Creating the cosmopolitan city: Manchester migrants old and new
Wednesday 22 April 2009 and Wednesday 27 May 2009
Centre for Construction Innovation Northwestd (CUBE)
113-115 Portland Street, Manchester M1 6DW
Creating the Cosmopolitan City: Manchester Migrants Old and New is a series of two workshops that has been developed in order to challenge the view that immigrants and refugees must be integrated into Manchester. Instead, these workshops take the perspective that it is immigrants and refugees that have integrated Manchester into the world. By examining these topics we argue that in the past and present immigrants and refugees have been central in the building of Manchester into an urban society that is linked to the rest of the world. That is to say, immigrants and refugees have and do connect Manchester globally through their contributions to its industry, business, arts, culture, and daily interactions within urban spaces. To the extent that Manchester can claim to be cosmopolitan (open to the world), it is because of these contributions from immigrants and refugees.
Manchester will provide a case study of the degree to which contemporary requirements of urban restructuring relates to and/or exists in tension with the migration policy that the European Union is currently developing. As the EU expands and focuses on developing common measures on borders and migration from outside Europe and allows for increased internal migration, the impact of past migration flows and the contribution of migrant communities to European culture, history, and urban development tend to be overlooked. The purpose of the workshops is to combine past and contemporary perspectives to obtain a clearer view of the role of migration in consecutive cycles of urban reinvention and reconstitution, which are often neglected issues.
Supported by the EU Commission, the Research Institute for Cosmopolitan Cultures (RICC), the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence (JMCE) and the Migration and Diaspora Cultural Studies Network (MDCSN).
Detailed programmes for the two workshops are now available: 22 April 2009 and 27 May 2009.
The speakers' abstracts and notes from respondents can be downloaded by following the links in the programme outlined below.
Blackfriars Bridge, Manchester (Nick Hamilton) 2008
Workshop 1: Moving People – Migrants Old and New
Wednesday 22 April 2009
10.00-11.30 Panel One: Recuperating Memory
Speaker: Laurence Brown (The University of Manchester)
Respondents: Piotr Bienkowski (The University of Manchester), Tim Edensor (Manchester Metropolitan University), Dominique Tessier (freelance local historian)
Moderator: Darien Jane Rozentals (RICC, The University of Manchester)
12.00-1.30 Panel Two: Creative Manchester
Speaker: Corinne Fowler (Lancaster University)
Respondents: Michael Schmidt (Carcanet Press), Cathy Bolton (Manchester Literature Festival), Rajinder Dudrah (The University of Manchester), Shamshad Khan (Freelance Writer)
Moderator: Margaret Littler (The University of Manchester)
3.00-5.00 Panel Three: Bill Williams paper 'The Ordinariness of Being Jewish.'
This paper is in conjunction with Manchester/History/Culture, a CRESC monthly seminar.
Speaker: Bill Williams (The University of Manchester)
Moderator: Janet Wolff (The University of Manchester)
7.30 POETRY READING: Shamshad Khan
Workshop 2: Migration and the Creation of Cosmopolitan Manchester
Wednesday 27 May 2009
10.10-11.30 Panel One: Community Building
Speaker: Ewa Ochmann (The University of Manchester)
Respondents: David Corkill (Manchester Metropolitan University), Geraldine Lee-Treweek (Manchester Metropolitan University), John Pickstone (The University of Manchester), Saira Quresh (General Secretary to the Nazir Welfare Trust)
Moderator: Hilary Owen (The University of Manchester)
11.30 – 11.45: An EU Perspective
Arlene McCarthy: The Role of Migrants in Building Urban Community
12.00-1.45 Panel Two: Employment
Speaker: Paul Kennedy (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Respondents: Jose Carlos Almeida (Manchester Metropolitan University), Angela Dale (The University of Manchester), Tariq Marfani, Pnina Werbner (Keele University)
Moderator: Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez (The University of Manchester)
2.45-4.30 Panel Three: Refugees
Speaker: Peter Gatrell (The University of Manchester)
Respondents: Kooj Chuhan (Virtual Migrants), Farhat Khan, Nasreen Hunaina
Moderator: Lorraine Pannett (The University of Manchester)
4.45 - 5.45 Wine Reception
6.00 PERFORMANCE by VIRTUAL MIGRANTS
