Event Title
Session 3
Location
Centre de formation et de séminaires (CEFOS) in Remich/Luxembourg
Start Date
10-3-2013 3:00 PM
Description
Professor Ali Behdad: “Memory and Disavowal in Figuring Muslim Immigrants within National Discourse”
Respondent Professor Murray Pittock FRSE
ABSTRACT
In this talk, I offer a general discussion of the production and cultural workings of immigration politics in Western Europe, a politics marked by a profound disavowal of certain historical traumas embedded in the continent’s relationship with its immigrants. Although attentive to historical and sociological differences in the immigration debate in Western European nations, my talk will focus on how Muslim immigrants are perceived and represented by politicians, political pundits, and in the media throughout Western Europe in a way that negates certain historical traumas. My interests in this paper lie in the cultural and political implications of such views in the context of everyday lives of Muslim immigrants. What do representations of Muslim immigrants reveal about the broader politics of immigration in Europe? How do these representations contribute to contemporary political debates about immigration ideologically? And finally, how do these representations enable an exclusive form of national identity in Western European countries such as France, England, Germany, and Holland?
Session 3
Centre de formation et de séminaires (CEFOS) in Remich/Luxembourg
Professor Ali Behdad: “Memory and Disavowal in Figuring Muslim Immigrants within National Discourse”
Respondent Professor Murray Pittock FRSE
ABSTRACT
In this talk, I offer a general discussion of the production and cultural workings of immigration politics in Western Europe, a politics marked by a profound disavowal of certain historical traumas embedded in the continent’s relationship with its immigrants. Although attentive to historical and sociological differences in the immigration debate in Western European nations, my talk will focus on how Muslim immigrants are perceived and represented by politicians, political pundits, and in the media throughout Western Europe in a way that negates certain historical traumas. My interests in this paper lie in the cultural and political implications of such views in the context of everyday lives of Muslim immigrants. What do representations of Muslim immigrants reveal about the broader politics of immigration in Europe? How do these representations contribute to contemporary political debates about immigration ideologically? And finally, how do these representations enable an exclusive form of national identity in Western European countries such as France, England, Germany, and Holland?