The authors

Robin Cohen is Professorial Fellow at the Department of International Development, University of Oxford, UK and Honorary Professor, University of Warwick, UK, where he was Professor of Sociology from 1979 to March 2007. He served as Dean of Humanities at the University of Cape Town while on long leave from Warwick (2001–3) and directed the nationally designated UK Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations (1985–9). He has held full-time appointments at the Universities of Ibadan, Birmingham and the West Indies and sessional appointments at Stanford, Toronto and Berkeley.

Robin is editor of the Routledge series on Global diasporas and of the Cambridge survey of world migration (1995) . His books include Labour and politics in Nigeria (1974, rev. 1982); Endgame in South Africa? (1986); The new helots: migrants in the international division of labour (1987); Contested domains: debates in international labour studies (1991); Frontiers of identity: the British and the others (1994), Global diasporas: an introduction (1997, 1999, 2001, 2005), Global sociology (co-author, 2000, 2001, rev. 2007) and Migration and its enemies (2006). His works have been translated into French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish. He has edited or co-edited 18 further volumes, particularly on labour studies, ethnicity, diasporas, migration, transnationalism and globalisation.

Robin’s current research is funded by the ESRC for three years. During his fellowship he will investigate the social scientific value of the concepts of creolization (and cognate concepts like hybridity, métissage and syncretism) in Brazil, the South Atlantic/Indian oceans, the Caribbean, West Africa (notably Sierra Leone), the USA and the UK. The research will be multi-disciplinary – particularly using sociology and social history as core disciplines, with social anthropology, linguistics and area studies providing necessary insights. Portuguese, Dutch/Afrikaans, French, Spanish, English and Creole sources will be used. This research programme will be the first major comparative study of creolization and mixed identity.

Robin served as President of the Global Studies Association from 2004–6, a body that Paul (see below) did so much to bring into being and sustain. Robin has also been an associate of the Centre for the Study of Globalizaton and Regionalization at the University of Warwick who helped in giving him the time to do his share of this book. He extends his thanks to the Directors of CSGR.

Robin Cohen’s homepage at the University of Warwickhttp://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/academic/cohenr/

 

 

Paul Kennedy is a reader in sociology and global studies in the Department of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University. He is currently the director of the Institute for Global Studies and which has now become part of the Research Institute for Social and Spatial Transformations. He was one of the original founders of the Global Studies Association in 2000 and was its secretary until 2005. This new interdisciplinary association encourages and disseminates research on global issues, problems and theorizations. He first taught in Ethiopia in the mid 1960s both at school and university level. Later he taught and conducted research while employed in two universities in Ghana in the late 1960s and mid 1970s. He has also worked at Sussex and South Bank Universities in the 1970s.

In 2001, Paul established, and now acts as the course leader for, the new MA programme in ‘Globalisation, Societies and Cultures’. We think that this may be the first and – for the time being – the only MA course available in globalisation studies which concentrates mainly on a sociological approach. His other teaching involves two second year courses concerned with issues of international order/disorder and Third World studies, a first year introductory course on globalisation and a new third year course entitled, ‘Globalization, transnational processes and the world of the twenty first century’. A version of the latter will also provide the core course for the MA programme.

His current research is concerned with transnational professionals and globalisation, the such way people experience living and working abroad and the effects this has on the identities, perceptions etc. So far fieldwork has explored those working in the building/design industry – mostly individuals employed by London-based architectural companies and a more recent study in 2005 of young skilled EU migrants living and working in Manchester. With MMU as the lead university, but in collaboration with scholars from five other UK universities, he recently won a grant under the auspices of the ESRC’s seminar series to run six linked seminars on the theme of ‘explorations in global society’ during the period 2003-2004.

Paul was one of the original founders of this new multi-disciplinary association concerned with disseminating and encouraging research on global issues, problems and theorizations. He has been the association’s secretary since its inception. Though small in numbers the association is growing quite rapidly and has already established a sister branch in the USA. It is hoped that further branches based in Germany, Ireland, Italy, Canada, Mexico and India will be formed soon.

 

He is the author of two books on African development including, African Capitalism: The Struggle for Ascendancy published by Cambridge University press in 1988, and has co-edited three others. Two of the latter are concerned with globalization issues: Globalization and National Identities: Crisis or Opportunity?, published in 2001 by Palgrave (with Catherine Danks) and Communities Across Borders: New Immigrants and Transnational Cultures (with Victor Roudometof) and published by Routledge in 2002. His recent research and publications have focuses on transnational professionals working in global building-design companies and young, skilled migrants from the European Union living in Britain.

 

Paul Kennedy’s homepage at MMU http://www.sociology.mmu.ac.uk/profile.php?id=224