<TITLE: Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 1: Trade Diasporas and Identity Construction
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: humanities
DISCIPLINE: cultural studies
EVENT TYPE: conference discussion
FILE ID: CDIS01B
NOTES: presentations deleted, (CDIS01A, CDIS01C-D and CPRE01A-C are part of the same conference)

RECORDING DURATION: 21 min 2 sec

RECORDING DATE: 1.7.2002

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 29

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 9

S1: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: German; ACADEMIC ROLE: unknown; GENDER: female; AGE: 31-50

S2: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: research student; GENDER: male; AGE: 24-30

NS3: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: English (UK); ACADEMIC ROLE: unknown; GENDER: male; AGE: 31-50

S4: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: unknown; ACADEMIC ROLE: unknown; GENDER: male; AGE: 31-50

S5: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Turkish; ACADEMIC ROLE: unknown; GENDER: female; AGE: 24-30

NS6: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: English (Canada); ACADEMIC ROLE: unknown; GENDER: female; AGE: 31-50

NS7: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: English (USA); ACADEMIC ROLE: unknown; GENDER: female; AGE: 31-50

BS8: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: English (India); ACADEMIC ROLE: unknown; GENDER: female; AGE: 31-50

S9: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: unknown; ACADEMIC ROLE: unknown; GENDER: male; AGE: 31-50

