Conference scams and women’s empowerment

Have you been receiving conference scam spam? I have so far got about a dozen. It is a very interesting improvement on the Nigerian general’s widow scam, banking on the fact that if you are invited to a conference you might reasonably accept to get a visa. Presumably, though, there is a registration fee. (I [...]

New Centre for Study of Muslim Societies

Next month the University of Western Sydney will be launching a new Centre for the Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies.  Here are the details of the Centre and the launch:
Launch of the new Centre for the Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies
The University of Western Sydney is its new Centre for the Study of Contemporary Muslim [...]

Gomorra and Frozen River

It happens that a small “arthouse” (?) cinema in central Amsterdam is simultaneously screening two award-winning feature films that are in one way or another about illegal Chinese migration: Frozen River, a quite lyrical film about two women smuggling people from Canada to the US through an Indian reservation to make ends meet, and Gomorra, based on Roberto Saviano’s bestseller, [...]

Europe’s hierarchy of aliens

A few days ago Jovan wrote about Gabriele Marranci’s blog. When I was in Singapore I had a chat with Gabriele about xenophobia in Italy, and to my surprise he told me that the main xenophobic party, Lega Nord, which is part of the current government,  has recently upgraded Chinese immigrants to being as dangerous [...]

20 little Australians

Just quickly.  The Sydney Morning Herald currently has a nice little multimedia presentation entitled “20 Little Australians”.  A condensed version of a longer story that will appear in the weekend paper, obviously designed to coincide with Australia Day on the 26th.  The presentation features 20 children who have migrated to Australia and provides snippets of [...]

Call for films/photo documentaries on the multicultural city

The Student Equity, Excellence and Diversity Initiative (SEED) at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa has just put out a call for video and photo presentations on the theme of the ‘multicultural city’.  Sounds like an exciting venture.  Here are the details:
Diversity in Place: Making Documentaries on the Multicultural City April 24th, 2009
http://diversityinplace.wordpress.com/
More than half [...]

Anthropologie sans frontières: Interview with Dr Alice Corbet

This post has been removed at the request of the author.

Positive developments in Australian asylum seeker policy

The Australian government has just announced a very positive change to the policy detaining asylum seekers.  According to the new policy, detention of asylum seekers will no longer be mandatory and will only apply to those arriving by boat or who are deemed to pose a threat to the community in some way or another.  [...]

From refugees to ‘envirogees’?

Scott Thill at Alternet has published an article on the social impact of climate change.  The article goes as far as coining a new term: ‘envirogee’.  The implication seems to be that ‘refugee’ has a certain amount of baggage, being intrinsically associated with political persecution.  We are entering an age, mainly due to climate change, [...]

Citizenship and voting

This week I am giving a lecture on the changing meanings of citizenship, so I was struck by an article in The New York Times that reports on a controversial new measure on Missouri that requires people to show proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. This measure is aimed at preventing illegal immigrants from voting, but it [...]