Thomas Faist, Bielefeld University
Paper for Theme 1:
"The Transnational Social Question: From
Social Security to Social Inequalities"
We may usefully compare the so-called "social question" in the 19th and 20th century, which emerged as a result of industrialization, the labor movements and state responses, to a "transnational social question" in today's world. There seems to be increasing (awareness of) global interdependencies in fields such as international migration, military threats, environmental degradation. The conventional question associated with this observation is: Is there a transformation of mainly national social policy within welfare states to global social policy and thus governance in the 21st century? However, this question is mostly concerned with problems of global governance and occludes the importance of the transnational as interface of state-regulated institutional conditions on the one hand and the strategies and action of social agents such as migrants on the other hand. The paper deals with social security practices of migrants and (relatively) immobile persons, and analyzes the social mechanisms which result in the reproduction of existing social inequalities but also the emergence of new ones.
Thomas Faist is Professor of Transnational and Development Studies at the Faculty of Sociology, BielefeldUniversity. He is director of the Center on Migration, Citizenship and Development ( Formerly, he directed International Studies in Political Management (ISPM) at Hochschule Bremen. His research focuses on migration, ethnic relations, social policy, comparative politics and transnationalization. Thomas Faist was Willy-Brandt-Guestprofessor at the University of Malmö and DAAD Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto. Currently he is theGerman partner and leader of several Work Packages of "Transnational Migration and Transformation" (TRANS-NET), European Union, Specific Targeted Project (FP 7), 2008-2010 and the Chair of the Scientific Board and German partner of "Environmental Change and Forced Migration Scenarios" (EACH-FOR), European Union, Specific Targeted Project (FP 6), 2007-2009.
His recent book publications include Beyond a Border:The Causes and Consequences of Contemporary Immigration. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press (2009). Co-authored with Peter Kivisto (forthcoming), Dual Citizenship in Global Perspective: From Unitary to Multiple Citizenship. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan (2008). Co-edited with Peter Kivisto (ISBN: 978-0-230-00654-6), Citizenship: Discourse, Theory and Transnational Prospects. Oxford: Blackwell (2007). Co-authored with Peter Kivisto (ISBN: 978-1-4051-0552-1), Dual Citizenship in Europe: From Nationhood to Societal Integration. Avebury, UK: Ashgate (2007) (ISBN: 978-0-7546-4914-4), Between Autonomy and the European Union: The Europeanization of National Immigration Policies. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan (2006). Co-edited with Andreas Ette (ISBN: 1403987130)