Papers/books in English by Janine Dahinden
mobilities, 2023
Scholars have scrutinized the state-centered and sedentarist foundations of social sciences that ... more Scholars have scrutinized the state-centered and sedentarist foundations of social sciences that pitch ‘mobilities’ against ‘places’ by arguing that places and mobilities always co-constitute each other. Contributing to this debate, this article deploys the concept of ‘regimes of mobilities’ to study how mobilities are not only ‘placed’, but also entangled in, and shaped by, different power systems. By regimes of mobilities we understand all the mechanisms that differentiate mobilities into categories and hierarchies. This article argues that linking the concept of regimes of mobilities to the study of places can help illuminate how the ordering and differentiation of diverse forms of mobilities play out in the everyday realities of particular places. We empirically demonstrate this argument through the study of outdoor markets in three European countries: the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the Netherlands. We delineate different regimes of mobilities that together shape both access to, and the production of, markets. We conclude that the concept of regimes of mobilities helps to identify this intersection of multiple systems of rules, regulations and norms. Hence, the concepts allows one to direct attention systematically to the different power systems that affect the supposedly ‘mundane’ mobilities that constitute place and the skills required to navigate the related dynamics.
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Marketplaces. Movements, Representatins and Practices, 2022
Menet, Joanna, and Janine Dahinden. 2022. "The role of mobility and transnationality for local ma... more Menet, Joanna, and Janine Dahinden. 2022. "The role of mobility and transnationality for local marketplaces." In Marketplaces. Movements, Representations and Practices, edited by Rianne Van Melik and Ceren Sezer, 139-149. London: Routledge.
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Comparative Migration Studies, 2022
European migration studies have been criticised for having certain epistemological and theoretica... more European migration studies have been criticised for having certain epistemological and theoretical underpinnings that reproduce hegemonic structures, especially the ‘national order of things’ and colonial legacies. In this article, we propose the concept of ‘entangled mobilities’ to address some of these challenges. Entangled mobilities as a theoretical lens enables us to study specific global and transnational processes, the ways in which they are historically and locally situated, and how they materialise in individual mobilities of differently positioned actors within an unequal political global economy. This lens helps us simultaneously overcome nationality- and ethnicity-centred epistemologies, confront colonial aphasia, and be sensitive to the multiple inequalities and mobility regimes within which human mobilities evolve. Furthermore, the prism of entangled mobilities provides an ideal methodological departure point from which to systematically examine how human mobilities are intertwined and interdependent and to reveal how they are embedded in and shaped by asymmetric, historically evolved power structures. We propose three pragmatic entry points for mobilising the concept: in specific places, in terms of the intersections and interdependencies of different mobile people, and in the context of the biographical trajectories of individuals. Finally, we invite scholars from other fields, such as policy research, to innovatively adapt this approach to gain alternative knowledge and address inequalities.
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Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 2022
Ideas of gender equality and women’s rights have come to play a crucial role in national politics... more Ideas of gender equality and women’s rights have come to play a crucial role in national politics of belonging and Othering, in Europe and beyond. Based on two case studies in Switzerland, we introduce the concept of gendernativism. We consider gendernativism as a particular configuration of boundary making between supposedly unfree migrant (descendant) and Muslim women and free Swiss/Europeans which is anchored in a nativist underpinning of membership. We argue that this dichotomy (re)produces an illiberal state and is a powerful means of an intersectional, gendered, migranticized, and racialized exclusion based on nativist grounds.
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Swiss Journal of Sociology, 2021
Janine Dahinden and Bridget Anderson discuss each other’s responses to the challenges of knowledg... more Janine Dahinden and Bridget Anderson discuss each other’s responses to the challenges of knowledge production in migration studies. Dahinden introduces the concept of the “migrant-citizen nexus” and Anderson argues for more attention to be paid to the racialisation of “the migrant” through the ways that nationality elides race and discuss the nationalistic policies adopted in reaction to the pandemic.
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On March 7, the Swiss electorate will vote on the so-called ‘burqa ban’. This popular initiative ... more On March 7, the Swiss electorate will vote on the so-called ‘burqa ban’. This popular initiative as well as the counterproposal stand for what we call gendernativism; the idea that the ‘native’ Swiss are genuinely gender-equal and that only Swiss women can voluntarily wear the veil. The consequence is not only the silencing and marginalizing of (migrant) Muslim women but their erasure as political subjects of the liberal state, as individual right holders.
