Challenging the Political Beyond and Across Borders: Possibilities and Tensions of Migrants' and Solidarity Struggles

July 25, 2016

We are welcoming abstracts for the workshop on 'Challenging the Political Beyond and Across Borders: Possibilities and Tensions of Migrants' and Solidarity Struggles' to be held on November 17-18, 2016 at the Central European University in Budapest.

This workshop aims at critically engaging with migration scholarship and at challenging dehistoricizing and depoliticizing discourses of 'migration crisis'. It sets out to develop collective reflections on mobility regimes and on migrants as political actors in relation to migration-related politics and beyond. It is particularly interested in migrants' struggles as connected to other realms of contentious political and economic activities and within broader historical contexts. It also wishes to explore the possibilities, tensions and limitations enacted by migrant solidarity and joint struggles, and their potential to efficiently contest dominant representations of migrants and mobility.

We are particularly (but not exclusively) interested in the following themes:

  • Intersections of Migrants' Political Struggles: Migrants as politically active in a range of struggles, including labour movements, trade unions, feminist movements, LGBTQI+ movements, housing movements, anti-austerity struggles and so on.
  • Prospects and Problems of Joint Struggles: What possibilities are opened up through migrant/non-migrant solidarity groups and what tensions may arise from such encounters?
  • Solidarity, Inclusiveness and Limitations: Is solidarity an inclusive term? If not, whom does it target in any particular context? Do non-migrant solidarity movements challenge or reproduce exclusionary discourses and under which conditions?
  • Contradictions and Tensions between Self-Determination and Autonomous Struggles: How do various forms of activism and political engagements centered around the freedom of movement and the dissolution of borders relate to political perspectives built around national determination and/or ethnic mobilization?
  • Common Marginalizations and Mobilization: What are the possibilities and limitations of producing and enacting solidarities across and between various marginalised groups?
  • Identity-based Politics and Solidarity: How do different forms of identity-based politics, including political and ideological affiliations and non-state based forms of belonging such as religious belonging, work together? What are the tensions running through different understandings and forms of solidarity and what are the limits of their inclusiveness?
  • Contributions focusing on contexts from the Global South as well as historical perspectives on migration and solidarity are highly welcome.

To apply, please send an abstract of your proposed contribution and a short biography to challengingthepolitical2016@gmail.com by September 10, 2016. Abstracts should aim to provide a substantial description of the argument in up to 1.5 pages.

The ultimate aim of the workshop is to contribute to debates in migration scholarship and culminate in an edited book or a Special Issue based on the papers that will be submitted and presented. Details will be discussed during the workshop.

Funds will be available for travel and accommodation for participants.

The workshop is co-organised by: CEU Center for Policy Studies; CEU Department of Gender Studies; CEU Doctoral School of Political Science, International Relations and Public Policy and CEU Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology.

For further questions, please contact challengingthepolitical2016@gmail.com.

Important Dates:

Deadline for abstract submission: September 10, 2016
Notification of acceptance: September 20, 2016
Deadline for submission of draft version of the paper: October 30, 2016
Workshop dates: November 17-18, 2016

Call for papers (Download)

Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1583652368602287/

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