The MiReKoc-BROAD-ER Wednesday Seminar Series, organized as part of the Bridging the Migration and Urban Studies Nexus (BROAD-ER) Project (https://broad-er.eu/), warmly welcomes Dr Claire Dorrity, Lecturer, School of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork and her presentation titled “Migration and the City: Perspectives from Tunisia”, which took place on May 17th, 2023.
The MiReKoc-BROAD-ER Wednesday Seminar Series, organized as part of the Bridging the Migration and Urban Studies Nexus (BROAD-ER) Project (https://broad-er.eu/), warmly welcomes Dr Claire Dorrity, Lecturer, School of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork and her presentation titled “Migration and the City: Perspectives from Tunisia”, which took place on May 17th, 2023.
Title: “Migration and the City: Perspectives from Tunisia” Presenter: Dr Claire Dorrity, Lecturer, School of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to explore how the lived experience of migrants interacts with and produces new spatial relations in urban spaces. It specifically analyses the challenges faced by migrants in navigating new city spaces, and highlights how, despite encountering many barriers to integration, migrants continue to transform cities by their very presence within them. The paper specifically examines how poor conceptual understanding of migrant everyday life, give way to norms of segregation, exclusion, marginalisation and expulsion. The paper draws on empirical studies using two case studies: 1) the perspectives of young Tunisians crossing borders into Europe and 2) the case of Sub-Saharan Africans who have taken up residence in Tunisia. Both cases highlight the complexities of migration processes and structural weaknesses of integration in contemporary urban spaces. The research investigation is based on discussions from empirical studies undertaken in Tunisia with young people who had successfully crossed the border into Europe, making a new life in Italy and Germany, but been forcibly returned, and Sub-Saharan Africans who had intended to reach Europe but found themselves making Tunisia their home. Drawing on the lived experience of migration and the city, the paper emphasizes both migrant vulnerability and migrant resilience. Drawing from the narratives of participants in the research, the paper argues for the need for creating better planning and inclusive policies for migrants within cities and the need for a broader understanding of the complex factors that drive migration. Most specifically, it focuses on the need to connect migrant and local communities through promoting an understanding of the rich and positive outcomes of co-existence, diversity, and migrant active participatory and integration.
Short-bio: Dr Claire Dorrity is a lecturer in social policy at the School of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork (UCC). Her main research interests include Migration Policy; Critical Multiculturalism; Border Securitisation; and Migrant Integration. Her most recent research project EMBRACE, an IRC funded research project focused on border securitisation practices on the US /Mexican Border and North Africa/EU Mediterranean border. Her teaching interests include migrant policy and practice in the EU; anti-racist and anti-discriminatory practice; cultural awareness and cultural competence in professional practice; and ethnocentrism and power hierarchies in cross-cultural settings. Claire is a committee member of the ISS21 Migration and Integration Research Cluster (UCC), the University of Sanctuary Executive Committee (UCC), the Centre for Global Development Steering Committee (UCC) and the Latin American Regional Working Group (UCC). As a member of the UNIC European Consortium Alliance, Claire is the UCC academic lead in the Development MA in Superdiversity in Education, Organisations, and Society (SEOS). She is also a member of the Utrecht Taskforce on Responsible Internationalisation and Global Engagement.
About BROAD-ER: BROAD-ER is an EU-funded Twinning Project. BROAD-ER aims to build a Research Excellence Network that fosters interdisciplinary research and training at the nexus of migration and urban studies. BROAD-ER is a collaboration between Pompeu Fabra University in Spain, the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and Koç University in Turkey. Its main goal is to close the research gap within the European Research Area (ERA) by establishing innovative and interdisciplinary approaches, while also increasing research and innovation capacities in Turkey in emergent fields of migration and urban studies.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation under agreement No. 101079254. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.