Decolonizing Forced Migration Studies: Lessons from Borderlands

Seminar Series on Forced Migration with Nergis Canefe and Ayşe Çağlar
Seminars and Colloquia

This paper was an exploration of forced migration studies seen from the lens of de-colonial theory and invited us to consider shifting the geographies of reason habitually marking the field. Starting with a foundational critique of moralism and privilege marking canonized understandings of migration, precarity, displacement and dispossession, it unpacked the complexity of an existential political commitment to redefining forced migration not from the core/recipient states and societies but from borderlands. This work thus contributed to a long and rich—yet also troubled and deeply contested—conversation between postcolonial studies and forced migration studies.

The speaker was Nergis Canefe, Professor at York University, Canada.

IWM Permanent Fellow Ayşe Çağlar moderated the evening.

Partnership

The Seminar Series on Forced Migration is part of Europe-Asia Research Platform on Forced Migration at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (IWM) and Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (CRG); and is hosted at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna.