eciec.eu | Entrepreneurial Cultures in European Cities

An international conference called “Migration, Politics and Work” gave us this June the opportunity to present our project. It was organized from Thursday, 25th of June to Saturday, 27th of June 2009  in Trier (D) and Dudelange (L) by the Institute for Regional and Migration Research IRM (Trier, Germany), the Centre de Documentation sur les Migrations Humaines CDMH (Dudelange, Luxemburg) and the Institute for Integration and Participation IIP, School of Social Work, University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (Olten, Switzerland).

Whereas migrational events present themselves dynamically and are subject to great changes, efforts towards a large-scale regulation of migrational movements have increased globally. Hence, industrial nations have particularly implemented new regulation and control mechanisms. In doing so, restrictive migrational policies have been established in regards to securing and controlling borders.

This international conference focussed on correlations of international migration, politics and labour and discussed questions of the formation and regulation of labour migration in modern societies, of the feminization of migration and labour against the background of the global labour market, of varied forms and consequences of female labour in the migrational context in various global regions, of structures, in regards social and labour policies, as well as of the relations between the global labour market and re-migration.

Among  presentations about for instance the global labour market, migration and international labour mobility and woman migrants, the coordinator of the European project “Entrepreneurial Cultures in European Cities” (ECEC) from Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum AHM) and the Luxemburgish project partner (Institut de Formation Sociale IFS) presented the  project and the eciec.eu-website, which is an element of special interest in the project’s framework. The lecture was part of a workshop whose purpose was to present to the audience special projects, that have both a theoretical conception and practically aspects regarding the everyday life of a certain target group. In our case, the new entrepreneurs with  migration background (as well as customers, politicians…) represent this target group. After our lecture, the workshop left  room for a discussion. We  took the chance to start a discussion about the project’s aim and the use of a website as appropriated method to reach a target group.  The feedback that we got from the participants was very interesting and useful. It was important for us in order to improve our way of working and planning future steps. The perception of people from outside the project can open new horizons and contribute to new points of view and thus contribute to a more successful project working.

Monika Schmidt, Institut de Formation Sociale (IFS)