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Regular version of the site

Letters from Sweden from Alexandra Koptyaeva When Research Dreams Come True

In November, the Stockholm University hosted the two-day workshop “Challenges in Contemporary Society”, which was organized together with the Institute for Analytical Sociology (IAS) by efforts of Professor Hedstrom. The legendary Professor Douglas Massey, an American sociologist from Princeton University, was the key speaker at the workshop. I was able to attend both of his lectures, a closed meeting with IAS staff after the first lecture, and even managed to have a chat with him.

Lectures of Professor Massey were focused on the USA policy on migrants from Mexico, or, rather, with its failure to deal with it. The second lecture titled “America's Immigration Policy Fiasco” was highlighting the reasons for this failed strategy. The US government assumed that an increased control at the border between America and Mexico would lead to a decreased flow of legal migrants, as well as of workers without necessary papers. This program receives over 18 billion dollars a year; the Board Guard Service hired for this purpose about 20,000 employees, and every year it deports over 40,000 migrants. In his study, Professor Massey has shown than a stricter border policy has had an opposite effect: instead of the expected decrease in migrants flow, it has increased. Before these measures, the migrants who arrived to the USA without necessary papers, would return home after a while, and then they might come back again. Now the migrants from Latin America prefer to stay at the USA because the “cost” of illegal immigration has increased significantly. From 1970 to 2010, the total number of illegal migrants to the USA increased from a few thousand to 11 million, 16.3% of whom have arrived from the countries of Latin America. In order to avoid mistakes of the past, the US government should reconsider its policy regarding the migrants from Latin America.At their meeting with Prof. Massey, the IAS staff were talking about their projects and plans for the future. A large part of this meeting was devoted to the discussion of the sociology of health: recently this area has been attracting much interest. 
After this meeting with Prof. Massey I felt just great. Just to think, I met in person with one of the most popular and widely quoted researchers. At first I thought that I wouldn’t be able to talk with him directly, but as it turned out, he showed interest in my studies and discussed my projects with me.

By Alexandra Koptyaeva