Lara Jüssen studied Latin Americanism in Cologne and Buenos Aires and received her doctoral degree in Cultural Anthropology in Bonn. She cooperated with the Latin American Network on Ethnicity Citizenship Belonging at Bonn University, as well as with the Center for Development Research in Bonn and the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales FLACSO in Quito. Her work focuses on migration, citizenship, gender and work, as well as questions of political economy and social inequality, social networks and belonging, space and place, affects and cultural articulations. Address: Bergisch Gladbach, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Lara Jüssen takes the case of Latin American household and construction workers in Madrid to show... more Lara Jüssen takes the case of Latin American household and construction workers in Madrid to show how ir/regular labour migrants make citizenship available for themselves through emplacements, embodiments and enactments of citizenship. After describing the sociopolitical context of crisis and resistance in Spain, citizenship is anthropologized in order to approach it through the workplace: the private household and the construction site. Based on empirical results from interviews, it is analyzed how citizenship is emplaced through ego-centered networks and assemblages that situate the migrants’ social belonging; how it is embodied through carving out of identities of the migrant workers, intersectionality of gender, ethnicity, and class, affects that imprint workers’ bodies, and experiences of violence at the workplace; then citizenships’ enactment is scrutinized through workers’ empowerment for rights, individually at the workplace and collectively through demonstrations and political theater performance in urban public space.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 2018
Women and care work have always been connected and since the fortification of the more recent wom... more Women and care work have always been connected and since the fortification of the more recent women’s movements of the 1970s, have become the analytic interest of academics of the social sciences. Today, gender, as it is debated in the global North sometimes threatens to tip over the top, or, to lose its topic of debate with regard to women empowerment. A class perspective evidences that not all women are in need of empowerment or support in the same way, while ethnicity appears rather as question of migration. In the global South, both women empowerment and related questions of gender are pressing, however, it should be watched that gender debates do not end up taking in questions of women empowerment, for instance if gay pride overrules abortion rights. Ethnicity and class as additional analytical concepts then need to be used carefully in order to enable the recognition of oppressions of women reliably, so that feminist social sciences do not get stuck in a fight about global inequalities in short-sighted ways. Both books reviewed here take gender as title giving concept, even if the focus on care and care work implies a strong focus on women, women’s work and feminist theory, while gender as overarching concept of social relations between men and women, as gendered identity, or as concept of sexuality underlie, nonetheless. Both books also use a transnational approach, one, however, focussing on migrants from the global South engaged in care work sectors in the global North, the other one comparing the care work sector in a country of the global South with the care work sector in a country of the global North. So, care and gender in transnational perspectives are topics of both books subject of this collective review.
Städtische Planungskulturen im Spiegel von Konflikten, Protesten und Initiativen, 2015
Die spanische Krise des Immobilienmarktes ist Resultat einer Immobilienpolitik, die eng mit dem F... more Die spanische Krise des Immobilienmarktes ist Resultat einer Immobilienpolitik, die eng mit dem Finanzsektor, der Hypothekengesetzgebung und einer Planungskultur verwoben ist, die ihre Anfänge in Zeiten der Diktatur nahm. Mit dem Entwicklungsplan (desarollismo) unter Franco wurde seit den späten 1950er Jahren Wohneigentum als Bedingung von Wohnen politisch forciert und wirtschaftlich umgesetzt. Damals wie heute wehren sich Betroffene gegen die Planungshegemonie der Verwaltungen, Banken und des Marktes und nutzen dabei nachbarschaftlich organisierten Protest, der - wenn auch aus anderen Gründen und unter anderen Umständen – seine Vorläufer in den Aktionen der Nachbarschaftlichen Vereinigungen (Asociaciones Vecinales) der 1970er Jahre hatte, in Zeiten der transición, des Übergangs von der Diktatur zur Demokratie. In diesem Artikel wird dargelegt, dass Planungskulturen in Spanien eng mit den Migrationsbewegungen in die Wachstumsregionen, hier am Beispiel Madrids analysiert, verwoben sind. Es wird des Weiteren gezeigt, wie die aktuellen politischen Protestbewegungen und ihre historischen Vorläufer auf eine Neugestaltung der Wohnraumpolitik und Hypothekengesetzgebung hinwirken und damit auch städtische Planung und Planungskultur neu gestalten.