SU: unidentified speaker

SS: several simultaneous speakers>



<PRESENTATIONS DELETED>

<SU> yes </SU>
<S1> i i don't know anything about finnish er immigration laws so could you say something about that i mean is anybody allowed to migrate to finland and ve- very welcomed there <SS> [@@] </SS> [or how does it work] and and my th- the second question ah , what's the reaction of the finnish society towards those er immigrants and what is er the state and the so- society what are they expecting from the immigrants er what happens if er immigrants don't want to become citizens i mean why should they want to , to get the citizenship </S1>
<S2> er first of all , unfortunately i can't remember the laws so well so that i know all the numbers but and er all the details but i can say that's it's very hard to come a citizen <S1> [@that that@] </S1> [@@] and we have very strict er , sort of rules , for the for the citizens and i can't remember the actual number of of er for example the , refugees are who are taken in finland per year but it's something like 2000 , per year , those who are tak- taken for , erm . er or thei- their coming is is is er written in law , finland has to has to take a couple of <S1> [oh] </S1> [thousand] immigrants per year </S2>
<S1> but they don't [take more] </S1>
<S2> [and then there's] also those asylum seekers but <S1> yeah  </S1> it's for them it's very hard to <S1> [yeah] </S1> [become] @@ finnish and to have the nationality <S1> [yeah] </S1> [or] or the [citizenship] </S2>
<S1> [mhm-hm] </S1>
<NS3> perhaps you could say er er to people it's a an explanation the kind of <S2> right </S2> migrant groups that are , coming to finland generally wh- wh- i mean wh- what <S2> [what kind] </S2> [origin] for example </NS3>
<S2> yeah most of them are from from the former russia those they are called so-called remigrants and er , most most of them have some kind of finnish origins they have grandfathers or mothers or fathers who have been finnish citizens , before the wars and er , the one one of third group are are the remigrants and then there's also immigrants from from the area of kurdistan and immigrants from the former yugoslavia and er , i i know the the situation in in tampere and jyväskylä but not not in other towns so well but in for example in jyväskylä there are many remigrants and kurds and in tampere there is bosnians kurds remigrants and other russians also , other people from the area of russia (xx) , but to the but to answer to your second question i have i have one section in this my in my paper which is called empowering governments <S1> [mhm-hm] </S1> [and i] in that i conc- concerned er er discourses of administrative <S1> mhm-hm </S1> people or public authorities and if you have the paper <S1> yeah </S1> or i can e-mail it to [you] </S2>
<S1> [okay] no i have it </S1>
<SS> @@ </SS>
<S2> okay </S2>
<S1> thanks </S1>
<NS3> okay let's continue , you want to ask a question </NS3>
<S4> er i would just er wanted to ask you a question about the kind of framing of your paper which struck me as being very national and you're talking about diasporic commu- communities which probably as we heard this morning er all sorts of connections er telephoning and media and financial connections er with other parts of the world and yet er you your discussion on immigration was entirely in terms of the finnish nation <SS> @@ </SS> <S2> yeah </S2> right <S2> that's true </S2> that struck me as a as a little o- odd especially since citizenship within the finnish nation itself is being redefined because of the european union and <S2>  mhm </S2> of the connection to european union so the- so there are trans-national forces on both sides er that perhaps could also be considered i wonder how you think that might change the analysis if you want to think about that also </S4>
<S2> yeah that's true and again i'm referring to my paper because there is there's this larger , er sort of framing of these discourses and framing of these associations and there i talk about transla- trans-national , cooperation and trans-national networks of these associations but very briefly although but i'm i'm about to , talk about them in my PhD's thesis . it's good very good point , it's true </S2>
<NS3> oh okay </NS3>
<S5> oh i'm an immigrant in finland <SS> @@ </SS> , i can answer the first question the very first question , that to become a citizen in finland you have to stay here for five years with an A visa which er entitles you to , a permanent , residence and a work permit after that you can apply for citizenship then you have to give up your other citizenship the previous one and that the whole issue takes about three to four years so it is about nine to ten years <NS3> oh  </NS3> to become a citizen , here and er . besides russians there are big groups of ingrians vietnamese er somali- somalian <S2> [yeah that's true] </S2> [i'm from helsinki] so i know the situation <S2> yeah </S2> much better there in helsinki area so er it's a larger group and the number of refugees among all immigrants is about 16,000 among the 90,000 people but er almost all sort of er integration process er before 97 was , about refugees so the ministry of labour organised courses for them language courses they have numerous number of er . brochures about how to live in finland how to live in a depart- ah er an apartment house how to deal with health authorities in mainly , the languages of er refugees those are russian er english is a general language french is a general language then kurdish yugoslavian ex-yugoslavian languages er they have also a big group of kosovons here from albania besides bosnians , and er from 97 onwards the state started an integration programme for all the immigrants who come to finland after 97 and that sort of covers all of the immigrants apply- er giving them the right for a language course and a plan with the social service for their future career so an immigrant who comes here let's say today er can go there and make a future plan for three years they can say that the first year i will take finnish lessons then i'm going to go to a polytechnic and i will become that and the , this started with state initial but then it passed on to the cities er , to finance it and the cities are not unfortunately financing it very well there are many immigrants on queue to go into that language courses and they wait for a year or er sometimes two years . so perhaps that's <NS3> and [now] </NS3> [in a core] and then about the associations er i'm quite active with some of turkish related associations unfortunately in finland as an individual as an immigrant individual you do not get any recognition unless we form an association so in a way <S2> true </S2> we are forced to form <S2> yeah  </S2> associations because we do not get recognition if we are not a group so they're sort of telling us first go and form your group then come and i see it is as a way of er controlling us <S2> mhm </S2> sort of er i don't know divide and govern <SU> oh </SU> sort of a thing @@ so that is , my </S5>
