RGS-IBG 2018 CFP: The geographies of migrant politics
Sponsored by the Population Geography Research Group
This session seeks bring together papers on the changing geographies of migrant politics. Specifically, we wish to pay attention to the ways time and space are stretched across local, national, diasporic and transnational landscapes as migrants practice their politics in increasingly complex and diverse ways. We seek papers which explore migrant politics from the perspective of the migrant, the impact that migrants have and the challenges that they face. By this, we mean papers that question the extent to which migrants in different contexts are able to be political, and whether they feel that by doing so, they are effecting any meaningful changes in their lives and those of others. In turn, even if they feel political/politicised, what are they actually able to do in material terms? What are the myriad impacts of migrant politics on urban, rural and online landscapes? And what are the limits to migrant politics in relation to power?
Our understanding of politics is deliberately broad, and seeks to encompass formal and informal activities and processes carried out in collective and individual ways. Our use of migrant is also broad and includes all those 'on the move'. We are also interested in new theorisations on migrant politics which resonate with the challenges and opportunities migrants have in the contemporary world.
We therefore welcome both theoretical considerations on migrant politics, as well as empirical case studies in relation, but not limited to, questions outlined above as well as the following:
• Theorising the geographies of migrant politics
• The times and spaces of migrant politics
• Embodied, emotional, grounded migrant politics: the important of place, context and position
• Rationales for migrant politics: why be political? Politics as formal/informal; political participation and inclusion 'here' and 'there'
• Repercussions of migrant politics: e.g. on migrants themselves and their families and networks, disillusionment, disempowerment, isolation; migrant politics and integration
• Migration and development; diaspora politics; politics of the homeland;
• When are ‘migrant’ politics located? Second generational plus migrant politics: the impacts of having a 'migrant background'?
• Migrant politics and nationalism: strengthening or weakening the nation?
• Minority/majority politics and the shared politics of hope?
Please send abstracts of 250 words to Liz Mavroudi ([log in to unmask]) and Sophie Cranston ([log in to unmask]) by 9th February.
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