This article locates practices of representation of Bangladeshis in Lavapiés, a barrio of Madrid,... more This article locates practices of representation of Bangladeshis in Lavapiés, a barrio of Madrid, within a framework of translocal identities and belongings. Networks, festivities, practices and habits of Bangladeshis in Lavapiés are generally oriented towards Bangladesh. Nevertheless, Bangladeshis dub their restaurants and other businesses " Indian " as part of an ethnic marketing strategy that uses national/identitarian descriptions as a resource. This self-denomination is explained through historic and cultural links to India, though the practice also evolved within the framework of colonial relations to Britain. As will be shown, the restaurant and food business in which Bangladeshis in Lavapiés engage emerged over centuries of cultural criss-crossings between Europe and the Indian subcontinent, only more recently being introduced to Spain. These translocal dynamics in the historic and contemporary dimensions of migrants' experiences result in the possibility of highly contextual activations of self-descriptions and self-representations.
RESUMEN
En el análisis sobre migrantes, en general, y sobre migrantes descritos como grupos étni... more RESUMEN En el análisis sobre migrantes, en general, y sobre migrantes descritos como grupos étnicos, en concreto, se tiende a presuponer un tipo de "solidaridad étnica" dentro de sus redes sociales. Esta suposición da por sentado que todos los que se definen como "indígenas" disponen y disfrutan de un capital social basado en la solidaridad. En este artículo se toma el caso de comerciantes migrantes kichwa-otavalo tanto para indagar la suposición de que la etnicidad es la fuente del capital social colectivo y, por tanto, de la solidaridad, como para cuestionar si esta actúa implícita en las cadenas y redes de migrantes, las cuales suelen ser equiparadas a su capital social.
ABSTRACT When thinking about migrants in general and migrants described as ethnic groups concretely, there is usually a tendency to assume a kind of " ethnic solidarity " within their social networks. This presumption of the existence of ethnic solidarity takes for granted that people who are defined as " indigenous " , in this case, dispose of and profit from social capital and solidarity among each other. In this article the case of migrant entrepreneurs from Otavalo is used in order to examine ethnicity as a source of social capital and, as such, of solidarity, as well as the presumption of solidarity as something implicit within migration chains and networks, which are usually treated as equivalent to migrants' social capital.
Gentrification General Definition The British Sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term in the early... more Gentrification General Definition The British Sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term in the early 1960s and described the movement of higher-income groups (the 'gentry') into lower-income, possibly ethnic, neighbourhoods and in so doing the replacement of latter groups. It has subsequently been used to describe the process of re-evaluating urban spaces in the Western world. The process involves social change as well as a physical change and renovation in the area and leads to higher prices in rent and/or a general transition from renting to owning property. In the last fifty years the definition has been widened and is now also applied to the Global South and thus the Americas, which has consequences for the core principles of the definition. Gentrification Research – Schools of Thought Research on the topic of gentrification has mainly been inspired by events in the 1980s. As the notion encompasses the connotation of class takeover, there were initially attempts by supporters and profiteers to replace " gentrification " through terms as " urban renaissance " or " neighbourhood reinvestment ". The concept challenges the more traditional theories of urban social structure that e.g. did not stipulate the return of the wealthy into once abandoned neighbourhoods, seeing suburbanization through middle class movements as the final evolutionary stage within the industrial city. Hamnett (1991) points to the fact that the debate from its origins exposes a political controversy which is also somewhat reflected within the scientific debate: While some discovered decay upon " white flight " in central city areas and present gentrification as saviour, others describe it as threatening working class areas, while displacing poorer households in favour of bohemian lifestyles unaffordable to the former. Sociological research centres on two main competing sets of explanations: The question of structure versus agency is crucial for the debate on gentrification. While the consumption or demand side theory (liberal humanist according to Hamnett 1991) stresses the role played by
This paper critically discusses citizenship, belonging and ethnicity in relation to their spatial... more This paper critically discusses citizenship, belonging and ethnicity in relation to their spatial dimensions, locating the concepts within individual initiatives, everyday practices and processes of negotiation. Against the backdrop of developments relevant to extra-communitarian (non-EU) migrants in Spain, examples of local responses to transnational migration will be discussed, with each referring to Latin Americans within the urban context of Madrid. Starting from a political-economic approach of the dynamics in the (post-) crisis situation, Ecuadorian vendor's activities will be scrutinised; they use informal economic activities in order to cope with the requirements of everyday life. The examples of the cultural centre La Tabacalera and the church San Lorenzo focus concretely upon place-making activities and the increasing importance of localities for the materialisation, manifestation and reconfiguration of individual or collective migrant belongings and vital urban citizenship.
