"The Immigrant Corner" - A place for identification and resistence

Author(s):

Signild Risenfors(presenting / submitting)Kerstin von Brömssen(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

07 SES 10 A, Diverse Approaches to Intercultural Education

Paper Session

Time:

2013-09-12

15:30-17:00

Room:

D-302

Chair:

Eunice Macedo

Contribution

This paper focuses a specific place consisting of a table surrounded by a few benches in a corridor in an upper-secondary school in a Swedish town. People will probably notice this place even before reaching the spot. Arabic, Indian or Bosnian music is often played out loud and sometimes silenced by the school- staff who are passing. The young people who occupy this place are more noisy there than elsewhere. They tell that it is a place where they can feel free and dance, play and sing in a way that is not accepted anywhere else in the school. But the young people who reside here also state that they are aware of that there are both staff and friends that find the place messy, and that some even make a detour not to pass the place too close. Except for being called the "immigrant-corner" this place is also called the "the jungle area", the "board of immigration" or "the immigration office". This specific place is located close to the school's entrance in a visible position, both for those who usually stay here, and for those who usually don't.

The "immigrant corner" plays a central role in the young people´s movements in the corridor, but also in discourses related to the place. The school management and staff describes this place as noisy and messy in a school that otherwise is known for functional integration work. The "immigrant corner" seems multilayered, and it is the young people´s stories on, and activities around the "immigrant corner" that is the focal point for this paper.

Method

In both social science and the humanities spatial analyses has increased during the last thirty years. This so called "spatial turn" has not yet reached the field of education in any larger scale (cf. Gulson & Symes, 2007: 1). A seminal work in education is Gulson and Colin's "Spatial Theories of Education" from 2007, but more work are beginning to emerge in this field (cf. Brooks, Fuller & Waters, 2012; Sernhede, 2007; Öhrn, 2009). The concepts of space and place are often used with an interest of studying processes of inclusion and exclusion. As Rus (2006:1) points out with the help of Merley-Ponty: "Space is not only the setting (real and logic) in which things are arranged, but also the means whereby positionings of things becomes possible". The concepts of space and place as well as performance will be used for analyzing ethnographic data, i.e. observations and interviews in and around the specific space and place called the "immigrant corner". Thus, space and place work as dimensions that both influence and are influenced and give meaning to people through social practice (Imrie, 1996:12). In this paper, analyses and argumentation will be made in line with this theoretical framework.

Expected Outcomes

We suggest that the place called "immigration corner" makes two processes visible. One process concerns the young people´s identifications and positionings of being either "immigrant" or "Swedish". This particular place in school is used for testing and trying out identities and for processes of boundary erection. Thus, the young people are highly involved in processes of performativity. This is seen not the least from the girls in the school. The other process involved can be interpreted as a process of resistence against local as well as national policies of integration. It is shown that integration is regarded as a problem by the teachers, more than by the young people themselves. The performativity in and around this specific place in the school shapes a dynamic that influence the whole discussion on integration between Swedes and immigrants in this school. Thus, the school as a local place is highly involved in the dynamic of a globalised space, where identities are performed and formed through social practice in everyday life.

References

Brooks, Rachel, Fuller, Alison & Waters (2012) Changing Spaces of Education. New Perspectives on the Nature of Learning. New York: Routledge. Gulson, Kalervo, N. & Symes, Colin (Ed.), (2007) Spatial Theories of Education. Policy and Geography Matters. New York: Routledge. Imrie, R. (1996) Disability and the city: international perspectives. London: Paul Chapman. Rus, Laura (2006) Thirdspace. A Journal of Feminist Theory and Culture, Vol. 6, Issue1. http://www.thirdspace.ca/journal/article/viewArticle/rus/124. Online [130130] Sernhede, Ove (2007) Alienation is my nation : hiphop och unga mäns utanförskap i Det nya Sverige. Stockholm: Ordfront Öhrn, Elisabet (2009). Challenging Sexism? Gender and Ethnicity in the Secondary School. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, vol 53, No 6, December 2009, s 579-590.

Author Information

Signild Risenfors (presenting / submitting)

University of Gothenburg

Literature, History of Ideas and Religion

Mölndal

Kerstin von Brömssen (presenting)

University of Gothenburg

Dep. of Literature, History of Ideas and religion

Gothenburg

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