Programme & Abstracts

You can find the detailed programme for the Symposium on Precarities and Temporalities in Migratory Contexts below. The symposium will be held in the Main Building of the University of Helsinki, Fabianinkatu 33 Helsinki. Registration is located in the main lobby, at the Fabianinkatu entrance. Keynotes are held on the 4th floor, while workshops are located on the 3rd floor.

9.30-10.00 Registration
Fabianinkatu 33 Main lobby

10.00-11.00 Opening  & Keynote: Bridget Anderson: Time, State, Nation: The Case of Migrantised Worker
Room F4050 Small Festive Hall, 4th floor

In this paper I’ll explore what we can learn at the intersection of labour, migration and precarity. I will start by considering two ways in which the temporal turn enriches the study of migration and mobility: Firstly, it encourages a processual approach to migration that moves away from fixity and ‘the migrant’ and towards ‘migrantisation’. Secondly, through drawing attention to temporality as a mechanism of governance it invites us to reflect on how the state governs through time. This is not peculiar to ‘migrants’, and the lens of temporal governance can help us unmake some of the constructed divisions between migrants and citizens. I will then explore some of the ways in which the labour precarity framing, which is very popular in labour migration research, can both further and undermine this project of unmaking differentiation. It can further it by capturing a particular kind of worker subjectivity and highlighting the relevance of social reproduction to lived experiences of contemporary work, and it can undermine it by introducing hierarchies of vulnerability and by distracting analysis away from taking migration as a class issue.

11.15-12.45 Parallel workshops (Age & Aging; Social reproduction; Inclusion & Migrantisaton)
See the rooms below

13.00-14.00 Lunch
Sodexo Laurus

14.00-15.00 Keynote: Cathrine Degnen: Time and Imagining Generational Differences: Chronocracy and Agism in Brexit-Covid-19 England
Room F4050 Small Festive Hall, 4th floor

Generation or relative age is a common way humans define social difference. In Europe and North America, old age is frequently perceived as a period of decline and loss, a condition ‘successful ageing’ paradigms exhort individuals to avoid for as long as possible. Explicit and implicit ageist beliefs, discourses, and practices marginalize later life, portraying it as undesirable and inferior. This paper explores how imagined generational relationships with time – younger people as future facing, older people as ‘out’ of time – enrol linear, future-oriented temporal perspectives in reproducing ageism. The aftermath of the Brexit referendum followed closely by the covid-19 pandemic serve as my ethnographic examples. These two extraordinary events permit me to highlight how chronocracy (Kirtsoglou and Simpson 2020) – that is, the denial of coevalness or coexistence in time through everyday temporal regimes – reinforces unequal power dynamics, and to explore how generational groups are differently valued in contemporary England.

15.00-15.30 Coffee break 
Aula Sirén

15.45-17.15 Parallel workshops (Belonging; Time; Different Precarities)
See the rooms below

17.30-18.30 Reception 
Christina (U2085)
 

19.00 Dinner
Ravintola Ragu, Ludviginkatu 3-5 

9.30-10.30 Keynote: Vanessa May - Belonging, Time and Migration-related Precarity
Room F4050 Small Festive Hall, 4th floor

My talk explores the intersections of belonging, time and migration-related precarity. Belonging – which can be defined as a fundamental sense of comfort and ease within oneself and one’s relational, social, cultural and material surroundings – is an inherently temporal experience. I revisit my work on the temporal nature of belonging, a core feature of which is a concern with people’s everyday lives and with relationality. In particular, I examine how the temporal horizons of past, present and future inform a person’s sense of belonging and how temporal belonging intersects with space and materiality. These insights are placed in conversation with recent work on the temporality of migration experiences, which foregrounds the structural foundations of temporal precarity.  My aim is to consider how such a dialogue could enrich both the belonging literature and scholarship on migration.

