Call for Papers: Migration, sovereignty and agency - forthcoming Special
Issue of The Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding
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Migration, Sovereignty and Agency
We would like to invite papers on the theme of migration, sovereignty
and agency for a forthcoming Special Issue of The Journal of
Intervention and Statebuilding scheduled for publication in 2009.
Papers are welcome that raise questions related to concepts and
practices of migration, sovereignty and agency in a variety of contexts
and from a variety of perspectives.
Articles should be submitted via email to Chris Gilligan (Aston
University, UK) at: [log in to unmask] to arrive by Thursday 21st of
August 2008. Articles should have a 'Harvard-style' referencing system,
and 7- 8,000 words in length (excluding notes and references, although
notes should be kept to a minimum).
The suggestions which follow below provide a guide to the kinds of
topics that we would consider for the conference and for publication.
Thanks in advance for your consideration,
Gerry Boucher, University College Dublin, Republic of Ireland Chris
Gilligan, Aston University, UK Vicki Squire, Open University, UK
Migration, sovereignty and agency
Firstly, we would like to encourage papers that deal with questions of
sovereignty and agency in relation to the regulation of human movement.
Human mobility has been subject to increasing controls in recent
years, particularly migration to developed industrialised states. These
processes raise a range of empirical, analytical, political and
normative questions. For example, what contradictions emerge through
such a process, and where can we locate agency? How does the state
distinguish between migrants, and what are the consequences of such
divisive practices? In what ways are historical patterns of domination
extended or disrupted through the changing institutional organisation
and changing practices of migration control?
Secondly, we would like to encourage papers that deal with questions
about migration, sovereignty and agency in relation to trans- or
post-nationalism. This theme can be approached in various ways: in terms
of migration control; in terms of the production of deterritorialised
spaces; and/or in terms of the development of transnational social
movements. Questions arise here about the tensions between migratory
processes and state regulations, about the reconfiguration of the state
in a world of increased mobility, and about the challenges posed to
state sovereignty by acts of migration. How does the sovereign state
feature in such a process, and what are the key sites in which its
regulatory powers are exercised? Do processes of emigration and
immigration serve as transnational acts of resistance against the state?
What new spaces and modes of political belonging emerge in a context of
increased international mobility?
Thirdly, we would like to encourage papers that deal with questions of
migration, sovereignty and agency in relation to states and development.
In industrialising countries such as China and India migrant labour from
rural areas into rapidly urbanizing areas is a significant social
phenomenon. Flows of remittances from migrants in more developed
countries to their families in less developed states have been touted as
a significant and growing source of funds for development. On the other
hand the demands in industrialised or post-industrial states for
‘managed migration’ have provoked concerns in the developing world
regarding a ‘brain drain’ of skills from their societies. Are movements
of people driven by market forces with little scope for conscious human
intervention? Is the increasing significance of remittances an example
of development ‘from below’, a way in which migrants are able to
exercise agency beyond the controls of the state?
Fourthly, we would like to encourage papers that deal with questions of
migration, sovereignty and agency in relation to violent political
conflict and peace-building. Refugees and asylum-seekers are usually
presented as victims of war, but can they be considered to be active
agents who are ‘voting with their feet’ and removing their consent to be
ruled by a state they oppose? Are displaced people used as a pretext for
undermining the sovereignty of the state in the non-Western world, or
does humanitarian intervention arise from genuine concern? Can this
concern for the victims of war be reconciled with the increasing
restriction of refugees and asylum-seekers in the very states which
promote humanitarian intervention? Should peacekeeping forces be
considered a form of migrant labour?
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