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IASFM16 Call for papers

Proposed Panel(s): From Roots to Routes: Unravelling the Mediterranean Migration ‘Crisis’ and the European Political and Policy Response

Co-Organisers: Professor Heaven Crawley (Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University) and Dr Nando Sigona (Institute for Research into Superdiversity, Birmingham University)

Deadline: Abstracts for proposed papers should be submitted by Monday 18th January 2016, panel proposal to be submitted to IASFM by 1st February 2016

The 16th Conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) will be hosted by the Centre for Migration Studies, the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, and the Faculty of Law and Public Administration at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland from July 12-15, 2016. This is the first time that IASFM members will gather in Central Europe and given that the themes of the conference is on rethinking forced migration and displacement, we would like to organise one, or possibly two, panels each consisting of four papers exploring the root causes of the Mediterranean migration ‘crisis’ and the European political and policy response.

During the course of 2015 more than 850,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean, arriving at the shores of southern Europe in search of protection or a better life for themselves and their families. In the same period, at least 3,500 people drowned, confirming the Mediterranean as the most deadly sea crossing in the world. Although migration across the Mediterranean to Europe is nothing new, the so-called migration ‘crisis’ of 2015 has seen rapid shifts in routes and modes of travel to - and across - Europe. And it has dramatically exposed not only the complex and overlapping continuum between political and economic factors driving migration but the inability of European policy makers to devise policy responses in response to ‘mixed’ migration flows.
By situating the European migration ‘crisis’ in the context of wider debates about the complex dynamics of migration in the region and the global refugee crisis, this panel provides an opportunity to explore the journeys of those who arrive in Europe on the one hand, and unravel the assumptions that policy and practice on the other. It also provides an opportunity to consider the increasingly complex role that institutional structures and actors play in counting and categorising the lives and experiences of those who move.

The panel(s) will provide an open and inclusive space for exploring, questioning and challenging established ways of categorising and thinking about forced migration in the context of the Mediterranean migration ‘crisis’. Proposals that speak to the following themes are particularly encouraged:
- The relationship between political and economic factors as root causes of recent migration flows to Europe;
- The journeys of migrants to Europe through the Central Mediterranean (Libya to Italy and Malta) and Eastern Mediterranean (Turkey to Greece) routes;
- The decision-making of migrants and refugees in shaping their own journeys (including the decision to leave, the routes taken, interactions with others);
- The role of profit and non-profit seeking facilitators (‘smugglers’) in shaping journeys and their interaction with migrants and refugees, including comparisons between the Central and Eastern Mediterranean routes;
- The ways in which gender, class and age influence and inform migrant journeys to Europe and/or political, institutional and media responses to the Mediterranean migration ‘crisis’;
- The role of state authorities charged with enforcing or enabling migration controls in shaping journeys, and their interaction with migrants and refugees;
- The impact of EU responses on the dynamics of migration in the Mediterranean region; and 
- How the Mediterranean migration ‘crisis’ has informed theoretical and legal considerations of the relationship between forced and other forms of migration.
Abstracts of no more than 200 words should be submitted to [log in to unmask] by Monday 18th January 2016
Further information about IASFM16 can be found at http://iasfm.org/iasfm16/