Marta Bivand Erdal

Peace Research Institute Oslo · Social Dynamics

In this article, we explore ways of understanding the interactions between migrant integration and transnationalism, based on a review of quantitative and qualitative literature. Integration is taken as the starting point, and the assumption that integration and transnationalism are at odds with one another is questioned. When considered as constit...

The political climate on immigration and diversity in various European societies has previously been analysed in relation to media representations, policy regimes and public opinion. This paper focuses more narrowly on how political climates affect migrant and post-migrant generations, as inhabitants of these European societies. We focus on the imp...

Migrants' houses are a common feature of many regions of emigration globally and are one manifestation of migrants' transnational ties. This paper explores why migrants' build houses in their country of origin, even when migrants are not planning to return. The paper aims to analyze migrants' houses as relational places located in transnational soc...

Migrant remittances are increasingly a well-researched area from the economic perspective, but the social dynamics that remittances are part of remain under-explored. Within the broader field of transnational migration studies social dimensions are often included, yet the economically and the more broadly oriented literatures only to a limited exte...

Abstract Considerations about return are a persistent dimension of identity work in migrant populations. The question of where and what constitutes ‘home’ for migrants is central to understanding processes of integration, sustained transnational ties, and return considerations, because reflections about ‘home’ are reflective of belonging. Based on...

In this article, we set out to unpack, explore and contribute to new understanding of how conflict and education emerge and intertwine in refugees’ reflections about their decisions to leave conflict-affected areas. We draw on a unique survey data set (n = 1008), with South Sudanese respondents, collected in two refugee settlements in Northern Ugan...

This article investigates the nature of refugee journeys by triangulating open‐ended, closed, and spatial survey data collected among South Sudanese refugees in Northern Uganda. While much research focuses on migration pathways across borders into the Global North, knowledge about refugees' journeys within their countries of origin or to neighbouri...

This article draws on cross-country survey and qualitative data for local areas within Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Somalia to explore how perceptions, fears, and experiences of violence affect how young adults consider whether or not to move, internally, within their own countries, or internationally. We shed new light on how different form...

Artikkelen gir en introduksjon til det katolske trosopplæringsprogrammet for barn og unge slik det praktiseres i Norge i dag. Katekese inkluderer også undervisning for voksne, men dette behandles ikke i denne teksten.

While remittances have received much attention in recent decades, interest in transnational Islamic charity is limited. This is an intriguing paradox, as remittances and Islamic charity are both substantial private monetary flows. This chapter explores the confluence of remittances and transnational Islamic charity in the transnational social field...

This article explores Europe’s external migration mix, considering three policy instruments which form part of the EU’s remote control of borders: (1) visa regulations managing entry and cross-border mobility, (2) readmission agreements facilitating assisted and forced return of migrants without legal right to remain, and (3) resettlement of refuge...

Marek Thee lived a dramatic life amidst some of the 20th century’s most tragic conflicts. This autobiography was written in the early 1990s. We meet him as a young leftist student in the Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk) before the Nazi takeover; as an advocate of the Jewish Zionist cause in Palestine during and after the Second World War; as a diplomat...

Marek Thee was a prolific writer and made his mark in journalism as well as academic publications. What follows is hardly a complete bibliography, but we have been able to collect writings from four important periods of his life.

Decision-making consists of multiple inter-linked decisions taken over and over again: to leave or to stay or to return, where to go, how to get there. Such decisions cannot be understood as isolated events, but rather as belonging within a larger tapestry of life, involving individuals and family members, economic and livelihood considerations, bu...

As the European Union expanded eastward in 2004 and 2007 to cover the formerly communist states of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), this triggered a wave of migration which saw millions of people moving to Western and Northern European countries. What impact did that migration have on the politics of CEE countries, and what might be the relationsh...

This chapter compares external voting of CEE diasporas in Western Europe with voting patterns observed in those diasporas’ respective countries of origin. It focuses on electoral turnout, overall variation in support for parties, and variation in support for parties with respect to key ideological dimensions and issues. Using quantitative data on a...

This open access book is the first monograph that brings together insights from comparative politics, political sociology, and migration studies to introduce the current state of knowledge on external voting and transnational politics. Drawing on new data gathered within the DIASPOlitic project, which created a comparative dataset of external votin...

This chapter explores migrants’ perspectives on voting in country-of-origin elections and on participation in democratic politics in countries of origin in Central and East Europe. We build on 80 semi-structured interviews with migrants from Poland and Romania, living in Barcelona, Spain, and Oslo, Norway. The chapter offers an analysis of their th...

