Branka Likic-Brboric
Professor
https://liu.se/en/employee/brali11
Active projects
Democratizing global migration governance (MI-GLOBE)
Branka Likic-Brboric, Professor
The aim of the project (MI-GLOBE) is to investigate the development of an emerging global governance of migration (GGM) and the space, role, strategies, alliance making, and impact of a composite transnational civil society organisation (TCSOs) in pushing for an accountable rights-based approach to migration. In 2006 UN initiated a High Level Dialogue (UN-HLD) on International Migration and Development, and in 2007 the Global Forum on migration and development (GFMD).
Against the background of a critical review of the UN-HLD, GFMD meetings (2007- 2021), the factoring of migration into 2030 UN Development Agenda and the adoption of the UN Global Compacts for Migration (GCM), the research team will follow and analyse:
a) Global governance policy framing, focusing, on principal positions on and conflicts between with business-friendly migration management approach and the rights-based GGM;
b) Processes of deliberation, conflict mitigation and consensus making between governments, multilateral organisations and TCSOs, business actors within global and regional settings;
c) TCOs mobilisation, internal negotiations, strategies to challenge the marginalization of a rights-based GGM.
Admitted but not accommodated
Branka Likic-Brboric, Professor
Housing plays a central role in the process of integrating refugees. A home offers stability, a place of resources in the city, which may serve as a platform for participating in society. Although the provision of adequate housing is vital for a transformation into sustainable and resilient communities in cities characterised by hope, such housing conditions have become less accessible in Sweden.
Refugees face a particularly difficult situation concerning housing as they are housed in less attractive residential areas, often in overcrowded and poorly maintained apartments. This situation has been further complicated by the restrictive turn in Swedish migration policy from 2016 and onwards. In sum, this policy turn consists of the introduction of temporary residence status, restrictions in family reunification, a refugee dispersal policy, and limitations in terms of choosing in which neighbourhood to reside.
Our interdisciplinary project aims to understand the impact of the restrictive policy turn on the contemporary housing situation for refugees. We do so by focusing on how the policy change influences actors that use, plan, develop, and organise housing for refugees.
Finished Projects
Trade Union Strategies, migration and informal labour
Carl-Ulrik Schierup, Professor
The collaborative project focused on changing strategies of trade unions and other civil society organisations in Turkey, South Africa and Sweden, facing irregular (or “undocumented”) migration and increasing precarity of labour connected with restructuring and informalisation of economies and labour markets in the context of emerging multilateral frameworks for the global governance of migration.
Politics of Precarity
Carl-Ulrik Schierup, Professor
Politics of Precarity: Migrant Conditions, Struggles and Experiences
Immigrants’ legal status and integration in Sweden
Research on the relationship between immigrants’ entry categories and legal status after obtaining the residence permits and their socioeconomic integration, is fragmented and underdeveloped, both in Sweden and internationally.
The aim of this project is to fill this gap. We intend to examine how differences between immigrants’ entry categories and legal status affect immigrants’ short-term and long-term integration in the Swedish context. As far as integration indicators are concerned, the focus will be on labour market, education and housing outcomes, as well as on the family dynamics among immigrants. We intend to compare different legal categories as they are defined by the immigration board while entering the country (refugees, quote refugees, permits based on humanitarian grounds, family reunion, temporary protection, working permits etc.). Different immigrant groups as well as groups with the different legal status within the same immigrant groups, will also be compared. We will also study legal status differences emerging from the shift to the new Swedish restrictive immigration regime, which was introduced in 2016.
Labour Rights as Human Rights?
Carl-Ulrik Schierup, Professor
Rationale
The overall purpose of thi conference wasto reflect on knowledge and promote social dialogue on the role of labour unions and other organisations of civil society in the global governance of migration. These issues were discussed against the background of labour market restructuring and emerging international norms pertaining to labour rights as human rights. The conference was organised so as to systematipromote exchange of perspectives between leading scholars and representatives of international organisations, labour unions and activists in other civil society organisations on questions of migration, ‘decent work’ and global governance. Conference participants investigated jointly and elaborated on policy alternatives for promoting migrants’, citizens’, and labour rights, as well as conditions for equitable international coordination and a more inclusive role for civil society.
