Bordering society: Understanding and Reimagining migration, displacement and diversity in an age of rapid transformations

Keynote speakers:

• Professor Nandita Sharma, (University of Hawai’i at Manoa)  
• Professor Nasar Meer (University of Glasgow)

Invited speakers:

• Dr Melanie Griffiths, University of Birmingham
• Professor Lyndsey Stonebridge, University of Birmingham
• Professor Nira Yuval-Davis (University of East London)
• Dr Blanca Garcés-Mascareñas, CIDOB
• Dr Myriam Cherti, University of Oxford
• Dr Ilse Van Liempt, Utrecht University
• Professor Roberto G. Gonzales, University of Pennsylvania
• Professor Jane Freedman, University of Paris 8
• Dr Evgenia Iliadou, University of Oxford
• Alphonsine Kabagabo, Women for Refugee Women
• Dr Nick Beech, University of Birmingham
• Professor Pat Noxolo, University of Birmingham
• Rob McNeil, Migration Observatory, University of Oxford
• Professor Michela Benson, Lancaster University

Rapidly shifting geopolitical alliances and power asymmetries in an increasingly multipolar landscape rekindle old conflicts and ignite new ones, destabilising an ever-increasing number of regions along the way. The consequences reverberate across the globe, but especially in the Global South. This is also where the vast majority of those displaced are to be found, despite the fear-mongering and moral panic over migration in the Western liberal democracies. What is particularly harrowing and somewhat unique in this particular moment is the interplay between geopolitics and the everyday. We can today witness the violence of forced displacement in real time, be it for conflict or climate breakdown, the suffering of those expelled, but also their ingenuity and resistance. We follow new alliances been forged across space and time, as seemingly disparate and geographically distant struggles and peoples unite under a shared generational colonial trauma and racialisation. Galvanised by the BLM movement, the Arab Spring, decolonisation discourses but also gender and queer politics, a new solidarity has emerged between the ‘wretched of the earth’ (Fanon 1963).

In this volatile global context, migration and borders are ever more relevant. The increasing numbers of those displaced by war and other forms of state violence, by environmental disasters and the ensuing poverty and insecurity, but also by aspirations for a better life, reveal, now more than ever, the complexities of migration. In the face of such mobilities, border regimes in the Western liberal democracies become tighter, more selective and exclusive, more technologically sophisticated, and at times brutally violent: more deaths and injuries at the border, as migrants are pushed towards dangerous geographies (seas, mountains, and deserts), through war-torn regions, more surveillance and pre-emptive action, and more erratic and cruel ‘solutions’ aimed to externalise asylum and protection away from sovereign territory (e.g. the Rwanda plan in the UK or Italy’s deal with Albania).

Racialised migrants, especially those from poor backgrounds, are vilified, often criminalised, targeted at will by the authorities in an effort to appease public opinion and the moral panic stirred by political entrepreneurs from across the political spectrum, particularly as we move into the ‘Ultimate Election Year’ in which 49% of the globe’s population will be called to vote in 64 countries and regions including India, the US, the EU, the UK but also Iran, Indonesia and Mexico.

How do these changes in the global order and international migration shape research on migration today? What new concepts and theories do we need to address the challenges and opportunities of migration-driven diversity? How do local, national, international and transnational processes interact? How do migrants and local communities respond to and act upon these rapidly changing scenarios? How changing political and legal infrastructures impact on the lives of migrants and racialised communities across generations? How does the study of migration need to change to be ready for the transformations in the decade ahead?

This international conference seeks to address such questions and look at key dimensions of contemporary migration studies research, in the face of such complex geopolitical and political landscape. 

For further information: please contact Ann Bolstridge, IRiS Adminstrator: a.bolstridge@bham.ac.uk