Migrants' property ownership in their countries of origin is often understood through the prism of return: both intended and actual return mobilities. Applying a transnational optic, this article unpacks the relationships between migrants' property ownership 'back home' and their reflections on future moves and stays, not limited to possible return...

We depart from a paradox: migrants’ complex migration trajectories challenge dominant, often destination-oriented, conceptualisations of migration decision-making. This prompted us to raise the issue, in the questions pursued in our 30 semi-structured interviews with nurse migrants, of why Norway was chosen as a destination or a base for onward mov...

Migration may affect migrants’ ideas as they become exposed to different contexts over time. But how does such exposure and opportunities for comparative evaluation of origin and settlement contexts, translate into content for potential political remittances? To answer this question, we analyse 80 interviews with Polish and Romanian migrants living...

Non-resident citizens’ participation in national elections is known as external voting. This report presents the first comparative dataset of external voting, both in parliamentary and presidential elections. We gathered voting results among migrants from nine Central and Eastern European countries, with the main analysis focusing on six where most...

This article starts from the empirical observation that many migrants lead lives characterized by sedentarism, not mobility, within transnational social fields. Migrant belonging is often stretched across multiple locations spatially, resulting in what I call multifocal sedentarism. I draw on qualitative data from the transnational social field spa...

External voting by nonresident citizens has become an important feature of contemporary democratic politics. However, compared to the average voter in domestic elections, we still know significantly less about migrants' motivations to vote or not. Whereas analyses of external voting patterns offer insights into the results of external voting compar...

In this report, we present insights from interviews with Polish and Romanian migrants living in Barcelona and Oslo. These interviews were conducted as part of the DIASPOlitic project “Understanding the Political Dynamics of Émigré Communities in an Era of European Democratic Backsliding”. The project is funded by the Research Council of Norway and...

When naturalised citizens receive their passport, it is material and symbolic proof of membership in the nation-state, tying the individual to the nation and providing mobility resources. For naturalised Norwegian citizens, their birthplace appears in the passport. What might be the implications of removing this information? In 2016, the Norwegian...

After three decades of scholarship, transnationalism remains understood as connections between people who have migrated and people who remain in the country of origin. Such ties are important and prevalent. But perhaps a radical extension of transnationalism is also warranted: There are people who are neither ‘migrants’ nor ‘non‐migrants’ but lead...

This article engages critically with the idea of state-centred nationhood, including its promises and limitations, as a foundation for state strategies of forging unity in (migration-related) diversity within nations. As states across Europe grapple with the management of migration-related diversity, in contexts of increasing polarization of public...

Religious processions in secular urban spaces are a growing phenomenon that has received limited public attention in Norway. In this country, the Roman Catholic Church is a large and culturally diverse religious minority. Built on observations of processions on the major feast of Corpus Christi in six different Catholic parishes, the article discus...

This article unpacks what constitutes the economics of transnational living. We situate this concept among literatures on economic transnationalism, transnational livelihoods, and transnational social protection but argue that it merits a new conceptual foundation. The first part of this foundation is the definition of “transnational living” as sus...

The aim of this article is to theorize interactions between migrant transnationalism and integration using a multiscalar approach. For migrant transnationalism scholars, attention to simultaneity in transnational social fields is given. However, much migration research in Europe continues to suffer from an ‘integration bias’, which under-appreciate...

Migrant houses in countries of origin, referred to as ‘remittance houses’, are a visible marker of emigration. Case studies from diverse geographic contexts have explored their functions. Unlike the surrounding built environment, these houses span the local and transnational realities of migrant lives, while being grounded in specific places. We ar...

The literature on citizenship policies is flourishing, yet we know little of which naturalisation requirements majorities and minorities find reasonable, and how they view existing citizenship regimes. Drawing on original survey data with young adults in Norway (N = 3535), comprising immigrants and descendants with origins from Iraq, Pakistan, Pola...

Following the record number of asylum seekers to Europe in 2015, Norway intensified its practice of revoking migrants’ residence permits and citizenships, which primarily affected refugees and their families, and reflects a broader international trend of increased use of temporary protection. This article explores the effects of revocation on indiv...

This article offers empirically based analytical scrutiny of what deskilling looks like and means for migrant nurses. We draw on 30 interviews with Filipino and Polish nurse migrants in Oslo, Norway, which we analyze comparatively. Through empirical attention to nurse migrants’ professional experiences, we address the analytically oriented question...