Executive Summary 1. The macroeconomic background, the multi-dimensionality of poverty and the fe... more Executive Summary 1. The macroeconomic background, the multi-dimensionality of poverty and the feminzation of labour will be explained as they together form the contextual condition of the focused group of garment workers. Then, the methodological approach to the conduction of the survey is explained. 2. The survey analysis first focuses on the garment workers' social background and living conditions which determine their private life to a considerable extent. It will be shown, that it is mainly young female garment worker who engage in the job before settling down in married life. Also, workers free time engagements are focused in order to draw a picture of their activities. 3. The socioeconomic situation of workers will be described. The contribution of the workers to the total households' livelihood as well as their restrictedness in spending their earnings will be shown. However, if household savings are possible and pursued this can constitute a social safety net. 4. The employment conditions, as employment length in one factory, working hours and leave will be focused. A regression on the basic income of workers reveals the lack of implementation of the new minimum wage in Chittagong for female helpers. 5. Awareness on Labour Law related issues as well as workers' rights and responsibilities shall be discussed exemplary. 6. As the poorest group of workers a target group analysis of workers earning below minimum wage and their general situation shall be regarded. 7. A conclusion on the poverty situation and empowerment status will be drawn. 8. Recommendations will be deduced. PROGRESS (promotion of social, environmental and production standards in the ready-made garment sector) is a joint program of the Bangladesh Ministry of Commerce and the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and implemented by GTZ.
Lara Jüssen takes the case of Latin American household and construction workers in Madrid to show... more Lara Jüssen takes the case of Latin American household and construction workers in Madrid to show how ir/regular labour migrants make citizenship available for themselves through emplacements, embodiments and enactments of citizenship. After describing the sociopolitical context of crisis and resistance in Spain, citizenship is anthropologized in order to approach it through the workplace: the private household and the construction site. Based on empirical results from interviews, it is analyzed how citizenship is emplaced through ego-centered networks and assemblages that situate the migrants’ social belonging; how it is embodied through carving out of identities of the migrant workers, intersectionality of gender, ethnicity, and class, affects that imprint workers’ bodies, and experiences of violence at the workplace; then citizenships’ enactment is scrutinized through workers’ empowerment for rights, individually at the workplace and collectively through demonstrations and political theater performance in urban public space.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 2018
Women and care work have always been connected and since the fortification of the more recent wom... more Women and care work have always been connected and since the fortification of the more recent women’s movements of the 1970s, have become the analytic interest of academics of the social sciences. Today, gender, as it is debated in the global North sometimes threatens to tip over the top, or, to lose its topic of debate with regard to women empowerment. A class perspective evidences that not all women are in need of empowerment or support in the same way, while ethnicity appears rather as question of migration. In the global South, both women empowerment and related questions of gender are pressing, however, it should be watched that gender debates do not end up taking in questions of women empowerment, for instance if gay pride overrules abortion rights. Ethnicity and class as additional analytical concepts then need to be used carefully in order to enable the recognition of oppressions of women reliably, so that feminist social sciences do not get stuck in a fight about global inequalities in short-sighted ways. Both books reviewed here take gender as title giving concept, even if the focus on care and care work implies a strong focus on women, women’s work and feminist theory, while gender as overarching concept of social relations between men and women, as gendered identity, or as concept of sexuality underlie, nonetheless. Both books also use a transnational approach, one, however, focussing on migrants from the global South engaged in care work sectors in the global North, the other one comparing the care work sector in a country of the global South with the care work sector in a country of the global North. So, care and gender in transnational perspectives are topics of both books subject of this collective review.
Städtische Planungskulturen im Spiegel von Konflikten, Protesten und Initiativen, 2015
Die spanische Krise des Immobilienmarktes ist Resultat einer Immobilienpolitik, die eng mit dem F... more Die spanische Krise des Immobilienmarktes ist Resultat einer Immobilienpolitik, die eng mit dem Finanzsektor, der Hypothekengesetzgebung und einer Planungskultur verwoben ist, die ihre Anfänge in Zeiten der Diktatur nahm. Mit dem Entwicklungsplan (desarollismo) unter Franco wurde seit den späten 1950er Jahren Wohneigentum als Bedingung von Wohnen politisch forciert und wirtschaftlich umgesetzt. Damals wie heute wehren sich Betroffene gegen die Planungshegemonie der Verwaltungen, Banken und des Marktes und nutzen dabei nachbarschaftlich organisierten Protest, der - wenn auch aus anderen Gründen und unter anderen Umständen – seine Vorläufer in den Aktionen der Nachbarschaftlichen Vereinigungen (Asociaciones Vecinales) der 1970er Jahre hatte, in Zeiten der transición, des Übergangs von der Diktatur zur Demokratie. In diesem Artikel wird dargelegt, dass Planungskulturen in Spanien eng mit den Migrationsbewegungen in die Wachstumsregionen, hier am Beispiel Madrids analysiert, verwoben sind. Es wird des Weiteren gezeigt, wie die aktuellen politischen Protestbewegungen und ihre historischen Vorläufer auf eine Neugestaltung der Wohnraumpolitik und Hypothekengesetzgebung hinwirken und damit auch städtische Planung und Planungskultur neu gestalten.
