Revisiting the Intersection of Migration, Economy, and Language

Workshop co-organized by Cécile Vigouroux, Associate Professor of sociolinguistics at Simon Fraser University, 2022-2023 Paris IAS Fellow, and Salikoko S. Mufwene, The Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor of Linguistics and the College, University of Chicago, with the support of the University of Chicago Center in Paris.

Workshop in 2 different places : Paris Institute for Advanced Study (day 1) and University of Chicago Center in Paris (day 2).
This workshop is open to the public and can be attended in person or online.
Registration for Day 1 : see form at bottom of page.
Registration for Day 2 : see the University of Chicago Center in Paris website

Presentation

In this two-day workshop, the participants will discuss the role that economy plays in shaping migrants’ language repertoires and ideologies. We will also examine various ways in which governmental institutions and NGOs prepare migrants for insertion in their new, host countries’ economies.

This interdisciplinary workshop will include political scientists, historians, sociologists, sociolinguists, and linguistic anthropologists. One of the key questions that will be addressed is how experts in different academic disciplines interpret economy, as well as the key sites where economic dynamics are deployed.

One of the originalities of the workshop will be to bridge the multiple areas of scholarship that address the question of how ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ economies shape language dynamics and ideologies, highlighting differences and similarities.

Programme

Day 1 at the Paris Institute for Advanced Study
June 15, 2023

13:30-13:35: Opening

13:35-14:25
How does the UN Talk about Human Mobility? A Textual Analysis of Narratives by IOM and UNHCR on Migrants and Refugees
Antoine Pécoud (Université Sorbonne Paris Nord)

14:25-15:15
Linguistic (In)Security: How Germany’s Integration Policies Delay Newcomers’ Socioeconomic Mobility
Leonie Schulte (University College London)

15:15-16:05
Close Care, Distant Care: Migrations and Transnational Domestic Resources between the Mediterranean Mountains and Northwestern Europe (Late Nineteenth-Early Twentieth Century)
Manuela Martini (Université Lumière Lyon 2 and IUF)

16:05-16:25
Coffee break

16:25-17:15
Language Socialization of Urdu-Speaking Migrants in France: Invisible Men’s Access to the Clandestine Labor Market
Shahzaman Haque (Inalco, Paris)

17:05-17:55
The Emergence of Differential Provision for Migrant Residents in a Belfast Urban Regeneration Project
Coirle Magee (University College London)

Day 2 at the University of Chicago Center in Paris (6 rue Thomas Mann 75013)
June 16, 2023

9:00-9:50
Division and Multiplication: Language, Migration and the Political Economy of Labor
Alfonso Del Percio (University College London)

9:50-10:40
“Can Self-Employment be a Way to Labour Market Integration for Refugee Women?”
Discursive Reproduction of ‘Entrepreneurialism’ and ‘the Rationality of Project’
Kati Dlaske (University of Jyväskylä)

10:40-11:00
Coffee break

11:00-11:50
“It’s Not about Race, it’s Not about Color, it’s Not about you Being Who You Are”: Readying up African Migrants to Accept Precarity in South Africa
Cécile B.  Vigouroux (Paris Institute for Advanced Study & Simon Fraser University)

11:50: 12:40
Formations linguistiques et marché de l'emploi en France : quelles articulations ?
Hervé Adami (Université de Lorraine, ATILF/CNRS)

12:40-14:00
Lunch break

14:00-14:50
Economic Systems, Population Structures, and Languages in European Colonies
Salikoko S. Mufwene (University of Chicago)

14:50-15:40
To Use or Not to Use Local Languages: Language-in-Education Policies and Ethnolinguistic Vitality
Felix K. Ameka (Leiden University Centre for Linguistics)

15:40-16:30
Urban Ecology of Bilingual Education: Exploring Unequal Distribution of Linguistic Capital in Berlin
Héctor Álvarez Mella (Heidelberg University, Germany)

16:30-16:50
Coffee break

16:50-17:40
The Effect of Language Training on Immigrants' Economic Integration: Empirical Evidence from France
Alexia Lochmann (Paris School of Economics & Harvard University)

17:40- 18:30
Round-up discussion

Practical information

Workshop in 2 different places : Paris Institute for Advanced Study (day 1) and University of Chicago Center in Paris (day 2).
This workshop is open to the public and can be attended in person or online.
Registration for Day 1 : see form below.
Registration for Day 2 : see the University of Chicago Center in Paris website