Political Affiliations and Identities in Law and Society (1 and 2 November 2011)

Transnational migration is one of the critical factors in the modern world which chal-lenges the nation state from different perspectives. Whereas the international human rights instruments guarantee the basic human rights for every human being, including the right to leave his/her country of origin (i.e. to migrate), the sovereignty of the nation state gives every state the right to define its own policy of immigration. Sheela Benhabib (The Rights of Others. Aliens, Residents and Citizens, New York 2004) pointed to the immanent contradiction between this understanding of univer-sal human rights and the idea of territorial sovereignty of the nation state.
Taking this contradiction or tension as a starting point, the workshop will discuss the question of affiliation of migrants in different European and Islamic countries from legal, sociological and ethnological perspectives. The various ways different states and legal systems deal with “the others”, with immigrants and the way these “oth-ers” adapt themselves to this situation socially as well as legally will be the focus of our discussion. Special attention will be paid to the question, how the identity of these immigrants is shaped by laws, legal and social discourses in the host countries. The following questions will be addressed: To what extent do international human rights conventions influence the legal status of the immigrants in certain states? Which different legal and customary norms do these immigrants bring to the host countries? Does this lead to a situation of legal pluralism? How are affiliations and identities shaped by social discourses and state policies?

The Workshop was initiated by Fellow Prof. Dr. Shaheen Sadar Ali (University of Warwick, Fellow Lichtenberg-Kolleg 2011/12) and Prof. Dr. Christine Langenfeld (Faculty of Law, Göttingen, Associate 2011/12) and Prof. Dr. Irene Schneider (Departmant of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Göttingen, Associate 2010/11).