This article locates practices of representation of Bangladeshis in Lavapiés, a barrio of Madrid,... more This article locates practices of representation of Bangladeshis in Lavapiés, a barrio of Madrid, within a framework of translocal identities and belongings. Networks, festivities, practices and habits of Bangladeshis in Lavapiés are generally oriented towards Bangladesh. Nevertheless, Bangladeshis dub their restaurants and other businesses " Indian " as part of an ethnic marketing strategy that uses national/identitarian descriptions as a resource. This self-denomination is explained through historic and cultural links to India, though the practice also evolved within the framework of colonial relations to Britain. As will be shown, the restaurant and food business in which Bangladeshis in Lavapiés engage emerged over centuries of cultural criss-crossings between Europe and the Indian subcontinent, only more recently being introduced to Spain. These translocal dynamics in the historic and contemporary dimensions of migrants' experiences result in the possibility of highly contextual activations of self-descriptions and self-representations.
RESUMEN
En el análisis sobre migrantes, en general, y sobre migrantes descritos como grupos étni... more RESUMEN En el análisis sobre migrantes, en general, y sobre migrantes descritos como grupos étnicos, en concreto, se tiende a presuponer un tipo de "solidaridad étnica" dentro de sus redes sociales. Esta suposición da por sentado que todos los que se definen como "indígenas" disponen y disfrutan de un capital social basado en la solidaridad. En este artículo se toma el caso de comerciantes migrantes kichwa-otavalo tanto para indagar la suposición de que la etnicidad es la fuente del capital social colectivo y, por tanto, de la solidaridad, como para cuestionar si esta actúa implícita en las cadenas y redes de migrantes, las cuales suelen ser equiparadas a su capital social.
ABSTRACT When thinking about migrants in general and migrants described as ethnic groups concretely, there is usually a tendency to assume a kind of " ethnic solidarity " within their social networks. This presumption of the existence of ethnic solidarity takes for granted that people who are defined as " indigenous " , in this case, dispose of and profit from social capital and solidarity among each other. In this article the case of migrant entrepreneurs from Otavalo is used in order to examine ethnicity as a source of social capital and, as such, of solidarity, as well as the presumption of solidarity as something implicit within migration chains and networks, which are usually treated as equivalent to migrants' social capital.
Gentrification General Definition The British Sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term in the early... more Gentrification General Definition The British Sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term in the early 1960s and described the movement of higher-income groups (the 'gentry') into lower-income, possibly ethnic, neighbourhoods and in so doing the replacement of latter groups. It has subsequently been used to describe the process of re-evaluating urban spaces in the Western world. The process involves social change as well as a physical change and renovation in the area and leads to higher prices in rent and/or a general transition from renting to owning property. In the last fifty years the definition has been widened and is now also applied to the Global South and thus the Americas, which has consequences for the core principles of the definition. Gentrification Research – Schools of Thought Research on the topic of gentrification has mainly been inspired by events in the 1980s. As the notion encompasses the connotation of class takeover, there were initially attempts by supporters and profiteers to replace " gentrification " through terms as " urban renaissance " or " neighbourhood reinvestment ". The concept challenges the more traditional theories of urban social structure that e.g. did not stipulate the return of the wealthy into once abandoned neighbourhoods, seeing suburbanization through middle class movements as the final evolutionary stage within the industrial city. Hamnett (1991) points to the fact that the debate from its origins exposes a political controversy which is also somewhat reflected within the scientific debate: While some discovered decay upon " white flight " in central city areas and present gentrification as saviour, others describe it as threatening working class areas, while displacing poorer households in favour of bohemian lifestyles unaffordable to the former. Sociological research centres on two main competing sets of explanations: The question of structure versus agency is crucial for the debate on gentrification. While the consumption or demand side theory (liberal humanist according to Hamnett 1991) stresses the role played by
This paper critically discusses citizenship, belonging and ethnicity in relation to their spatial... more This paper critically discusses citizenship, belonging and ethnicity in relation to their spatial dimensions, locating the concepts within individual initiatives, everyday practices and processes of negotiation. Against the backdrop of developments relevant to extra-communitarian (non-EU) migrants in Spain, examples of local responses to transnational migration will be discussed, with each referring to Latin Americans within the urban context of Madrid. Starting from a political-economic approach of the dynamics in the (post-) crisis situation, Ecuadorian vendor's activities will be scrutinised; they use informal economic activities in order to cope with the requirements of everyday life. The examples of the cultural centre La Tabacalera and the church San Lorenzo focus concretely upon place-making activities and the increasing importance of localities for the materialisation, manifestation and reconfiguration of individual or collective migrant belongings and vital urban citizenship.
