JISCMail - PYGYWG Archives

Please see the below 2^nd call for papers and other contributions for a conference on ‘Forced migration, seeking asylum and human rights’ at the University of Leeds on Friday 29^th January 2010. There is also a conference flyer attached. Apologies for cross-posting.

Louise

Dr Louise Waite
Lecturer in Human Geography
School of Geography, University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT Tel +44 (0)113 343 3367
Email [log in to unmask]
Web www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/people/l.waite
For info on the Participatory Geographies Working Group(PYGYWG), please visit:
http://www.pygywg.org/

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JOURNEYS AND JUSTICE: Forced migration, seeking asylum, and human rights

A conference at the University of Leeds, UK, Friday 29th January 2010

This conference will examine the journeys of forced migrants. It will explore these journeys through the lenses of justice and human rights. A key part of the conference will be to debate better solutions to the problems of injustice and human rights denial that so often taint the journeys of forced migrants. Its focus is mainly on the UK, but contributions from elsewhere are welcome.

The conference will:

• Examine the forces causing people to involuntarily leave their homes

• Explore the often traumatic and chaotic routes forced migrants take in their journeys

• Investigate forced migrants’ arrival experiences

• Consider how forced migrants are treated and supported in the UK

• Evaluate how well forced migrants are integrated

• Delve into what, why and how forced migrants return to their home country

• Focus on practical solutions and their policy implications

Keynote speakers:

Eleonore Kofman (Professor of Gender, Migration and Citizenship, Middlesex University)

Hsiao-Hung Pai (author of ‘Chinese Whispers: The True Story Behind Britain’s Hidden Army of Labour’).

The conference will culminate in a 6pm ‘Question Time’ panel (free to attend) chaired by broadcaster

Jenni Murray, with well-known figures such as Jeremy Seabrook (author of ‘The Refuge and the Fortress’),

Eleonore Kofman (Professor of Gender, Migration and Citizenship, Middlesex University) and

Mike Kaye (Still Human Still Here coalition & Amnesty).

We invite papers and other types of contributions (e.g. poetry, photography, film, art) which reflect on the below key issues. Please send your ideas (abstracts of no more than 250 words) to Louise Waite (email below) by October 30th 2009.

• Causes of forced migration (whether through persecution or other forms of coercion) such as economic crisis, environmental pressure, discrimination (due to e.g. gender, race, sexuality), war and global politics

• Experiences of seeking asylum

• Policies and procedures such as border control, the asylum system, denial, destitution, detention and deportation

• Issues of justice such as human rights and the rights of the child

• Longer term issues such as settlement, integration and citizenship

• Responses in civil society such as political mobilisation, activism and racialised antagonism

We hope that the conference will be of interest to the following: people with personal experience of forced migration; people who have settled, achieved citizenship and feel integrated or excluded; people working in this sector; volunteers; political activists; academics working in this field.

For conference registration (£40 full cost, £20 reduced cost, + limited bursaries): please see registration form at http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/research/conferences/journeys-and-justice.html. Closing date for registration is December 1st 2009.