Diaspora. Exploring a life model Event

Within the lecture series

DIASPORA. EXPLORING A LIFE MODEL

the Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue kindly invites to

Paul Scheffer

University of Amsterdam

THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS IMMIGRANTS

Curated and moderated by

Isolde Charim

Tuesday | September 29, 2009 | 19.00 h

The lecture will be held in English.

R. s. v. p.:

tel.: 01-3188260/20 | fax: 01-318 82 60/10 | e-mail: einladung.kreiskyforum@kreisky.org

Paul Scheffer

Paul Scheffer (b. 1954) studied psychology and political science in Nijmegen, Amsterdam and Paris. He worked as a correspondent in Paris and Warsaw and was responsible for European policy in the research institute of the Labour Party. Since 1990 he writes columns and essays for the daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad, made several documentaries for television, and taught modern history at the Universities of Amsterdam and Groningen. Since 2003 he is professor of urban sociology at the University of Amsterdam. He has published on the history of the Netherlands (A satisfied nation), on European history (The quest for eternal peace) and on immigration (The land of arrival). This book has also been translated into German: Die Eingewanderten (Carl Hanser Verlag, 2008). His articles are published by major European papers as Die Zeit, El Pais, Politiken, Frankfurter Allgemeine and De Standaard.

Isolde Charim

philosopher and free lance journalist in Vienna.

Diaspora. Exploring a Life Model

Contrary to the dictum that economic conditions will bring forth matching types of people, we are currently confronted with a pronounced mismatch. The dynamism of capitalist economics is generating an apparently boundless mobility. Whereas locations follow the pull of flexibilisation, the people attached to them remain tied to fixed, ‘grounded’ identity concepts. The cultures of our nation states hold no mental resources for the life of modern nomads. In view of this situation, we shall embark on a mental oil-drilling exercise in search of such resources. Our starting point is the concept of DIASPORA: The centuries-old dispersion of diverse peoples will not be perceived as synonymous with plight and displacement, but in its positive sense as a rich source of experience. The present series is an attempt at exploring a variety of ways of tapping this source. There may be national, cultural or economic differences, but what is common to all diaspora groups is the development of a specific form of non-territorial, supra-national network identity “avant la lettre”, which signifies neither total integration nor parallel society.

Previous participants in the series have been among others: Khaled Fouad Allam, Benedict Anderson, Bashir Bashir, Rainer Bauböck, Homi K. Bhabha, Birand Bingül, Diedrich Diederichsen, Tony Judt, Hanno Loewy, Sari Nusseibeh, Saskia Sassen.

in co-operation with the Stadtzeitung FALTER