The question of what constitutes the “good citizen” has received renewed interest in Western Europe in connection with increasing pressure on the welfare state, concerns over migration-related diversity, and growing anxiety about a crisis of democracy. We draw on data from fifty in-depth interviews and six focus group discussions with residents of...

This article contributes to analyses of diversity in the nation through analytical attention to negotiation dynamics in young people's exchanges about ‘who’ and ‘what’ the nation is (understood to be) using data from 33 focus groups with 289 upper secondary students in schools across Norway. The negotiation dynamics present in the discussion are ex...

This article interrogates boundaries of the everyday nation, based on how young people in Norway experience and reflect upon first impressions. The data consists of 289 texts written by pupils and 33 focus groups with the same youth. First impressions are conceptualized as boundaries of the everyday nation, characterized by heteronomy and multiplic...

This article sheds light on what citizenship means for individuals’ experiences of belonging. Through 41 interviews conducted in Oslo, Norway, we trace understandings of how, when and why citizenship matters (or not) for belonging. Our interviewees fall into one of four categories: born citizens; naturalized citizens; dual citizens and non-Norwegia...

This article contributes to the debate on human rights education in diverse societies. It is concerned with the relationship between participation and the co-construction of national belonging. Our data consists of 289 pupil texts and 33 focus group discussions in 6 upper secondary schools in Norway. The role of the school in nation-building is wel...

This themed section brings together five articles focusing on distinct urban sites: Berlin/Munich, Oslo/Bergen, Belfast, Bologna and Barcelona. While there has been extensive research on Polish migrants in cities such as London, this themed issue presents a unique opportunity to explore the experiences of Polish women and men across a range of diff...

This article examines voluntariness in migration decisions by promoting the acknowledgement of forced and voluntary migration as a continuum of experience, not a dichotomy. Studies on conflict-related migration and migration, in general, remain poorly connected, despite calls for interaction. This reflects the forced–voluntary dichotomy's stickines...

This article contributes to conceptual debates on gender transformations in the context of migration and transnationalism. We do so by discussing developments in gender relations and identities among Polish post-accession migrants in Norway; analysing the intersections of continuities and changes, relationally, as these are produced spatially and t...

The article presents a theoretical argument for aligning principles of citizenship with realities of migrant transnationalism and dual citizenship. Migrant transnationalism and dual citizenship challenge zero-sum understandings of belonging and residence as rooted in one place only. Through the lens of residence, the authors connect insights from m...

This article examines the different roles religion can play when migrants organize for development. We focus on organizing for development, through transnational Islamic charity, formally and informally, and where religion takes on explicit or implicit roles. By taking Muslim religious practices as starting points, different forms of development en...

Fostering unity in diversity while ensuring spaces for disagreement is a key challenge for all liberal democracies with ethnic and religious diversity. Increasing polarization, not least due to the threat of terror attacks, exacerbates this challenge. Drawing on the case of Norway in the aftermath of the 2011 terror attacks motivated by ‘Eurabia’ s...

This book is the first to analyze the impacts of migration and transnationalism on global Catholicism. It explores how migration and transnationalism are producing diverse spaces and encounters that are moulding the Roman Catholic Church as institution and parish, pilgrimage and network, community and people. Bringing together established and emerg...

Through a juxtaposition of diaspora policy with migrants’ transnational citizenship practices, this article explores how peoplehood, nationhood and citizenship are articulated, justified and enacted. The article draws on the politico-spatial context of Norwegian-Pakistani transnational social space, analyzing the Pakistani Origin Card (POC), remitt...

The 2004 EU extension and the 2008 financial crisis triggered new migration flows within Europe, and subsequent debates about what the novelty of these migration flows consists of. We draw on adult Polish and Spanish migrants’ in Norway’s considerations about future mobility and settlement, and explore how these situate themselves in relation to co...

In this article, through a case study of transnational Islamic charity, we explore the intersection between migrant development engagements and religious practices. While migrant engagement in development is well known, the intersections of these with everyday religious practices are less so. We use the prism of ‘everyday rituals’, understood as hu...

Following post-EU-accession migration, Poles currently form the largest group of foreign nationals in Norway and the second largest group of foreign born residents in the United Kingdom. Given the considerable volume of new arrivals, there is a growing literature on Polish migration to both countries; however, there is little comparative research o...