10.45-12.15 Parallel workshops (Labour 1; Home & Hospitality; Care)
See the rooms below

12.30-13.30 Lunch
Sodexo Laurus 

13.45-15.15 Parallel workshops (Regulation/Governance; Integration; Labour 2)
See the rooms below

15.15-15.45 Coffee break 
Aula Sirén

15.45-16.30 Panel discussion
Small festive hall F4050

"Changes to the migration law effects on the lived experience of migrant workers"
 Panelists: Marianna Heinonen, the Free Movement Network 
                 Eugene Ufoka, AFARS
                 Nikki Obernik, the Borderlines project

The time assumed for each presentation is 15 minutes, followed by a 7-minute discussion.

 11.15-12.45

 

Workshop 1 Age & Aging (Chair Laura Kemppainen) 
Room F3004 
 

Anne Kouvonen et.al: Informal caregiving and health among older Russian speaking migrants in Finland 

Yan Zhao: Ambivalences and uncertainties of old age care in the transnational space of care - exploring the narratives of Chinese migrant older parents with a life-course perspective    

Synnøve Jahnsen: Ageing at the Margins: Violence and Vulnerability among Older Migrants in Norway    

 

Workshop 2 Social Reproduction (Chair Elisabeth Wide) 
Room F3006

Daria Krivonos : Temporality of 'crisis' and socially reproductive worlds of Ukrainian migrant/refuge workers   

Professor Majella Kilkey (2) Dr Obert Tawodzera (3) Dr Jayanthi T. Lingham : A long view on the crisis of social reproduction for those entangled in (post)colonial labour migrations   

Emma Lamberg: Everyday political economy and social reproduction in a withdrawing welfare state   

Olga Gheorghiev: At the foot of the mountain: temporalities of production and social reproduction of Ukrainian refugee women in the Czech Republic   

 

Workshop 3 Inclusion & Migrantisation (Chair Sara Eldén) 
Room F3020 Studium1

Turid Misje: What counts as an emergency situation? Time and the precarious inclusion of homeless EU/EEA citizens in Norwegian public social welfare   

Valter Sandell-Maury: Difference and similarities: connecting the exclusions of migrants and citizens in the welfare state   

Ilona Bontenbal and Quivine Ndomo: Climate change, vulnerability and im(mobility) in a European context   

Andrea Iossa; Minna Seikkula: A Nordic tragedy of commons: parallel patterns to differential inclusion and labour exploitation of temporary migrant labour in production of wild berries across Finland and Sweden 

 

15.45-17.15

 

Workshop 4 Belonging (Chair Vanessa May) 
Room F3004

Nessa, B., Seddighi, G., and Radlick, R.L: The Digital Life of Precarious Belonging: NEET-Youth with Migration Backgrounds in Norway  

Rashida Bibi, Jo Britton, Majella Kilkey, Lois Orton: Intersectional complexity in go-along interviews: Temporal dimensions of belonging and inclusion in the lives of older people with migration backgrounds' 

Maryna Smahina: ‘More Than Sufferers’: Belonging and Boundary-Making Through Work Among Ukrainian Forced Migrants in Finland   

Laura Kemppainen & Sirpa Wrede: Precarious Emplacement: Lifetime Experiences of Displacement, Settlement and Shifting Belonging in Finland 

 

Workshop 5 Time (Chair Olivia Maury)
Room F3006

Anna-Maria S. Marekovic Anna Liisa Närvänen:  Imagined Educational Trajectories and Acting in the Present: Newly Arrived Migrant Students in Introductory Education 

Anastasia Diatlova: Precarious Time and Migrant Construction Workers in Finland 

Reiko Shindo: Time and (un)countability of language   

 

Workshop 6 Different Precarities (Chair Lena Näre)
Room F3020 Studium1

Markus Jäntti & Lena Näre: Precarity in Nordic countries - levels and trends across various notions of precarity   

Erna Bodström: The temporality of asylum - from protection to precarity   

Laura Mankki, Eeva Heikkinen, Mikko Jakonen: Precarious Affects in Liminal Time Zone of Low-Income Migrants   

Ismaël Maazaz: Precarious rivers: flood, mobilities and livelihoods at the Chad-Cameroon borderland   

The time assumed for each presentation is 15 minutes, followed by a 7-minute discussion. 

