and Wallenberg Academy fellow at the Department of Ethnology, Gender Studies and History of Religions at Stockholm University. Her publications include: Gender, Sexuality and Diaspora (Routledge, 2018), and articles in the Journal of Sociology, European Journal of Women’s Studies and the Nordic Journal of Migration Research. She is a co-editor of Hospitality and Hostility: The Intimate Life of Borders and Migration at the journal of Sociology (2021) and Artistic and Intellectual Hospitality’ at the Discover Society website (2020).
10th March 2022 13:00-14:00 | Zoom event ((opens in a new window)register here)
Vanessa May, University of Manchester, UK
The public sphere as a character in family life: Stretching the boundaries of sociological attention
Abstract: The aim of this talk is to contribute to a reconceptualization of the boundaries of sociological attention regarding where family is enacted by following family life as it is lived across a range of private and public settings. Families tend to be studied as bounded units with an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside’, spatially centred in the home. I argue that by conceptualising the public sphere as more than a backdrop to family life and families as more than units populating public spaces, and by empirically capturing a broader set of goings-on as part of family life, we can start to conceive of family life in new ways. My talk will explore two dimensions in particular. First, challenging taken-for-granted ways of thinking about what constitutes the ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ of family life means systematically exploring how mundane interactions and activities in public settings become part of family life, and how family relationships help constitute these. Second, by conceptualising city spaces as aspects of and even as characters in family life, we can ask how people realise their family capacities in public spaces and how these spaces act in family life. By rethinking the boundaries of sociological attention, such questions can become core to our understanding of how families are constituted and lived.
Bio: Vanessa, Professor of Sociology, gained her PhD from Abo Akademi University in Finland in 2001. Between 2002-2005 she worked at the Centre for Research on Families, Kinship & Childhood at the University of Leeds. She then joined the Department of Sociology at the University of Manchester in 2005 and is currently the Co-Director of the Morgan Centre for the Research into Everyday Lives and the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Sociology.
24th March 2022 13:00-14:00 | In-person event | D422 Newman Building - POSTPONED DUE TO ILLNESS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
Lorenzo Posocco, UCD
Museums and Nationalism in Croatia, Hungary and Turkey
Abstract: This seminar draws attention to museums as political productions of the nation-state and shows how they can be shaped by the political forces that rule a country. Drawing on case studies and interviews from Croatia, Hungary, and Turkey, Posocco will focus on how the past has been exploited to serve the interests of nationalism in the twenty-first century, and how museums themselves can be exploited to serve nationalist ideologies. The discussion starts from the notion that nationalism is ubiquitous, a pervasive and grounded ideology present at all levels of society, including museums. This considered, Posocco will attempt to argue that all museums, regardless of their specificities and focuses, can be seen as national museums, offshoots of the nation-state system in its structural and subjective forms. In this perspective, a museum can (and does, in the case studies under analysis in this book) become the centre of political wars, a place where the national past is contested, rewritten, and sometimes even created from scratch, and finally exhibited. While paying particular attention to the decision-making and economic aspects of the museum, Posocco will also examines the micro-sociological and political aspects.
Bio: Lorenzo Posocco holds a dual PhD in Sociology from the University College Dublin (UCD) and Political Science from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales Paris (EHESS). He was visiting researcher in Istanbul at Yeditepe University and Graz at the Centre for Southeast European Studies. Currently, he is a research assistant in UCD and collaborates with the University of Rome Tor Vergata where he teaches in the Department of History, Cultural Heritage, Education and Society.
21st April 2022 13:00-14:00 | In-person event | D422 Newman Building
Simon Behrman, Warwick University, UK
The status of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh: Between rights, politics and history
Bio: Simon studied Law at Birkbeck, University of London, and earned his PhD there with a thesis on the history of asylum, refugee law and sanctuary movements. Since then Ihe has published widely on these and related themes. In relation to climate refugees in recent years Simon has worked closely with various international organisations such as the International Organisation for Migration, and the Platform for Disaster Displacement, the British Red Cross. Prior to joining Warwick, Simon taught at Birkbeck, University of East Anglia and Royal Holloway. He was a Visiting Lecturer at LUISS in Rome for several years.
Abstract: The Rohingya are sometimes referred to as the Jews of the early 21st Century; a persecuted people without a state and at the mercy of a world where statelessness appears to deny them the ‘right to have rights’. Central to their plight is the history of British colonialism, which displaced them for the purpose of ensuring a convenient source of labour, and as part of a divide and rule strategy. This was compounded by the impact of the dissolution of the British Raj along ethno-religious lines. As a result, the Rohingya have found themselves subject to genocidal attacks in Myanmar, and in an often precarious situation in their main country of asylum: Bangladesh. In this talk, I will be presenting this history and outlining some of the legal and political context today that may help or hinder a settlement of the ‘Rohingya Question’. This will draw upon aspects of Bangladeshi and international law and politics.
19th May 2022 13:00-14:00 | In-person event | D422 Newman Building
Ryan Nolan, University College Dublin, Ireland
The ‘Scramble for the Bones of the Patriot Dead’: Rituals of Exclusion in the Centenary Commemorations of the Easter Rising.
Further details to follow
22nd June 2022 13:00-14:00
Pooya Ghoddousi, Queen Mary University of London
Affects and Açabiyah: collective action among transnational Iranians