Anna Triandafyllidou
Anna Triandafyllidou is Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada.
Location Toronto, Canada
Activity
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Good points Ruby thank you.
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
Canada has been doing a great job. at the same time Syrian refugees have also been very resilient and active in contributing to Canadian society.
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@PatriciaD'Arcy indeed that would be important. It is not covered here - there was no space. but I agree with you.
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@JazminT. yes we meant the only EU country.
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There is a very interesting paper of about 10 years ago https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/imre.12048 which asks: When is migration voluntary? Migrants have agency and so have asylum seekers. at the same time some of us are 'freer' than others to decide on what to do with our lives and what opportunities to follow. And many times the accident of our...
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
A big thanks to all for sharing your experiences and backgrounds. and thanks to many for pointing out that migration is a normal part of human life. The way we understand migration has a lot to do with the nation-state order emerging in the last couple of centuries. It has not always been like that - there is nothing given or natural in the organisation of the...
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Anna Triandafyllidou replied to D M-G
Hi Jan. thank you for your comment and I am sorry if my answer comes with a long delay. The purpose of a massive open online course is to share some advanced knowledge but also to actually create new knowledge through peer interaction. i always feel I learn from these peer interactions with learners as well as the books and journal articles. I will try to be...
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
Realism... ok. but narratives (not necessarily grand narratives) have an important power in making real and tangible what seemed alien, strange or simply impossible. The question is what is a new narrative for Europe and the world that would resonate with people today.
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
Thank you all for sharing such incredible memories (both of a long time ago and those very recent!) that show the varieties, nuances, tensions and complexities of European identities and cultures...
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I would like to clarify that the expression used is indeed wrong what we wanted to say is that this funding contributed to bringing cultural projects closer to the citizen - not that the citizens or Tunisia did not 'have' culture and this programme brought it to them but that this funding created opportunities for citizens to engage. we will correct the...
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Anna Triandafyllidou replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
Indeed this is an open question for both sides. but I guess that they will worry first about trade and later about culture. While maybe they should prioritise culture?
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Great points! thank you.
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Thank you for your comments. Indeed culture can be as much uniting as dividing people. Perhaps we should better always speak of cultures in the plural. and we should also acknowledge how much we are all part of different (variations of) cultures and hence are not a carrier of a single culture. and that would already be an important step in cultural diplomacy...
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Thank you. Very interesting examples of push and pull factors!
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
Perhaps what is needed is connecting more the policies of migration governance with the realities on the ground. I think many of you with your comments point precisely to this direction! thank you all for your engagement which makes this course special!
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Dear Miriam this is not very precise with regard to Prato, Italy and other places: there is now in Prato both horizontal and vertical integration of the Chinese businesses. We perhaps have not been able to do justice to the issue in a short video. Having said this ethnic businesses do thrive partly thanks to their own communities and may employ co nationals....
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it is a very controversial city and place.
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That is a good question. Harald would have some views to share. http://cultures-interactive.de/en/ran-essay-en.html
Perhaps we can address some of these issues in our next MOOC from the BRaVE project www.brave-h2020.eu where we speak about interfaith approaches and how to work from the ground up trying indeed to share a practitioner-led perspective. -
Wayne hi. How is the genocide and ethnocide of the Uigurs related to civic education and preventing youth radicalisation?
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There have been recent news on the PREVENT programme that are indeed pretty negative for building trust within society and particularly among minorities: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/06/counter-terror-police-are-running-secret-prevent-database
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Being radical is often (not always) a good thing. indeed climate change radicalism is a case in point. It helps re-position the debate. of course one can also be a radical nationalist or indeed racist... but on the whole radicalism has been positive for social change. Being violent though is, I believe, always negative.
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Tariq Modood reflects on the difference and choice between nothing-to-do-with-me and not-in-my-name approaches in our soon to come GLOBAL EXTREMES blog with Open Democracy. I do not want to reveal here his arguments but it does raise questions about each individual's and each community's responsibility but also on how different communities being asked...
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Thank you Amjad for this very important comment. We are about to start a blog on Global Extremes in cooperation with Open Democracy and one of the first issues that we will debate is how governments react to such terrorist events using New Zealand and the Christchurch attack as an example. So keep an eye on the GREASE http://grease.eui.eu and BRaVE...
