16TH INTERNATIONAL METROPOLIS CONFERENCE Migration Futures: Perspectives on global changes 16TH INTERNATIONAL METROPOLIS CONFERENCE Migration Futures: Perspectives on global changes EDITION Presidency of the Government of the Azores Regional Secretary of the Presidency Regional Department for the Communities DESIGN, LAYOUT AND PRINTING Bizex Projectos CIRCULATION 750 September 2011 4 CONTENT INTRODUCTION 04 SOCIAL EVENTS 12 STUDY TOURS 18 PLENARY PROGRAMME 26 PLENARY PROGRAMME BIOGRAPHIES 36 WORKSHOPS SCHEDULE 52 WORKSHOPS 13 SEPTEMBER 60 WORKSHOPS 14 SEPTEMBER 72 WORKSHOPS 15 SEPTEMBER 84 POSTER TITLES 96 GENERAL INFO 98 NOTES 109 5 16TH INTERNATIONAL METROPOLIS CONFERENCE Migration Futures: Perspectives on global changes THE AZORES IN THE WORLD ROUTES It is with great pleasure that I welcome to the Azores all the participants in the 16th International Metropolis Conference. The Azores, port of departure and of arrival of migrants since the fifteenth century, in the coming days will become the main stage of the global debate on the new challenges of human mobility in a truly interdisciplinary dimension before an increasingly interdependent world subjected to the economic and trade consequences of globalization. As many of you must know, the Azores, in their privileged geographical condition, have always been a reference site in the North Atlantic, assuming over the centuries a strategic role in the relations between America and Europe and Africa. At this intersection of peoples and cultures, the Azorean forged their own and unique identity, based on the settlement of communities spread over nine islands, but united in their sense of society with more than five centuries of history. Emigration is also part of the history of the Azores. A number of destinations was chosen by the Azorean people as their new living space, with particular emphasis on North America, driven by diverse motives. Azorean communities abroad are solid and successful, while keeping, at the same time, a strong attachment and closeness to their origins, preserving a heritage from the past and participating actively in the development of the present. In the last decade of the twentieth century we have also become a safe haven for some communities, promoting the region as an attractive environment, aware of the size of migration. Our immigrants, in their cultural richness and diversity, assumed themselves as active participants in the life of each of our islands, where interculturality has conquered its own space, thus contributing to social cohesion of the Azores. These are the reasons that underlie the Azores as a natural stage for discussions on human mobility to be held within the 16th International Metropolis Conference. Here you will have the opportunity to learn a new migratory dynamics coupled with a regional transnationalism, see how the integration of new migrants in society can be promoted, though enhancing their active 6 INTRODUCTION participation in the land of origin, understand the dynamics of associations in communities abroad, but linking them to local associations, and see the importance of immigration on society as a key factor in an open and tolerant society. This is therefore the right time for reflection on key issues affecting our planet, including the effects of large-scale human mobility, the centrality of economies, globalization, and the unconditional defense of human rights. I hope that your participation in the 16th International Metropolis Conference in this era of great global change enriches the different perspectives of the future of migration. Finally, I would like to reinforce the welcome to the Azores, wish you all a good stay with us and express the wish of success for this initiative. Carlos César The Sete Cidades Crater Lake - one of the 7 Natural Wonders of Portugal President of the Government of Azores 7 16TH INTERNATIONAL METROPOLIS CONFERENCE Migration Futures: Perspectives on global changes WELCOME MESSAGE I take great pleasure in being able, on behalf of the Metropolis International Steering Committee, to welcome you to the 16th International Metropolis Conference. We at Metropolis are very grateful to the Government of The Azores for hosting us, and we are delighted to be back in Portugal whose fortunate guests we were in 2006 for our conference in Lisbon. Although we are back in Portugal, we are back with a difference. This conference marks our first in a territory of emigration, one that has more than half of its people living in other countries. The Azores has a rich migration history as a sending and transit society and more recently as host to others who are arriving in the search for a better life. We hope that you are able to take in some of this rich experience and apply it to your own work on migration and the integration of migrants. As with each of our events, this year’s conference will highlight what we hope are fully contemporary topics that will stimulate new ideas about the phenomena associated with modern migration. The Metropolis model places a premium on bringing the policy, academic, and civil society sectors together to confront these issues seriously and to generate ideas, analysis, and advice of lasting value. Over the course of most of world history, international migration has been unregulated; it is only relatively recently that states have established mechanisms to manage migration. Perhaps as a consequence, migration has at times become a source of anxiety for governments and their citizens over the past 100 years as the desire to manage it has both met with high expectations by the citizenry and only partial success in reality. Today we see both governments and publics concerned about modern migration flows, including irregular flows, concerned about what they see as inadequate social and economic integration, concerned that deepening diaspora relations weaken social cohesion, and facing problematic inter-ethnic relations. These are matters to take seriously, and our job at Metropolis is to understand these phenomena, understand these concerns, and find solutions that enhance the benefits of international migration to our societies, our economies, our cultures, to the migrants, and to their homelands. 2011 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Marshall McLuhan who coined the term ‘global village’. Many of the sessions that this conference offers will strike to the heart of the idea of a global village, be they about migration amongst countries that have 8 INTRODUCTION integrated their economies, about diaspora to the world, especially when their electorates are relations, about transnational identities and the worried. More is at stake than immediate political growing impact of social networking websites, life fortunes. They must earn the trust of their citizens in modern multi-ethnic cities, or about migration to take difficult and what might even appear to be between islands or countries in the global counterintuitive decisions about migration when South. Modern technology has transformed their economies are lagging. how migration takes place, how migrants relate both to their societies of destination and their Our hope at Metropolis is that the information societies of origin, and how they make decisions that our conferences offer, the exchanges of about their future places of residence and their views and experiences amongst the people of national, cultural, and religious affiliations. our countries, will help to bolster this confidence Understanding immigration and immigrant and allow governments to take decisions, some integration in the future will require us all to of them difficult, that will serve their people understand how these are affected by modern well into the future. The experiences of all communications and information technologies. countries participating in this conference will serve to enlighten us about decisions to be made A better understanding of how modern in our own. Although The Azores are a small migration and integration take place should help society, their openness to the world beyond governments with concerns about migration their borders will be instructive to the rest of resist the urge to close ranks in the interests us. For example, The Azores take seriously the of national self-protection, acts that in the management of their relations with their global long run may well prove to be self-defeating. expatriate community. Governments elsewhere, Especially with today’s confluence of ageing including those of fully developed countries Western societies experiencing demographic that have yet to recognize the potential in their and economic stagnation, rising economies and expatriate communities, will have much to learn powers in the rapidly developing countries of the from the Azorean experience in enhancing their world, and growing numbers of well-educated economic standing by opening their society people in countries whose economies are not yet to those outside. We are very excited about able to employ them, we need to emphasize the the discussions at this conference and aspire advantages of societies that are open to trade in to making a constructive contribution to the goods, services, and ideas, and to the movement worldwide debate about international migration of people. We will all be better off in open than in and the diversity that it brings to our populations, closed societies. But this openness, especially in a contribution that we will continue to make at countries experiencing economic and even geo- our conference next year