<NS3> you mean the turkish immigrant <COUGH> community wouldn't naturally congregate unless they were forced is that right </NS3>
<S5> [er congregate] </S5>
<NS3> [as they] wouldn't naturally form themselves into groups unless they're [required to (xx) @@] </NS3>
<S5> [oh that that that] that is another contradiction actually [turkish people] </S5>
<NS3> [sounds a bit difficult to believe] </NS3>
<S5> are never able to do work together so we already have er <SS> @@ </SS> only in helsinki there are let's say about a 1000 turkish people and we have six seven different <SU> @@ </SU> associations and which fight with each other and <SS> @@ </SS> so that is another aspect to it so one association doesn't mean doesn't er represent the whole [(xx) so] </S5>
<S2> [the (xx) yeah that's true] for example in jyväskylä there's only , about 300 or maybe four or . yeah four or 500 kurds living in jyväskylä they have six associations <S5> yeah </S5> because they can't get along <SS> @@ </SS> <S5> so </S5> but it's yeah but it's it's not very important thing because when you look at the finnish er the field of finnish civ- civic action it's the same thing there <SS> @@ </SS> of course <NS3> mhm-hm </NS3> we can't expect that they all are are the same or think of the same way or they represent one ethnic group so </S2>
<NS6> is finland ever going to change er i thought i heard something about that this dual citizenship would be allowed <S2> mhm </S2> at some point is that in the future </NS6>
<S2> i have heard about that debate also <NS6> yeah </NS6> but i'm not i'm not aware of what's the situation at the moment (so unfortunately) . hopefully it's going to change @but@ </S2>
<SS> @@ </SS>
<NS3> yes </NS3>
<NS7> i have a question for the second speaker . so i wonder if you could maybe elaborate a little bit on the notion of er er towards an as a sort of settled form er erm revenge for the the local by taking tourist dollars or whatever and i i was wondering if you could elaborate on that because i know in mexico and latin america a lot of times the tourist dollars will (have) the US i mean that's er multi-nationally (xx) or US owned er tourist companies hotels et cetera and so it it becomes just another form of explanations and plans and people are kicked off their land to build fancy hotels and it doesn't actually actually help so much if you think they'll earn something from (xx) where it is actually working in the locals' favour </NS7>
<BS8> well somebody says something about the (isolating) that particular case <NS7> mhm-hm </NS7> of (xx) but i think that that the situation is changing in the way that you you just described and there is a a i think i was thinking more of a conceptual thing <NS7> mhm-hm </NS7> in terms of the way which i i was just referring to the way which (<NAME>) wrote about sort of (view) this is (a vacuum) so not just about them sort of like almost like in writing a travel brochure you know <NS7>  mhm </NS7> something about and and his er poetry about creoles reflect women and and their beauty and so on and so what i was (xx) that was maybe along with with the kind of orientism (that) i'm so familiar with there is another sort of process happening which is which is the kind of a subtle sort of like so (xx) with with the sort of the desire of this (tourism) ki- some kind of primitive desire this kind of (suffering) what what they are looking for </BS8>
<NS7> erm and giving some <BS8> [yes yes] </BS8> [agency to the] seductive person [not just the seduction of the design] </NS7>
<BS8> [yes yes] so there's more in that way but in (xx) view they seem to have a initially sort of like be able to control to some extent and localise their tourism revenues but that is changing a lot in a way it's also (defeating) to another place that was (xx) some (xx) are given in local hands but er with the line of the forces that trans-national forces that (xx) organisation going on the kind (xx) to do that so those sorts of things won't change in the way er that he describes </BS8>
<NS3> oh we have time , ten more minutes <SS> @@ </SS> yes yeah </NS3>
<BS8> ah i just just this is more of a comment i just would like you to response to it ah in australia there we have you know sort of lot of migration and actually ah there has been some work done on the way which multiculturalism has been er in the conceptualised er initially as a very progressive discourse (or tool) enables all communities to have you know their cultural their rights et cetera but the kind of sort of er work that's being do- do- done has pointed out that the kind of multiculturalism for the australian government or the australian institutions have promoted has been an incredibly white kind of multiculturalism it is from a completely sort of like white sort of like viewpoint which then sort of like ah er er er er s- seeks to e- to enable you know other er er sort of minor or most of the , subject forms of multiculturalism so er in a sense you get this this kind of words like tolerance for example you have to tolerate [us (xx)] </BS8>
<NS6> [yes yes] i agree @@ </NS6>
<SS> @@ </SS>
<BS8> so the issue is around tolerance and you know sort of , i mean he was talking about sort of the wonderful ethnic cuisines and you know sort of i mean the that this sort of (settler) is very nice because it's got all these wonderful ethnic restaurants and the kinds of like discourses that comes from comes from a very sort of like white and <S2> [yes sort of like (extra changes)] </S2> [so that's] yeah so that those kinds of i mean this sort of it's just a comment really on australia because i don't know anything about finland but i just wondered whether you'd like to (comment on that) . to some extent </BS8>