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
Thank you for the very interesting examples. Of course resilience is a much broader concept that concerns our capacity to react to unexpected hardship, adapt and actually mobilise our many resources to change our condition. Michele Grossman though points to an important aspect of resilience in the fight against violent radicalisation and extremism: its...
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
Hi all. Very nice to e-meet you. We hope that you will find the course useful and we look forward to hearing your comments, reflections, and experiences. I see that there are some people with great work experience and academic expertise in the field - please do not hesitate to bring your input! For those that are new to the topic, please also do not be shy in...
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@JenniferS There was little extra reading so that the course is manageable in your busy lives, but if you wish to find out more about our related work kindly visit: http://grease.eui.eu
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Thank you. Comment noted about the fact that you felt we presented different religions as a little monolithic. With regard to violent radicalisation and Islamic fundamentalism and the ways to prevent and address it please check out our page in Futurelearn: https://www.futurelearn.com/partners/eui There is a course entitle: Religion, Radicalisation, Resilience ...
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Thank you and noted. If you have some specifically problematic steps to highlight please do not hesitate to write to me and Tina directly at anna.triandafyllidou@eui.eu or tina.magazzini@eui.eu
also please take into account that oftentimes we had to interview experts who were located at another continent! -
Ensuring participation and representation of religious minority groups through effective institutional channels and have a discourse that clearly preaches respect for religious diversity and for each other is the main principle. Naturally the specific solutions adopted in specific communities will have to be adapted to local contexts with due sensitivity. No...
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The law was voted on 21st December 2018 and became effective as of 1st January 2019. Apologies if this was not clear in the relevant article.
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If you are interested to discuss PREVENT and related policy approaches aiming to counter religiously inspired radicalisation, keep an eye on our online courses - there is a new course starting on 16 September, it will open for enrollment in the next ten days: https://www.futurelearn.com/partners/eui
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Indeed you are both right. It is a top down initiative but it is perhaps one step in the road of more not just recognition but also participation
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In many European countries there are provisions for atheists, to be exempted from religion courses, for children to be taught philosophy... of course it is difficult to speak of formal representation unless atheists unite in an association themselves.
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As you all rightly argue religion and freedom of religion are touchy issues and there seems to be no one size fit all model for governing religious diversity and guaranteeing the rights of both individuals and minorities. You might want to check this out: https://theconversation.com/europe-must-open-up-to-new-ideas-about-the-secular-state-65131 as to how...
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The lecture is not outdated. It is actually brand new. but the lecture is not a journalistic account. It speaks of the constitutional and other mechanisms in place in India to accommodate religious diversity and ensure representation and recognition of minorities. Indeed the recent rise of Hindou nationalism and the current government's use of religion are...
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Thank you for engaging so lively with the course. Indeed none of the models is perfect but you raise some important critical issues below about stability but also sustainability of the different regimes in the current socio political and economic context.
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Apologies. Just saw the mistake. it must have been a glitch when we uploaded the transcript files. will correct asap!
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
indeed it is interesting that migration is part of society and most families have somebody who emigrated or immigrated, but it is still treated as a "crisis"
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Indeed what you write is true. then the question is also why does migration attract such heated political debates. an issue to reflect upon in the coming steps/weeks.
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Hi all, wonderful to e-meet you! we look forward to an exciting three weeks of learning!
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
Thank you for some very interesting suggestions for movies!
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Tell us more about your city!
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
we could then write a book about these urban spaces... :-)
thanks to all for the input! -
Nice thought dear Leslene. Can each of us think in their native city whether there is a gathering space where people (and migrants in particular) meet up?
in my native Athens (Greece) older people used to gather at the Zappeion gardens and discuss political issues and there would always be one lecturing the others about what have you and what not.
In... -
Indeed the first generation usually and in different destination countries pays a high price. The question is whether the social ladder then works or whether there are 'holes' and obstacles that prevent people from climbing up no matter how hard they may try.
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where do you live? :-)
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This is an extremely interesting discussion! thank you! one issue is the differences in the destination country's education and labour market fabric. A second issue though to which we need to pay attention is that the new migrants to a different type of economy and labour market. The traditional pathways to upwards social mobility are not always available to...
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This is an interesting and important consideration on how new IT tools affect labour markets and particularly as regards cities and urban low skill service jobs... not sure we can draw such a clear line but this is an issue certainly worth exploring further.
