Call for papers – special issue on forced migration and mobilities research
Submissions are invited for a special issue of an academic journal
looking at Forced Migration and Mobilities Research.
We are looking for a theoretically informed and empirically rich paper
analysing environmentally induced migration from a mobilities perspective.
By environmentally induced migration we understand human displacement
related to global warming, long term environmental stress and disasters
such as floods, fires, tsunamis and earthquakes.
Potential contributors will have to comply with a strict editorial
schedule and be ready to submit a first draft to the editors of the
special issue by May 2010 and a final draft by early August 2010.
For more information about the general outlook of the special issue see
below.
Please direct expressions of interest by the 5th of February to Nick
Gill [log in to unmask] and Javier Caletrío [log in to unmask]
General outlook of the special issue
Forced migration is a chronic reality and a pending threat in some parts
of the so called Global South and is set to become increasingly central
for rich industrial nations too in the 21st century due to growing
political and environmental instabilities. Forced migration studies have
already made a significant contribution in understanding a complex
phenomenon that demands ever more sophisticated transnational,
interdisciplinary and theoretically oriented analytical perspectives.
But, as Stephen Castles (2003) has noted, the policy driven agenda of
forced migration studies still has to make explicit such demands and
contribute more substantially to social theory.
‘Critical mobilities’ is a new direction in social theory with also
clear post-disciplinary and global aspirations. The analytical potential
of its post-disciplinary outlook is already evident in recent works of
synthesis that have fruitfully brought together studies on migration,
tourism, business travel, social mobility, inequality, urban
infrastructure, complexity and reflexive modernization (Canzler et al.
2008; Urry 2000, 2008). ‘Critical mobilities’ is a distinct if
eclectical approach with moving boundaries. Yet, its development as a
cosmopolitan perspective (Beck, 2006) still awaits new synthesis that
incorporates forms of mobility, bodies of research, problematics, and
social and political contexts that are relevant beyond North Atlantic
rim societies.
This special issue therefore seeks to contribute to ongoing efforts to
expand the social-theoretical basis of forced migration studies and
cosmopolitan outlook of mobilities research by encouraging a dialogue
between both bodies of research. A focus on forced migration promises to
make more explicit and further develop the critical outlook of
mobilities research, offering one way in which the approach can begin to
fulfil is cosmopolitan aspirations. Moreover, the methodological and
conceptual frameworks being developed by mobilities research can
illuminate new areas of concern facing forced migrants, especially
regarding the relationship between diverse forms of mobilities; social
and infrastructural networks; different forms of state power and the
role that mobilities play in governance; ‘natural’ diasaters and
infrastructural resilience and collapse; the convergence of physical and
digital space; global complexities; and senses of place and belonging.
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