<NS6> that's the kind of multiculturalism we have in canada too , we like to pride ourselves on , er , on this wonderful multicultural society but it's very white multiculturalism and the word is tolerance right now and it drives me bananas , because it's a loaded power word the word tolerance , it still implies that we're in control , we make the decisions about who can do what er </NS6>
<BS8> yeah but it also implies a kind of a hierarchy where </BS8>
<SU> yeah </SU>
<S5> yes </S5>
<SU> [you tolerate something you don't like] </SU>
<BS8> [tolerate the other] [differences in the] </BS8>
<NS6> [yeah yeah] well yeah we put up with it but it also implies that if we want to change things we have the power to do that </NS6>
<S5> of course </S5>
<S2> yeah , well i think the situation i i might be wrong but i think the situation in finland is we are i think we are s- step er behind you one step behind you because here the for example the speech of the importance of public authorities or they are always talking about cultural identities and cultural association and form cultural groups and formal , formal cultural groups as as you say and to to protect your identity it is so essen- very essential conceptualis- conceptualisation of identity and for example in sweden there is this sort of very hardcore multicultural ideology in the state of system or state of , level of system or level of state but in finland i think it's it's still sort of , more like discourse of integration there's still this sort of we we who belong and those who don't belong <NS6> mhm-hm </NS6> those other groups and we do have to , make them belong to us this sort of , in in sweden the , the discourse is more , yeah probably more multicultural and and maybe more in more , honest way @@ , the (xx) really try to build a multicultural society </S2>
<NS3> how long a history of er immigration does finland actually have </NS3>
<S2> well if we talked about <NS3> (xx) </NS3> sort of sort of big immigration <NS3> yes </NS3> it's only 12 years @@ <NS3> okay </NS3> <S9> oh </S9> 15 in maxim </S2>
<NS3> okay </NS3>
<S5> i guess in 70s [there were people from cuba and then vietnamese] </S5>
<S2> [yeah there were vietnamese people who came] </S2>
<NS6> from viet- from vietnam yeah </NS6>
<S2> yeah but only couple thousands of vietnamese for example in jyväskylä the first immigrants came in 1990s about or 88 or something like that </S2>
<S4> but isn't there much longer history of migration in terms of all the people who worked in the skilled class (xx) not finnish initially , they came from other places in europe </S4>
<S5> erm i think before the second world war or , after i'm not sure there were a big group of chinese people who were brought here as er prisoners and they worked in the forests and they built the actually the water er draining system of helsinki er but , i'm not very sure about that er i read it in his- history of helsinki but the finns themselves immigrated quite a lot to other countries </S5>
<S2> [to sweden for example] </S2>
<S5> [and finland] being always under er swedish kingdom and then the russian empire , there was always flux of people coming in and going out but er but he's talking about as i think after the the republic from 1917 onwards finland has been a , quite closed society </S5>
<S2> in the time era of independence <S5> yes </S5> something like that but , there was between the wars there was this big quite big population of russian immigrants living in <S5> yeah </S5> southern parts of finland , (during) the russian revolution </S2>
<NS3> then one last [question] </NS3>
<S1> [yeah] th- this is about the multiculturalism i i would like to know if in the academic world in finland you still use this term or are working with it because erm , er i'm from austria and we cannot work with this er term anymore because it has been abused by rightwing parties because they are talking about multiculturalism that means separatism meaning okay we we tolerate er the different cultures they just shouldn't er in- intervene with with the main culture so we use the term er interculturalism meaning er there is er kind of an active and passive er situation here it's not only the dominant culture er accepting or not accepting the other er cult- different cultures but is al- it is also kind of taking some things from them and giving something back so and , so multiculturalism you you can't really use er anymore in that way i mean , it's it's like separation nine- in the 19th century in the united states @@ so . and segregation </S1>
<S2> i think we don't have this sort of connotation <S1> uh-huh </S1> , in in finland but @@ and i don't know about the future what the @@ first rightwing <S1> [(xx) yeah] </S1> [populistic party] comes up so <S1> uh-huh  </S1> the situation could turn upside down <S1> yeah </S1> hopefully not </S2>
<SS> @@ </SS>
<BS8> in australia multiculturalism is now form of abuse used by rightwing parties <S1> yeah </S1> i mean that's a way of of of signifying kind of bleeding hearts figure like refugee [(xx)] </BS8>
<NS6> [holding hands and (xx)] </NS6>
<BS8> yeah that's the way <SS> yeah @@ </SS> yeah it's it's really become quite hard to use it as a positive word <S1> yeah </S1> and also because it doesn't take into account our our enormous er you know historical and and the enormous challenges of australian history we have to do with indigenous (disposition) and and you know so multiculturalism actually sort of like er talks about sort of the rights of migrants which are are very good i mean you know but i- it but it is never actually engaged with what the migrants er how migrants might sort of er engage with indigenous people <S1> yeah </S1> whose na- i mean you know on whose (disposition) they have they're also tribe <NS6> [exactly yeah] </NS6> [(xx)] so i think that's that's another reason why multiculturalism don't mean i think in australia is really , i mean it's becoming quite difficult to to use it <S1> @yeah@ </S1> in a positive way </BS8>
<NS3> okay well that brings us just about to the end of our time er , my colleague er <NAME> and i should make it clear to those who weren't here at the beginning , one of the first (xx) here , by er some er braz- </NS3>
