New (Im)mobilities: Migration and Race in the Era of Authoritarianism

Migration researchers usually devote themselves to the study of human mobility across political and cultural borders. Today, however, they are increasingly compelled to reconsider the question of stasis, or immobility. Just as it is true that greater numbers of people than ever may be described as migrants and/or as displaced persons, it is equally true that an ever greater part of these migrants find themselves in situations of prohibited movement, be it in the form of detention camps, border controls, EU hot spots, eroding asylum rights, territorial bondage, or racialized privileges and barriers that block mobility.

Territorial bounds and sedentary life forms always constituted the unspoken norm in research on international migration and ethnic relations. Today’s multiplication of instruments and policies that prevent people from moving should prompt migration research to rethink the discipline’s theoretical and methodological frameworks and invent new ways of understanding why the ‘age of migration’ also appears to be an era of emerging authoritarianism and immobility.

The Institute for Research on Migration and Ethnicity and Society (REMESO) therefore invites to the 19th Nordic Migration Research Conference New (Im)mobilities: Migration and Race in the Era of Authoritarianism, 15–17 August 2018, in Norrköping, Sweden. 

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

Etienne Balibar, professor of philosophy, Kingston University, London and  Columbia University, New York.

Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Oslo.

Tanya Maria Golash-Boza, Professor, Sociology, University of California, Merced

Call for Workshop Proposals

REMESO  and Nordic Migration Research now invite proposals for workshops to be held during the conference.

We welcome thematic workshop proposals from across all disciplinary fields focusing on a wide range of topics that are relevant for scholars of international migration and ethnic relations.

Submissions for workshop proposals should include a workshop title, no more than 400 words overview of the rationale of the workshop and the names and affiliation of the organizers (minimum 2) of the workshop.

Deadline for proposals is November 20, 2017. 
Send to:     NMRconference2018.REMESO@liu.se

Workshop Themes to Consider:

• Ideologies of populism and authoritarianism and the revival of ideals of ethnic identity, national purity and racial supremacy.
• Policies of austerity that bind people to states or economic concerns by way of debts, duties and precarious labour arrangements.
• Systems of controlled and monitored mobility that sort people along new lines of ethnicity, gender and class.
• Strategies by which migrants and civil society organizations resist political, economic, judicial and material forms of control and exploitation.
• Paths to integration and citizenship in receiving societies.
• The prospect for migrants of more or less permanent temporariness in Nordic and European societies.

Call for Workshop Proposals NMR 2018, PDF

A Call for papers will be announced in December after  the selection of the workshops. The deadline for paper submission will be January 31, 2018. Workshop organizers and the conference organizing committee will be responsible for selecting the papers to the workshops. 

For questions contact Conference Coordinator and Chair, Professor Branka Likic-Brboric, REMESO: branka.likic-brboric@liu.se

https://liu.se/forskning/19th-nordic-migration-conference-2018