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Global Networks, 2020
Academic mobility is increasingly presented as indispensable for a successful academic career. Th... more Academic mobility is increasingly presented as indispensable for a successful academic career. This imperative is rooted in the assumption that mobility contributes to academic excellence because it allows academics to build trans-national academic networks. Based on biographical interviews and an analysis of the mobility networks of early-career academics at three universities (Zurich, Cambridge, and UCLA), we examine the composition of these academics' networks at different times and discuss the role of transnational ties within them. We find that increased mobility does indeed result in more transnational networks, but it does not increase academic social capital. The additional transnational ties mainly consist of transnational kinship and friendship relations. Furthermore, the mobility of early-career academics triggers various forms of mobility among their family members. Finally, early-career academics can build transnational academic ties without necessarily becoming mobile themselves, thanks to the mobility of higher-ranked academics.
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Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2020
The 'migration journey' has proven to be a fruitful lens to question the simplistic notion that t... more The 'migration journey' has proven to be a fruitful lens to question the simplistic notion that the outcome of migration solely depends on a momentous go/no-go decision in the countries of origin. At the same time, we argue that the normative/sedentarist principles of migration studies produce the risk to approach the journey as an exceptional phase of mobility, in-between presumed place-based lives. This paper therefore aims to explore the conceptual limits of the migration journey literature. To challenge the notion that the migration journey is fundamentally different from pre-and post-migratory mobilities, we combine two empirical research projects that have followed the im/mobility trajectories of West Africans. The first project focuses on the trajectories of itinerant gold miners within West Africa, the second concentrates on the im/ mobility of West Africans within Europe. By juxtaposing the empirical insights of these seemingly different contexts, we stress the need to embed migratory movements in a continuous field of mobility practices across spaces in Africa and Europe. This results in our plea for a research agenda that does not see 'migrancy' as a pre-given marker of difference, but as a normative artefact of mobility regimes.
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MigrationLetters, 2020
In recent years, scholarly interest in boundaries and boundary work, on the one hand, and borders... more In recent years, scholarly interest in boundaries and boundary work, on the one hand, and borders and bordering, on the other, has flourished across disciplines. Notwithstanding the close relationship between the two concepts, "borders" and "boundaries" have largely been subject to separate scholarly debates or sometimes treated as synonymous. These trends point to an important lack of conceptual and analytical clarity as to what borders and boundaries are and are not, what distinguishes them from each other and how they relate to each other. This Special Issue tackles this conceptual gap by bringing the two fields of studies together: we argue that boundaries/boundary work and borders/ bordering should be treated as interrelated rather than distinct phenomena. Boundaries produce similarities and differences that affect the enforcement, performance and materialisation of borders, which themselves contribute to the reproduction of boundaries. Borders and boundaries are entangled, but they promote different forms and experiences of inclusion and exclusion. In this introduction, we elaborate the two concepts separately before examining possible ways to link them theoretically. Finally, we argue that an intersectional perspective makes it possible to establish how the interplay of different social categories affects the articulations and repercussions of borders and boundaries. The contributions in this Special Issue address this issue from multiple perspectives that reflect a variety of disciplines and theoretical backgrounds and are informed by different case studies in Europe and beyond.
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MigrationLetters, 2020
Cross-border marriages between citizens with a migration background and spouses from non-EU count... more Cross-border marriages between citizens with a migration background and spouses from non-EU countries have been politicised and restricted across Europe. This article simultaneously applies the analytical lenses of bordering and boundary work to this issue and de-centres the perspective by investigating the consequences of these restrictions not on Europe, but on a country of origin-Sri Lanka. We show that a particular symbolic boundary against cross-border marriages in European countries legitimises the externalisation of borders to the country of origin. This has important consequences for the female spouses before they even begin their journey to Europe: it challenges their life aspirations, enhances their economic dependency and precarity and directly impacts the marriage system in Sri Lanka. We argue that this situation creates a form of neo-colonial governmentality that perpetuates historically established forms of Western politics of belonging.
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Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2020
Recent debates in migration studies target the non-reflexive use of categories that derive from n... more Recent debates in migration studies target the non-reflexive use of categories that derive from nation-state- and ethnicity-centred epistemologies. However, what a category is and how categorization works remain undertheorized. Our paper addresses this gap. Through a qualitative study on experiences of Othering among migrant descendants in Zurich (CH) and Edinburgh (UK), we scrutinize the perspectival, political, and performative nature of categories. We show how the persons informing our study were highly reflexive when using the category migrant descendant: They contested, negotiated, and navigated it in multiple ways. Although this specific category is firmly embedded in the “national order of things”, it ultimately proved to be inclusive. We argue that reflexivity in the field can not only create space for the often-muted voices of research participants, but also helps to overcome important pitfalls that derive from issues of legitimacy, representation, and power relations in scientific knowledge production.
