03.07.2017 Sara de Jong: "Native Informants, Cultural Brokers: The role of ethnic minority, migrant and refugee staff in migration social service organisations"

Monday, 03.07.2017, 2 - 3:30 p.m.
Tagungszentrum Sternwarte der Universität Göttingen, Geismar Landstraße 11, 37083 Göttingen

Abstract: This paper presents the findings of a EU-funded research project on the role of NGO staff who define themselves as sharing a similar ethnic background or migration experience with their 'clients', based on interviews in Austria, the UK and the Netherlands. Drawing on intersectional perspectives and diversity management theories, I will argue that these positions provide opportunities in the face of labour market obstacles, while at the same time 'fixing' racialised staff members in structures of Otherness and 'difference' in the feminised sector of social work. Using postcolonial theory as well as ethnohistorical case studies on go-betweens in settler and coloniser societies, I will demonstrate some continuities between the complex role of racialised staff members in contemporary migration regimes and in the Empire.

The lecture will be delivered in English. It is open to the interested public and takes place in the context of the International Summer School "Globalization and Diversity" .

About Sara de Jong