AFLYST! Afrika Seminar: Israel og ‘Det Hellige Land’ – Afrikanske migranters rettigheder 1990-2010

Seminaret er desværre aflyst.

TIME: Thursday, 22 November, 15.15 – 17.00

VENUE: Auditorium 12, Centre of African Studies, Købmagergade 46, 4th floor, 1150 Copenhagen K

Seminaret er desværre aflyst.

TIME: Thursday, 22 November, 15.15 – 17.00

VENUE: Auditorium 12, Centre of African Studies, Købmagergade 46, 4th floor, 1150 Copenhagen K

Since the early 1990’s, for the first time in its history, thousands of Sub Saharan Africans entered Israel in search of work. In spite of their volatile legal situation they managed to establish for themselves and by themselves lively communities that catered for their basic social needs.

In the center of these communities were dozens of African Pentecostal churches. This religious arena was an expanded and flexible one which touched on complex questions related not only to what some may term “purely” religious themes but, among other issues, to identity and rights.

The lecture will compare two waves of migration, the first arriving in Israel by air as tourists or pilgrims throughout the 1990s, mainly from West Africa; and the second, which started in 2005, of predominantly Sudanese and Eritreans, who entered the country illegally in search of asylum or work opportunities across its lax border with Egypt.

While the former cohort deployed a religious rhetoric of attachmen! t to the Holy Land, the latter invoked international human rights to claim their rights as refugees in addition to religious rhetoric. The lecture will consider the context and grounds for this shift in political tactics and rhetoric of migrant discursive stance vis-à-vis the state.

Prof. Galia Sabar, PhD is the Chair of African Studies at Tel Aviv University, Israel. Over the past 25 years her research has focused on three main themes namely: the interplay between religion and politics in Africa with special emphasis on extra-religious activities churches perform and their effect on politics; The role religious organizations perform in HIV\AIDS prevention education campaign in East Africa and finally on African labor migrants in Israel and upon their return back home to Africa. In the past 6 years she expanded her research to include over 60,000 African asylum seekers who have started entering Israel via its lax boarder with Egypt.

Galia has published over 30 articles in professional journals, 15 chapters in books and has written four books and co-edited three. Galia has been active in several Israeli and international NGO’s including Jerusalem AIDS Project; Hotline for Migrant workers and refugees, IRAC, Israel Human Right Action. For combining academic wisdom with social action work she has received in 2009 the Unsung Heroes Award, granted by the Dalai Lama.