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Citizenship Studies, 2019
The role of marriage in accessing membership entitlements has been studied extensively in the con... more The role of marriage in accessing membership entitlements has been studied extensively in the context of marriage migration, but it remains under-researched in the literature on citizenship acquisition. This paper explores specific constructions of deservingness vis-à-vis the foreign spouses of citizens and their marriages in the context of facilitated naturalization in Switzerland. Based on an ethnographic investigation of the naturalization practices of street-level bureaucrats, we show that the politics of belonging in the context of access to citizenship is regulated by intersecting gendered, ethnicized and classed logics of desirability about how a marriage should be. Additionally, a patrilineal logic continues to guide street-level bureaucrats de facto even when legislation has introduced de jure gender equality. Finally, we demonstrate that it is not only immigration regimes, but also citizenship regimes that employ assumptions about what constitutes a ‘good marriage’ in order to draw the boundaries of the nation.
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Journal of ethnic and migration studies, 2019
Marriages that involve the migration of at least one of the spouses challenge two intersecting fa... more Marriages that involve the migration of at least one of the spouses challenge two intersecting facets of the politics of belonging: the making of the ‘good and legitimate citizens’ and the ‘acceptable family’. In Europe, cross-border marriages have been the target of increasing state controls, an issue of public concern and the object of scholarly research. The study of cross-border marriages and the ways these marriages are framed is inevitably affected by states’ concerns and priorities. There is a need for a reflexive assessment of how the categories employed by state institutions and agents have impacted the study of cross-border marriages. The introduction to this Special Issue analyses what is at stake in the regulation of cross-border marriages and how European states use particular categories (e.g. ‘sham’, ‘forced’ and ‘mixed’ marriages) to differentiate between acceptable and non-acceptable marriages. When researchers use these categories unreflexively, they risk reproducing nation-centred epistemologies and reinforcing state-informed hierarchies and forms of exclusion. We suggest ways to avoid these pitfalls: differentiating between categories of analysis and categories of practice, adopting methodologies that do not mirror nation-states’ logic and engaging with general social theory outside migration studies. The empirical contributions of the Special Issue offer new insights into a timely topic.
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journal of ethnic and migration studies, 2019
This paper examines how spouses waiting in Turkey to be reunited with their partner in Europe exp... more This paper examines how spouses waiting in Turkey to be reunited with their partner in Europe experience border regimes and deal with the transnationalised discourses on ‘marriage migrants’ they encounter. It is based on the analysis of a single narrative interview, that of a woman taking German classes at Goethe Institute in Istanbul in order to pass the required language test. Like other respondents, she is confronted with negative gendered preconceptions regarding ‘Turkish import brides’. Her boundary work involves mobilising alternative hierarchies in an attempt to discursively construct a different Turkey than the one generally represented: she draws on social class (positioning herself as a member of the highly educated, mobile and economically better off), socio-spatial units (focusing on her urbanity) and gender (experiencing ‘modern’ and equal gender relationships). The paper emphasises the importance of the socio-spatial context, here the classroom, where boundary-making takes place. It also provides insights into the effects of global spatial hierarchies on migrants and their alternative narratives, a dimension that can only be understood through a decentred analysis. The article contributes to studies on cross-border marriages by analysing the ‘outgoing’ side, a perspective still rarely addressed in the literature.
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Migrants and Expats: The Swiss Migration and Mobility Nexus, 2019
Transnational studies have been in vogue for the past two decades. Nevertheless, there remain imp... more Transnational studies have been in vogue for the past two decades. Nevertheless, there remain important knowledge gaps concerning migrants’ transnational formations. First, most of the literature relies on qualitative case studies. The few existing quantitative studies have shown that transnationality is far from being a “lifestyle” and that factors other than individual preferences are at play. Second, most studies in this field focus on one nationally defined group, which renders impossible the elaboration of an overall model of transnationality that goes beyond description. Third, few studies have tried to link the question of transnationality simultaneously to migration and mobility. To address these gaps, we propose here an analysis of migrant transnationality based on the Migration-Mobility Survey. We define transnationality along three dimensions. We make a distinction between transnational (pre-and-post-migration) mobilities, network transnationality and transnational belonging. We use regression models and multiple correspondence analysis to identify the prevalence of transnationality and the main determinants of transnational patterns. The analysis confirms the hypothesis that transnationality can be linear – an “automatic effect” of migration – resource-dependent, but also reactive upon discrimination. Migrant transnationality can simultaneously be a sign of possessing high resources – most importantly, in terms of legal capital, education and economic resources – or of discrimination. Furthermore, our analysis brings to light five ideal-typical configurations of what we call the Migration-Mobility-Transnationality Nexus. Our analysis contributes to this book by investigating the Migration-Mobility-Nexus with respect to transnationality, going beyond the normative ideas of migration and mobility by integrating them analytically into one model.