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indeed there is both cognitive and emotional advantage to the restricted interests and repetitive behaviour (as there can be disadvantage). I work in research where a focused interest can pay off. It can translate into hard work and results but on the other hands these results do not make it up for the disadvantage in understanding social conventions and...
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
this is a very good and important point: we value more social skills in communication than sincerity. but it is also true that having these conventions for social interaction is necessary to function as a society. and actually it is not only honesty or sincerity but also sensitivity. sometimes we are not being sincere because we try not to hurt a person or we...
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This has been a very helpful video too because it clarifies this: that seeking to show empathy towards a friend who is in the autism spectrum may not work because what I might do is not what would make them feel comfortable... it is not easy though to decipher how they feel.... indeed what this video does not suggest is how to really try and get 'in their shoes'
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
What is most interesting for me in this video is that despite learning how to cope it does not get any less stressful.... This must be really tiring and it is something I had not realised in people I know who I think are in the autism spectrum. That despite behaving predictably and 'normally' in many situations because they by now know what to do, this is...
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
It is very difficult to say. we tend to think of autism as something very obvious - a person that acts 'abnormally'. But it is not. Generally the person would not make eye contact. But more than this for me the person who is in the spectrum would say the 'wrong' things, make the 'wrong' comments. Basically it is someone who does not understand the conventions...
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
it should be the creative profit-making city... ?
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
Your many different viewpoints and the different types of art that you propose are enlightening as to both the positive and the negative aspects of an economic approach to arts and culture. As you rightly point out it is difficult to separate them completely. On the other hand we would all prefer a certain level of independence - a firewall - between artistic...
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Well culture is political, isn't it?
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Anna Triandafyllidou replied to Andrew Webb
Dear Andrew you could have used the above to write the assignment and see also what the others have written. It is a pity you did not feel like doing it. I think you have a lot to share with all of us!
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No you are not. This is of course a consideration and a topic to discuss: the 'exclusive' nature of such events, the extent to which people who lead everyday lives can take part in those and the ways in which such exhibitions and events can make room for more non-expert participation. We are starting a new Course on Culture in the Digital Age (see here:...
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an interesting and creative metaphor!!
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
Thank you so much for such incredibly rich and diverse memoires ...
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Remembering the Holocaust and what Jews suffered under Nazism does not mean neglecting what Roma and homosexuals or also disabled people suffered. What we need is to add not to subtract. and to remember so we do not repeat such crimes.
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
Museums have a history of their own and are important aspects of 'banal' national heritage - in the sense that oftentimes we take them for granted, or we think that they can only tell one story, the (dominant) national (hi)story. Today though a number of people adopt a more critical and interactive approach to museums, national or otherwise.
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
Thank you for the very interesting comments and replies which enrich this course! I guess our aim is precisely to discuss how the past can be re-interpreted and viewed from different perspectives, and how history as a social science has evolved in accepting this plurality of 'truths' over specific events and developments.
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This is a very interesting and important discussion. May I suggest to wait for a moment and follow the next steps of the course as I think we do touch upon some of these issues - I am not saying we provide for answers but I think we try to provide for elements/tools to discuss these issues and carry our thinking further. One element that certainly is important...
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
Thank you for the fantastic comments! they are a new course within the course! It is interesting that we could think of structuring them along a few thematic lines: Past/history, culture/customs, geography/territory, relations with other continents/countries! All very important and different aspects, and of course a reflection on whether Europe is more united...
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Anna Triandafyllidou replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
As you suggest though yourself there is also a hidden number of carers, particularly those that are live-in. although Italy may represent a good practice in this sector as it has a well developed policy framework for carers.
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within the EU countries retain the control of their borders. But once a person comes into your border there are rules about how you treat the person respecting their human rights. Also pushback at the borders are illegal. Closing a country's borders in the way that for instance former Communist countries did has a huge cost in civil liberties and democracy let...
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Anna Triandafyllidou replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
Executing expulsion orders in costly in time, money and personal resources. People cannot be just dispatched. and you have to look into the data in more detail and see to which country does Germany or Italy execute returns. because I would think that the returns that you mention above might have been towards the western Balkans.. in Italy too and in Greece the...
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Anna Triandafyllidou replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
@MicheleCampanelli Well Michele as already discussed in the previous steps and as is further discussed next week the distinction between forced migration (seeking asylum) and voluntary migration (presumably labour migration) is much less clear cut than this. People move for a number of reasons.
