Fattige flygtninge – og “flygtningeindustriens” bagmænd

Time: Tuesday, 7 September at 14.00 – 16.30 hours

Venue: Danish Institute for International Studies, Main Auditorium, ground floor, Strandgade 71, Christianshavn, 1401 Kbn K

DIIS’s migration unit has invited Rubén Hernández-Leon from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) to present an analysis with regard to migration to the United States.

Time: Tuesday, 7 September at 14.00 – 16.30 hours

Venue: Danish Institute for International Studies, Main Auditorium, ground floor, Strandgade 71, Christianshavn, 1401 Kbn K

DIIS’s migration unit has invited Rubén Hernández-Leon from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) to present an analysis with regard to migration to the United States.

Why do migrants – legal and unauthorized alike – use the services of intermediaries and brokers to cross borders, conduct long-distance travel, access jobs abroad and remit resources home?

Who are these brokers and why are they conspicuously present in all kinds of international migratory flows regardless of the legal status, social class and skills of migrants and the duration of their migration?

How do these intermediaries, their behavior and interests and the myriad services they offer affect the process and experience of migration?

This seminar provides answers to these questions by building on the concept of the migration industry.

The migration industry consists of a matrix of private and specialized services that facilitate and sustain international human mobility and its related behaviors, including settlement, mobility, communication and resource transfers.

Migration entrepreneurs render these services for a fee with the main objective of turning a profit. The migration industry encompasses formal and informal services as well as legal and illegal activities, including those that straddle the line between clandestine existence and official recognition.

Instead of attempting a general theory, this presentation interrogates the concept, advance different interpretations and provide the necessary historical background to understand the heart of the migration industry: the heterogeneous complex of migration entrepreneurs, their activities and the social and economic infrastructures they create to make international mobility possible.

Speaker
Rubén Hernández-Leon, Associate Professor, UCLA, USA

PROGRAMME

14.00-14.10
Introduction by Ninna Nyberg Sørensen, Senior Researcher, DIIS

14.10-15.00
The Migration Industry: Brokers, Buses and the Business of International Mobility by Rubén Hernández-Leon, Associate Professor, UCLA, USA

15.00-15.20
Coffee Break

15.20-15.30
Comments by Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, Project Researcher, DIIS

15.30-16.30
Open Discussion

Chair: Ninna Nyberg Sørensen, Senior Researcher, DIIS

The seminar will be held in English.

Participation is free of charge, but registration is required. Please use our online registration form on http://diis.dk/sw96705.asp

And do so no later than Monday, 6 September 2010 at 12.00 noon.

Please await confirmation by e-mail from DIIS for participation.

Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), The Conference Section, Strandgade 56, 1401 Kbn K, tlf. 32 69 87 51, fax 32 69 87 00, e-mail: [email protected] og web: www.diis.dk