Call for Papers

Papers are welcome that raise questions related to concepts and practices of migration, sovereignty and agency in a variety of contexts and from a variety of perspectives.

Articles should be submitted via email to Chris Gilligan (Aston University, UK) at: c.gilligan@aston.ac.uk to arrive by Thursday 21st of August 2008. Articles should have a 'Harvard-style' referencing system, and 7- 8,000 words in length (excluding notes and references, although notes should be kept to a minimum).

The suggestions which follow below provide a guide to the kinds of topics considered for the conference and for publication.

Firstly, we would like to encourage papers that deal with questions of sovereignty and agency in relation to the regulation of human movement.  Human mobility has been subject to increasing controls in recent years, particularly migration to developed industrialised states. These processes raise a range of empirical, analytical, political and normative questions. For example, what contradictions emerge through such a process, and where can we locate agency? How does the state distinguish between migrants, and what are the consequences of such divisive practices? In what ways are historical patterns of domination extended or disrupted through the changing institutional organisation and changing practices of migration control?

Secondly, we would like to encourage papers that deal with questions about migration, sovereignty and agency in relation to trans- or post-nationalism. This theme can be approached in various ways: in terms of migration control; in terms of the production of deterritorialised spaces; and/or in terms of the development of transnational social movements. Questions arise here about the tensions between migratory processes and state regulations, about the reconfiguration of the state in a world of increased mobility, and about the challenges posed to state sovereignty by acts of migration. How does the sovereign state feature in such a process, and what are the key sites in which its regulatory powers are exercised? Do processes of emigration and immigration serve as transnational acts of resistance against the state? What new spaces and modes of political belonging emerge in a context of increased international mobility?

Thirdly, we would like to encourage papers that deal with questions of migration, sovereignty and agency in relation to states and development. In industrialising countries such as China and India migrant labour from rural areas into rapidly urbanizing areas is a significant social phenomenon. Flows of remittances from migrants in more developed countries to their families in less developed states have been touted as a significant and growing source of funds for development. On the other hand the demands in industrialised or post-industrial states for ‘managed migration’ have provoked concerns in the developing world regarding a ‘brain drain’ of skills from their societies. Are movements of people driven by market forces with little scope for conscious human intervention? Is the increasing significance of remittances an example of development ‘from below’, a way in which migrants are able to exercise agency beyond the controls of the state.

Fourthly, we would like to encourage papers that deal with questions of migration, sovereignty and agency in relation to violent political conflict and peace-building. Refugees and asylum-seekers are usually presented as victims of war, but can they be considered to be active agents who are ‘voting with their feet’ and removing their consent to be ruled by a state they oppose? Are displaced people used as a pretext for undermining the sovereignty of the state in the non-Western world, or does humanitarian intervention arise from genuine concern? Can this concern for the victims of war be reconciled with the increasing restriction of refugees and asylum-seekers in the very states which promote humanitarian intervention? Should peacekeeping forces be considered a form of migrant labour?

*Conflicts of Mobility.*

*Migration, Labour and Political Subjectivities*

*Special Issue of Subjectivity*
FFI: Rutvica.Andrijasevic@compas.ox.ac.uk
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/pal/index.html

Poetic Justice: Imagination, Empowerment, and Identity in Multi- Ethnic Literatures of the US
Deadline for proposals: December 15, 2008
Conference: April 2-5, 2009
FFI: www.melus.org