The conference was organised by the Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO), Linköping University and the International Network for Migration and Development (INMD) in collaboration with the Swedish UNESCO-MOST Committee, Norrköping May 30-June 1st, 2012
Globalisation and the Governance of Migration
Carl-Ulrik Schierup, Professor
MIGLINK is a Swedish-Mexican-Turkish Research Links consortium specialised on migration and development. MIGLINK aims to
examine the development of an incipient global governance framework for migration with a focus on the role of civil society.
From Workers Self-Management to Global Workforce Management
Branka Likic-Brboric, Professor
The project aims to explore the impact of foreign direct investments (FDI) on employment and human resource management practices, new organizational ethnic hierarchies, industrial relations and local communities in different national contexts. The focus is on acquisitions by multinational companies (MNCs) from emerging economies in the post-communist region of former Yugoslavia. The research is situated at the forefront of the research on globalization, migration, global workforce management and the local and transnational challenges to corporate power. An extended case study investigates the acquisition of the Bosnian Steel company by Indian Mittal Steel and its impact on industrial relations, labour standards and management practices, including Indian management relationships with the state, local management, trade unions and local community. The project is developed in collaboration with the Management School, Sheffield University. It also engages Professor Jacklyn Cock, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, planning a joint comparative study of ArcelorMittal in South Africa and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The quest for 'fair globalization' and a 'decent work agenda'
Branka Likic-Brboric, Professor
The research in this project critically analyses the on-going configuration of global and regional migration regimes within the framework of multilevel global governance. The main objective is to survey international institutional arrangements for core labor standards and migrant workers? rights and to explore their significance for migration management within the ‘asymmetric’ global governance, as well as their impact on the current trajectory of global and regional political economies. Various studies within the project trace the development of a ‘social dimension’ of globalization and the articulation of an inclusive, human rights-based policy approach to migration management. The focus is on the ILO?s reformulation of social justice goals in terms of ‘decent work’ for all workers, including especially those working in the informal economy. The identification of the main multinational, state and non-state actors, their discourses and strategies for the promotion of global social justice, in particular the role of the EU is examined. Since 2010 participants in this project have followed and analysed the UN High Level Dialogue on Migration, related Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) and the role of global civil society actors in this process, leading to MIGLINK, a collaborative research project with Ankara University (Turkey) and University of Zacatecas Mexico).
Trade Unions, Transnational Solidarity and Ethnic Divisions
Branka Likic-Brboric, Professor
The research project addresses the EU’s regional approach to support countries in the Western Balkans in their progress towards EU membership. It focuses on the social reconstruction in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia and the regional dialogue on social and employment policies within the Bucharest process. The study investigates local and national trade unions strategies to challenge downward pressure on labour rights and standards brought about by the implementation of a neoliberal model of reconstruction. It analyses the counter-influence of European social dimension as well as practices of the international organizations such as the UNDP, ILO and International Trade Unions Confederation (ITUC) and civil society organizations on the development of ‘transethnic’ regional solidarities. It also examines the forms of labour collaboration necessary to counterbalance hostile employers and governments. The main question concerns the efficacy of EU support for social dialogue and the implementation of the ILO ‘decent work agenda’ in empowering trade unions in their struggle for labour rights and standards in post-conflict former Yugoslavia. The issue is especially pertinent considering the wider study of post-conflict societies, marked by social fragmentation, ethnic divisions, political clientelism, poverty, informal economy and migration pressures.
Trade unions, globalization and transnational solidarity
The network aims to create an intellectual forum for scientific discussion and criticism, and research initiatives on issues concerning trade unions, globalization and transnational solidarity.
By bringing together researchers from different disciplines and scattered between Universities, the network aims to develop theoretical understanding of the trade union movement’s challenges in a social landscape in change, characterized by regionalization and internationalization of production regimes. Within the framework the nework pays particular attention to cases of union cooperation across national borders. The network brings together research on gender, ethnicity and class linked to transnational trade union solidarity. The empirical focus is on transnational trade union cooperation in near areas (the Nordic /Baltic region), regional (EU / Europe) and global (North-South). In addition to a common theoretical focus, the network is aims to coordinate and develop the research and form the basis for initiation of new research. Finally, the network aims to enable cooperation with other international network of researchers focusing on similar research.
Informal economy
The aim of this project is to critically review the actual concepts on informal economy, and its relation to structural changes of the labour market, and migration. The project also has an ambition to highlight the borderline between formal and informal economy, and to develop a theoretical framework, suitable for empirical research on informal economy in its relation to the re-commodification of labour and migration.