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Seminar
November 17th, 2009, 17:00 – 19:00, CES Seminar Room, 2nd Floor Ignacio Irazuzta (Technological Institute of Monterrey /Universidad del País Vasco) Commentary: José Reis (CES) During the course of the ‘90’s, as part of a profuse approach on the part of social sciences, the use of the concept of diaspora to refer to emigrant populations begins to be frequent. This paper analyzes the diaspora as a concrete social practice in the experience of a group of officials belonging to the Institute of Mexicans Abroad.: what is the conception of a population that manages itself among these bureaucratic agents? How is knowledge regarding this population generated, since it does not live in the State’s territory and frequently, this population has, also, emigrated illegally and, therefore, avoiding accounting devices both from the State of origin as the State of destination? Which arguments enable government intervention on these populations? From a governmental point of view, identity presents itself as a strategy towards the identification of the identical, towards the definition of groups of population with different criteria, although similar, to those modern political institutions provide for such identification. If by passing the territorial limit of the nation-state emigration supposed a more or less relative neglect of the social life of the community and entering in another extent of social and political ties, the new circumstances enable transnational criteria for political intervention, authorizing bureaucracies that act beyond the territorial limits of the State. These sui generis administrative agencies promote, both, personal situations of judicial and social exclusion, as well as economic ties based on nostalgia for the original community.
Ignacio Irazuzta holds a Doctoral Degree in Sociology and Political Sciences at the Universidad del País Vasco. He has conducted research regarding collective identity issues at the Centre for Studies on Collective Identity Colectiva (CEIC) of the same university, and while postdoctoral fellow at the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) at the Institute for Anthropological Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires, since March 2002. Presently he teaches Contemporary Political theory at the Department of International Relations of the Technological Institute for Higher studies of Monterrey (ITESM), México, and belongs to the National System of Researchers of this country. Among his publications are: Argentina, una construcción ritual. Nación, identidad y clasificación simbólica en las sociedades contemporáneas, and several articles and book chapters on collective identity and diasporas in several specialized journals. He is co-editor, with Gabriel Gatti and Iñaki Martínez de Albeniz, of the book Basque Society: Structure, Institutions and Contemporary Life, published by the University of Nevada, Reno and with Gabriel Gatti and Pablo de Marinis, of Comunidad, identidad y políticas de gobierno, Anthropos (in print). Until 2006 he was editor of the journal Confines, of international relations and political science of the Technological of Monterrey. During 2008 and 2009 he is research fellow of the Fundación Ikerbasque at CEIC. |