(November 21) Dr. Gertrud Hüwelmeier with "Transnational networks of Vietnamese migrants in Germany"

Topic: Transnational networks of Vietnamese migrants in Germany

Summary:In the current era of globalization, migration flows from Asia and Africa to Europe have transformed it into a dynamic, globally connected migration region. Unlike the previous ‘export workers’ who moved from Mediterranean countries to Europe to work in industry and manufacturing mainly under bilateral agreements between governments and employers, new migrants have found other positions in the European labour market through changes in national migration legislation. However, due to different policies across European countries, the legal status of new migrants is often unclear, and many of them live and work as illegal migrant workers. Focusing on transnationalism and diaspora as new theoretical concepts in the social sciences, my paper explores different ways of place formation in Germany. I argue that migrants transfer and import imaginaries, practices, and subjectivities from place to place while transforming or reshaping their ideas about family, ritual, locality, and space. In particular, my report focuses on the waves of Vietnamese migration in East and West Germany and their experiences after German reunification in 1990. The different political and historical backgrounds of the migration waves contribute to shifting the interdependencies between place-making and locality in the construction of diasporic identities in Europe.

Presenter:Dr. Gertrud Hüwelmeier is assistant professor and researcher at the Department of European Ethnology, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. Gertrud studied social anthropology at Freie Universität (Berlin) and received her PhD in anthropology from the University of Tübingen, Germany. She has conducted fieldwork in Europe, the United States and India. She is currently the project leader of the research project “Transnational Networks” focusing on Vietnamese and Ghanaian migrants in Europe and in their home countries.

Time:9:00 am Friday, November 21, 2008

Location:Multimedia Room, Museum of Anthropology, 3rd Floor, Building D, 336 Nguyen Trai, Thanh Xuan, Hanoi