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Human Migration and the Environment: Futures, Politics, Invention 28 June - 1 July 2015 Durham University Durham, United Kingdom Confirmed Keynote Speakers Professor David Held (Master of University College, Durham University) Professor Wendy Brown (Class of 1936 First Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley) Professor Claire Colebrook (Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, Pennsylvania State University) Abstract Human migration and the environment are two of the most pressing issues of our times. Migration is a defining attribute of the human condition, and yet all across the world negative attitudes towards migration are intensifying. Meanwhile, our natural environment is undergoing such profound transformation that the future habitability of Earth is regularly called into question. But what is stake when these two phenomena - human migration and environmental catastrophe - are articulated as a singular relation? In popular media, this relation is often said to be one of mass migration which culminates in religious or ethnic violence, whereas contemporary liberalism poses it as a problem of international cooperation or state managerialism. But how else might we conceive of this relation? Is it enough to understand it as a binary between alarmist rhetoric and managerial reason? Or does our of understanding of human migration and the environment require entirely new concepts? Are we to conceptualise migration in the context of climate change as a matter of in/justice, law and sovereignty? Or does it pose something more fundamental to the human condition? What does it mean when future environmental catastrophe conjugates with prejudice, inequality and difference? What ontological, epistemological and methodological challenges arise when environmental change and migration are characterised as a single relation? How are we to conceive of the Human, Nature, the State, the migrant and the citizen when human migration and environmental change are conjoined? What political, sociological, cultural and legal challenges does this relation pose? And what futures does it make possible? How should we conceive of migration in the Anthropocene? By asking these and many other questions, this conference provides a multidisciplinary forum for scholars, policymakers, practitioners and artists to chart out the next generation of research on human migration and the environment. Whereas the first generation of research on environmental migration focussed squarely on problems of causation and on questions of law and policy, our starting point for the conference is that the relation between environment and migration is multidimensional, touching on all aspects of human and non-human life, including economy, social institutions, politics and culture, as well as bio- and geo-physical processes. The aim of the conference is to expand the debate on human migration and the environment beyond its current configuration as a problem of causation, law and policy towards a more pluralist debate that acknowledges the multidimensional nature of environmental change and migration. The conference should appeal to social scientists, humanities and legal scholars as well as to scientists committed to working with and within the social sciences, humanities and law. Submission Deadlines Paper session submission deadline: 31 October 2014 Paper submission deadline: 27 March 2015 Further Information www.climatemigration.eu Organising Committee Dr Andrew Baldwin, Durham University Dr Francois Gemenne, University of Liège / University of Versailles Saint-Quentin Dr Dimitra Manou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Sponsors COST Action IS1101 Climate change and migration: knowledge, law and policy, and theory. www.climatemigration.eu Durham University ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Note: The material contained in this communication comes to you from the Forced Migration Discussion List which is moderated by Forced Migration Online, Refugee Studies Centre (RSC), Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the RSC or the University. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this message please retain this disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. E-mail: [log in to unmask] Posting guidelines: http://www.forcedmigration.org/research-resources/discussion/forced-migration-discussion-list-posting-guidelines Subscribe/unsubscribe: http://tinyurl.com/fmlist-join-leave List Archives: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/forced-migration.html RSS: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?RSS&L=forced-migration Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/refugeestudies Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/refugeestudiescentre