Course Description:
With a record 200 million people living outside their country of birth, immigration is a global phenomenon with profound demographic, economic, social, and political implications for both sending and receiving countries. The debate over immigration policy has become increasingly volatile and, in some instances, characterized by misinformation, hate, and xenophobia. Beyond the politics of immigration, genuine challenges to immigrant integration abound. Successful integration of immigrants is critical to the long-term prosperity of host countries that rely on immigrants as workers, consumers, taxpayers, innovators, and entrepreneurs in light of their aging native-born populations and lower birth rates. In this course we will explore integration policies and practices in both traditional immigrant-receiving countries--such as the United States and Canada—and new countries of permanent immigration—such as France, Germany, the United Kingdom. We will raise questions about traditional understandings of nationality, loyalty, place and identity. We will also discuss models of multicultural citizenship, as well as transnationalism and post-nationalism, paradigms that challenge an integrationist reading of migration. Using case studies from North America and Europe we will pay special attention to the different modes of immigrant civic engagement and political participation on their road from newcomers to citizens.