10:45-12:15 

 

Workshop 7, Labour 1 (Chair Lena Näre )
Room F3004

Rasmus Ahlstrand: Solidarity in migrant worker mobilisation: Syndicalist unionisation in Sweden   

Catharina Calleman: Syndicalist struggle for labour migrant workers in the Swedish Labour Court   

Alejandro Miranda Nieto: Partial Footholds: Rethinking the Trajectories of Highly Qualified Migrants in Oslo  

Olivia Maury: Racialized Geographies of Labour: The Case of Food Delivery Workers in Helsinki   

 

Workshop 8 Home & Hospitality (Chair Paula Merikoski)  
Room F3006

Ann Cathrin Corrales-Øverlid Alejandro Miranda Nieto: Precarious Work, Precarious lives? How Migrant Workers in Norway Weave Life-Narratives and Build a Sense of Home 

Olga Tkach: Non-linearity of homestay accommodation in wartime: Life-making temporalities and materialities of homesharing    

Priscilla Solano: ‘Civil Society Hospitality’: Welcoming Initiatives and Pragmatism Targeting Unaccompanied Youth in Malmö   

 

Workshop 9 Care (Chair Sirpa Wrede) 
Room F3010

Majda Hrženjak: Managing Precarity with Affects: Labor Migration, Third-Country Nationals, and Senior Care Homes in the Post-Yugoslav (Semi)periphery of Europe   

Unnur Dis Skaptadottir & Svitlana Odynets (TRANSCARENET): Addressing Methodological Challenges in Researching Transnational Care   

Anna Simola, Laura Merla: Academic Displacement and the Role of Family: Scholars at Risk Navigating Mobilities, Precarity, and Care Relations   

Amrithavally Thaivalappil Ramakrishnan: Workforce Reconfiguration in Residential Care: Opportunities, Risks and Future Directions   

 

13:45-15.15 

 

Workshop 10 Regulation/ Governance (Chair Markus Jäntti) 
Room F3004

Suvi Karhu: Labour shortages or the demand for flexible foreign workforce? The labour market test as a regulatory tool for labour immigration   

Guro Aasen, Astrid Ouahyb Sundsbø: From Hope to Reality: An analysis of How Immigrant Women’s Work Ambitions Are Shaped and Realised Through Participation in a Work-Oriented Measure   

Marco Rocca: Temporariness in EU Law. The timescape of temporary labour migrations   

  

Workshop 11 Integration (Chair Anastasia Diatlova)
Room F3006

Turid Sætermo and Linda Dyrlid: Navigating challenges: ‘Effective integration’ and precarity for adult low literate refugees in Norway 

Eveliina Lyytinen:The end of life in refuge - temporalities of integration and death 

 

Workshop 12  Labour 2 (Chair Olivia Maury)
Room F3010

Elisabeth Wide & Ann Cathrin Corrales-Øverlid: Paced-, Piece-rated and Unpaid work: Migrants Navigating Institutional Continuity and Change in the Finnish and Norwegian Cleaning Sectors  

Sara Eldén, Rasmus Ahlstrand: Outsourced domestic cleaning: Female migrant labour and the commercialisation of domestic work in Sweden 

Synnøve Bendixsen and Ann-Cathrin Corrales-Øverlid: Cruel Optimism: The Paradox of the Norwegian Welfare State and Precarious Labor Conditions 

Paula Merikoski & Lena Näre: Negotiating dignity in undervalued and underpaid work. Ukrainian workers in Finland in agri-food and cleaning sectors. 

Book of abstracts

Find the book of abstracts attached here.