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Have a look at the next steps!
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Migration and asylum management is very complex and there are many interests involved, not only separate country interests (e.g. origin vs transit vs destination countries) but also interests within countries (of employers, other workers, trade unions, co ethnic associations, political parties). There are of course also international law obligations and...
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Most migrants (and refugees) hope to go back home in a nearer or farther future. But their plans and intentions stay during their migration project. Indeed as many of you point out there is a combination of factors that include looking for a better job/higher income, a future for one's self and one's children/family, fleeing persecution, war, violence, and...
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Anna Triandafyllidou replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
Indeed, this is also our experience in working with NGOs: you do not ask people about what happened in libya. it is too hard to talk about...
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Dear Juan it is not clear to me whether you are just copy pasting part of our texts or writing comments. I would be happy to illustrate further some issues if there is something unclear.
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Beyond language how about different conceptions of cultural diplomacy, different priorities, national antagonisms? does this have to be a zero sum game or can there be added value for all?
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It is because the previous video was recorded earlier that last year we added this step to explain how the situation has evolved. It is important also to understand now with the benefit of hindsight how migration and asylum flows are moving targets and so is their governance...
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The interview was done 3 years ago so in some ways it is dated. The situation in Turkey is not rosy but if you consider the size of the challenge (3.5 million people) I think we need to think twice. The whole of the EU has not received 3.5 mln people in the last 5 years...
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The question arises of course under what conditions you are asked to make a choice and emigrate. How voluntary is the voluntary? we need to both acknowledge agency - the power of will and the stamina of migrants to undertake complex and difficult journeys -b ut also to pay attention to socio economic and political conditions that we individuals are not in...
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In Greece they say: Hope can move mountains....
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
Excited to see such rich experiences and varied profiles. We too look forward to learning from your comments and participation in this course!
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Anna Triandafyllidou replied to Lina Robayo
What happens in Latin America now with the Venezuelan crisis is unbelievable. Europe has a lot to learn in terms of openness and solidarity.
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Do let us know why you gave up the first time, we are interested in improving the course!
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Anna Triandafyllidou replied to R S
So where from and where to? :)
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You are right to point out that Asia is internally diverse and the meaning of the word Asian in at best fuzzy.
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Anna Triandafyllidou replied to Marcus James
Indeed China is a very good controversial example about cultural diplomacy. As it is developing an intensive cultural diplomacy strategy with its Comfucius institutes (more than 500 set up in less than 10 years,) but reluctant to be self-reflexive and discuss difficult questions like human rights, democracy, minority rights and so on. Cultural diplomacy is not...
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
Indeed social media can be a blessing and a liability and it has its limits too. It would not replace international cultural relations nor more sustained forms of cooperation but it does open up new opportunities and new risks. In a new course that we are launching in this Platform, called: Culture in the Digital Age, we discuss just these issues - the...
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Indeed culture has a strong unifying potential even though it is often times trumped by geopolitics or economic issues.
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
Perhaps though one important issues as some of you point out is that language is more than just communication. The way we speak says something about the way we think and the way we learn and the way we deliberate. So Francophonie was and is about more than just a common language...
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indeed we do provide examples in the coming steps of the course :-)
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Good questions!
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
You seem to raise a new question here - what does it take for an old or a new site/building to be recognised as urban cultural heritage??!
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Anna Triandafyllidou made a comment
Thank you for the very interesting examples!
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But perhaps a balancing out of centralised state authority and administrative regulations and some local/regional ownership, flexibility and dynamism is better - a mix rather one extreme or the other.
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I believe that all the elements that you list above are important and necessary! funds but also local and regional and national ownership, international but also local expertise and probably the time frame as some other learners have pointed out above (see comment of Mick Walbank ) can be quite long (in the decades not just years)...
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Indeed perhaps these trends encourage multiple perspectives while of course they include the dangers of privatisation and managerialisation of cultural production and enjoyment-consumption
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indeed these are the peculiarities of languages (in Italian one also says patrimonio culturale) which testify to different ways of thinking and imagining things!
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Very interesting comment! thank you Aileen!
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That is a good point but there are some landscapes that are considered part of a city's or country's heritage. in Italy they use the expression 'bel paese' (nice country) to speak of italy itself showing how close the relationship is between the territory as heritage and the country.