Executive Summary 1. The macroeconomic background, the multi-dimensionality of poverty and the fe... more Executive Summary 1. The macroeconomic background, the multi-dimensionality of poverty and the feminzation of labour will be explained as they together form the contextual condition of the focused group of garment workers. Then, the methodological approach to the conduction of the survey is explained. 2. The survey analysis first focuses on the garment workers' social background and living conditions which determine their private life to a considerable extent. It will be shown, that it is mainly young female garment worker who engage in the job before settling down in married life. Also, workers free time engagements are focused in order to draw a picture of their activities. 3. The socioeconomic situation of workers will be described. The contribution of the workers to the total households' livelihood as well as their restrictedness in spending their earnings will be shown. However, if household savings are possible and pursued this can constitute a social safety net. 4. The employment conditions, as employment length in one factory, working hours and leave will be focused. A regression on the basic income of workers reveals the lack of implementation of the new minimum wage in Chittagong for female helpers. 5. Awareness on Labour Law related issues as well as workers' rights and responsibilities shall be discussed exemplary. 6. As the poorest group of workers a target group analysis of workers earning below minimum wage and their general situation shall be regarded. 7. A conclusion on the poverty situation and empowerment status will be drawn. 8. Recommendations will be deduced. PROGRESS (promotion of social, environmental and production standards in the ready-made garment sector) is a joint program of the Bangladesh Ministry of Commerce and the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and implemented by GTZ.
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En el análisis sobre migrantes, en general, y sobre migrantes descritos como grupos étnicos, en concreto, se tiende a presuponer un tipo de "solidaridad étnica" dentro de sus redes sociales. Esta suposición da por sentado que todos los que se definen como "indígenas" disponen y disfrutan de un capital social basado en la solidaridad. En este artículo se toma el caso de comerciantes migrantes kichwa-otavalo tanto para indagar la suposición de que la etnicidad es la fuente del capital social colectivo y, por tanto, de la solidaridad, como para cuestionar si esta actúa implícita en las cadenas y redes de migrantes, las cuales suelen ser equiparadas a su capital social.
ABSTRACT
When thinking about migrants in general and migrants described as ethnic groups concretely, there is usually a tendency to assume a kind of " ethnic solidarity " within their social networks. This presumption of the existence of ethnic solidarity takes for granted that people who are defined as " indigenous " , in this case, dispose of and profit from social capital and solidarity among each other. In this article the case of migrant entrepreneurs from Otavalo is used in order to examine ethnicity as a source of social capital and, as such, of solidarity, as well as the presumption of solidarity as something implicit within migration chains and networks, which are usually treated as equivalent to migrants' social capital.
En el análisis sobre migrantes, en general, y sobre migrantes descritos como grupos étnicos, en concreto, se tiende a presuponer un tipo de "solidaridad étnica" dentro de sus redes sociales. Esta suposición da por sentado que todos los que se definen como "indígenas" disponen y disfrutan de un capital social basado en la solidaridad. En este artículo se toma el caso de comerciantes migrantes kichwa-otavalo tanto para indagar la suposición de que la etnicidad es la fuente del capital social colectivo y, por tanto, de la solidaridad, como para cuestionar si esta actúa implícita en las cadenas y redes de migrantes, las cuales suelen ser equiparadas a su capital social.
ABSTRACT
When thinking about migrants in general and migrants described as ethnic groups concretely, there is usually a tendency to assume a kind of " ethnic solidarity " within their social networks. This presumption of the existence of ethnic solidarity takes for granted that people who are defined as " indigenous " , in this case, dispose of and profit from social capital and solidarity among each other. In this article the case of migrant entrepreneurs from Otavalo is used in order to examine ethnicity as a source of social capital and, as such, of solidarity, as well as the presumption of solidarity as something implicit within migration chains and networks, which are usually treated as equivalent to migrants' social capital.