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„In Switzerland, men and women have equal rights. Women decide on their lives in the same way as ... more „In Switzerland, men and women have equal rights. Women decide on their lives in the same way as men do”. This statement appears in a leaflet outlining the basic rules of living together, which the Swiss canton of Lucerne distributes among asylum seekers. Who would have thought that the idea of gender equality would come to represent a fundamental dimension of being Swiss? Today, Swissness is no longer only associated with attributes like punctuality, orderliness, hiking boots and skis. As of recently, gender equality also forms part of the catalogue of typical Swiss features. As such, gender equality is represented as setting the Swiss apart from foreign – notably non-European – others who continue to adhere to unequal gender roles. To capture this biased perception of self and others, we introduce the notion Gendernationalism.
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Previous studies have pointed out the highly gendered character of academia in general and intern... more Previous studies have pointed out the highly gendered character of academia in general and international mobility in particular: women academics are confronted with a ‘glass ceiling’, and they are less geographically mobile than men, mainly as a result of family obligations. This paper examines whether gender plays twice a role in how women and men consider family arrangements in regard to a long-term post-PhD period of transnational mobility. Using data from an online survey and face-to-face interviews at the Universities of Cambridge and Zurich, we focus first on family configurations when academics decide to become mobile, then on how the family arrangements evolve while abroad. We show that the transnational mobility of academics has become more complex and varied than the ‘classical model’ of mobile academic men and non-mobile or ‘tied mover’ women. While having a child continues to impact gender roles, institutional characteristics in the context of mobility also play a role that needs to be further analysed.
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European Journal of Sociolgy, 2017
Based on ethnographic material, this article explores how three groups of apprentices negotiate m... more Based on ethnographic material, this article explores how three groups of apprentices negotiate masculinities in the specific setting of a male-dominated vocational school in Switzerland dedicated to the building trades. We use an intersectional and relational perspective to highlight how the institutional setting of the school – mirroring wider social hierarchies – influences these young men's identity work. The apprentices use three discursive dichotomies: manual vs. mental work; proud heterosexuality vs. homosexuality; and adulthood vs. childhood. However, the three different groups employ the dichotomies differently depending on their position in the school's internal hierarchies, based on their educational path, the trade they are learning and the corresponding prestige. The article illuminates the micro-processes through which existing hierarchies are internalised within an institution. It further discusses how the school's internal differentiations and the staff's discourses and behaviours contribute to the (re)production of specific classed masculinities, critically assessing the role of the Swiss educational system in the reproduction of social inequalities.
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In this commentary, I discuss the importance of Portes, Guarnizo and Landolt’s article, focusing ... more In this commentary, I discuss the importance of Portes, Guarnizo and Landolt’s article, focusing on three specific points. First, I argue that this 1999 article represented a turning point in transnational migration studies, in that it made it possible to address important weaknesses in this field of study. Second, I reflect on the article’s lack of reference to the nation-state and its power to shape transnational fields. Third, I argue that the cumulative knowledge gained over the last two decades – triggered in part by the claims of this 1999 article – have been steadily integrated into this field of investigation, rendering possible important theoretical alterations. These insights have made possible a shift towards a new stance, a transnational perspective whose specific epistemology makes it possible to develop explanatory frameworks for current transformation processes and to revise social theory more generally.
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Papers/books in English by Janine Dahinden
the simplistic notion that the outcome of migration solely depends
on a momentous go/no-go decision in the countries of origin. At the
same time, we argue that the normative/sedentarist principles of
migration studies produce the risk to approach the journey as an
exceptional phase of mobility, in-between presumed place-based
lives. This paper therefore aims to explore the conceptual limits of
the migration journey literature. To challenge the notion that the
migration journey is fundamentally different from pre- and postmigratory
mobilities, we combine two empirical research projects
that have followed the im/mobility trajectories of West Africans.
The first project focuses on the trajectories of itinerant gold
miners within West Africa, the second concentrates on the im/
mobility of West Africans within Europe. By juxtaposing the
empirical insights of these seemingly different contexts, we stress
the need to embed migratory movements in a continuous field of
mobility practices across spaces in Africa and Europe. This results
in our plea for a research agenda that does not see ‘migrancy’ as
a pre-given marker of difference, but as a normative artefact of
mobility regimes.