In this paper, the authors unpack ‘social remittances’ in the context of religiously motivated transnational Islamic charity, focusing on education and gender equality. They approach social transformation by seeing migration as enmeshed in social change, with both intended and unintended outcomes. Their study adopts a multi-sited approach, tracing...

Migration and transnationalism are moulding the Roman Catholic Church, producing diverse spaces and encounters. Through the prism of Catholicism as institution and faith, pilgrimage and network, community and people, this collection explores the impacts of migration and transnationalism on global Catholicism.

This chapter explores how Polish migration is shaping the Catholic Church in Norway. It foregrounds both Polish migrants’ everyday narratives, and the Church’s responses, at a time of demographic reconstitution, within a highly diverse, minority, Catholic context. Poland is the main country of birth among Catholics in Norway, thus turning the diver...

This paper explores the transnational family life of Polish migrants in Norway, through the analysis of the nature and extent of transnational practices and transnational identifications. We draw on debates in migration studies on the limits of transnationalism and on transnational parenting, both arguing for greater attention to the actual extent...

Remittances to Pakistan have increased annually for the past decade, reaching 18 billion USD in 2014. This paper draws on interviews with Pakistani taxi-drivers in Barcelona and Oslo to analyze the implications of their differing migration-trajectories for remittance sending. The findings underscore the significance of length of emigration and loca...

This paper explores the ways in which experiences with return migration are intertwined with considerations about education. How is education a part of returnees' stories about return to Pakistan, and what are the implications that can be drawn to better understand return mobilities and transnational living? While the academic discussion of educati...

This chapter explores and interrogates the meanings of ‘development’ that shape how diaspora-development engagements are analyzed and understood in the Pakistani context. Globally migrants’ remittances are seen to be of key importance within the migration-development nexus, largely based on the volume of remittances. For Pakistan, in 2009, the remi...

Return migration and migrant transnationalism are key phenomena in research on international migration. Here we examine how the two are connected. The article introduces a special section and draws partly upon this selection of papers and partly upon the broader literature. First, we argue that there is often a blurred boundary between mobility as...

In this article we explore the added value of foregrounding temporal dimensions in migration research. Age at the time of migration, length of stay in the country of settlement and individual life-cycle stages matter for migrants' settlement and return considerations. However, these factors are rarely put centre stage in analyses. We draw on data f...

Migrant remittances have received unprecedented attention over the past decade and scholars have interpreted remittance flows from a range of vantage points. In this article, we explore the meaning of remittances from three perspectives – (1) as an ingredient of terrorism and crime; (2) as a contribution to development; and (3) as an obstacle to in...

Post-accession emigration from Central Europe and Poland in particular, is an important feature of contemporary migration flows in Europe. While there is now a substantial body of research on Polish migration to the UK, exploring one of the largest post-accession flows, there has been less focus on other destination countries. This paper is based o...

This article explores the interaction between migrant transnationalism and integration by interrogating the concept of integration from a transnational perspective. Integration is shown to be a multi-layered phenomenon, encompassing both descriptive and prescriptive elements—what is and what ought to be. The policies of individual nation-states def...

This article engages critically with the insider–outsider divide in research with migrants and advocates a more nuanced and dynamic approach to positionality. In migration research, the insider–outsider divide typically assumes a specific form: an insider researcher is a member of the migrant group under study, whereas an outsider researcher is a m...

Hva det vil si å være norsk er ikke lenger like enkelt som før. Stadig flere nordmenn har bånd til flere land på samme tid, og vårt syn på verdier som likestilling, frihet og solidaritet, som unikt norske, blir utfordret. Dette får også konsekvenser for utenrikspolitikken, men hvordan og hvorfor? Og hva bør vi gjøre med det? https://www.cappelenda...

The household is usually the unit of analysis in the literature on migrant remittances, reflecting assumptions that remittances represent flows between family members and are pooled within households. By importing ideas from development studies and using the individual as the unit of analysis, this article challenges these assumptions and interroga...

This article examines how conflict in the country of origin interacts with other factors in shaping migrants' remittance-sending practices. Our data come from a survey of 10 immigrant groups in Norway and semi-structured interviews with Somali and Pakistani remittance-senders and receivers. First, we conduct an in-depth comparison to explore the di...

The theme of this article is the transnational activities of members of the Tamil diaspora in Norway and their significance for development in the North-East of Sri Lanka. Our analysis acknowledges the complexity of Tamil transnational activities, particularly in regard to issues which may be seen as political. A key observation regards the pragmat...