Dear All,

We are inviting submissions to the following panel for the IMISCOE annual conference in 2019.

Please get in touch with myself ( [log in to unmask] ) and Carolin Fischer ( [log in to unmask] ) if you are interested.

Best wishes,

Esra

Dr. Esra S. Kaytaz
Research Associate
Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations
Coventry University
Cheetah Road
CV1 2TL
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Exploring self-making projects among refugees in Europe: Opportunities, restrictions and strategies

Call for papers for Panel at 16th IMISCOE Annual Conference, Malmö, 26 – 28 June 2019

Organizers: Carolin Fischer (Université de Neuchâtel), Esra Kaytaz (Coventry University), Anna Wyss (Université de Neuchâtel)

This panel seeks to explore and theorise self-making projects of migrants with more or less precarious migration statuses living in Europe. By self-making we mean practices and strategies, by which persons pursue aspirations and desires for themselves and their families. So far, related issues have mainly been examined with regard to migration decision-making (Carling & Collins 2017). To expand on this research, we aim to focus on self-making projects of refugees who recently arrived and are in the process of settling at their respective destination.

In recent years, immigration and asylum regimes have become more restrictive, legal precarity has increased and levels of hostility have risen across Europe. At the same time, there has been extensive humanitarian response work with volunteers seeking to support people en route and upon arrival at the destination. We take this ambivalent situation as our point of departure for exploring the self-making projects of refugees who arrived at and now seek to settle in diverse national and local settings. In particular, we are interested to explore how persons who were granted refugee status or temporary admission respond to opportunities and constraints of their social and political context when imagining and narrating the self in terms of individual aspirations and relations to others in society.

We are seeking contributions that explore how migrants craft their lives and selves within the context of contemporary Europe and individual ‘hopes, desires and satisfactions’ (Moore 2015) that may not be captured by existing research. Thus, we are interested in exploring how to incorporate theories on subjectivity and reflexivity as conceptualised in medical anthropology, religious studies and philosophy for instance, to migration studies. We are asking how we can draw on concepts such as agency, aspirations, capacity, practice and meaning-making to understand migrants self-making projects in the countries of residence.

We invite abstracts of up to 250 words that engage with self-making projects among refugees in Europe. Potential subjects to self-making include but are not limited to labour practices, creative and educational activities as well as more existential issues like family reunification or attempts to enhance one’s social, cultural or economic capital. Please send us your abstract by 25 November 2018 to [log in to unmask] . Decisions on abstracts will be communicated by 29 November 2018. The final decision on the acceptance of the panel will be taken by the organisers of the IMISCOE conference in the end of January 2019.

For general information about the IMISCOE Annual Conference, please see: https://www.imiscoe.org/events/annual-conference/861-cfp-understanding-international-migration-in-the-21st-century-conceptual-and-methodological-approaches-16th-annual-imiscoe-conference-june-26-28-2019-malmoe-university-sweden

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