Events / Program: Europe-Asia Research Platform on Forced Migration

	Title	Date	Type	Speakers
	The Coloniality of Migration	Wed, 20.01.2021	Seminars and Colloquia	Ayşe ÇağlarPrem Kumar Rajaram	The Coloniality of Migration Wed, 20.01.2021 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarPrem Kumar Rajaram Series: Seminars and Colloquia Refugees and migrants are often studied as though they have no relation to the racial and class structures and histories of the societies in which they reside. They are taken to be external strangers to be governed by ‘integration’ policy and border management. Migration, and in particular forced migration, can be usefully understood in relation to practices of material and cultural dispossession and value expropriation so as to ensure a steady supply of cheapened labour power. These practices were central to the way colonial capitalism of the 19th and 20th centuries was organised, and remain pertinent to contemporary intersections of politics, economics and culture. The persistent coloniality of contemporary migration is evident in struggles to control and direct the social reproduction of culturally-demeaned others (including migrants and other racialised groups) with the aim of ensuring the regular supply of cheapened labour. Read more
The Coloniality of Migration Wed, 20.01.2021 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarPrem Kumar Rajaram Series: Seminars and Colloquia Refugees and migrants are often studied as though they have no relation to the racial and class structures and histories of the societies in which they reside. They are taken to be external strangers to be governed by ‘integration’ policy and border management. Migration, and in particular forced migration, can be usefully understood in relation to practices of material and cultural dispossession and value expropriation so as to ensure a steady supply of cheapened labour power. These practices were central to the way colonial capitalism of the 19th and 20th centuries was organised, and remain pertinent to contemporary intersections of politics, economics and culture. The persistent coloniality of contemporary migration is evident in struggles to control and direct the social reproduction of culturally-demeaned others (including migrants and other racialised groups) with the aim of ensuring the regular supply of cheapened labour. Read more
	Innovative Methods of Research in Migration & Refugee Studies	Mon, 21.12.2020	Panels and Discussions	Ayşe ÇağlarSandro Mezzadra, Giorgio Grappi, Lydia Potts	Innovative Methods of Research in Migration & Refugee Studies Mon, 21.12.2020 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarSandro Mezzadra, Giorgio Grappi, Lydia Potts Series: Panels and Discussions This event was part of a two-day teachers’ workshop on Research Methodology and Syllabus Making in Migration & Forced Migration Studies organised by the Calcutta Research Group in collaboration with Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna. Read more
Innovative Methods of Research in Migration & Refugee Studies Mon, 21.12.2020 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarSandro Mezzadra, Giorgio Grappi, Lydia Potts Series: Panels and Discussions This event was part of a two-day teachers’ workshop on Research Methodology and Syllabus Making in Migration & Forced Migration Studies organised by the Calcutta Research Group in collaboration with Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna. Read more
	Refugee Sponsorship: Will Civil Society Keep Stepping Up?	Wed, 16.12.2020	Seminars and Colloquia	Ayşe ÇağlarJennifer Hyndman	Refugee Sponsorship: Will Civil Society Keep Stepping Up? Wed, 16.12.2020 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarJennifer Hyndman Series: Seminars and Colloquia For more than 40 years, groups of Canadians have raised funds and offered their time to support over 325,000 refugee newcomers through the Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program (PSRP). In 2020, planned numbers for private refugee sponsorship (20,000) in Canada were double the number of government-assisted refugees to be resettled. Based on an original qualitative study, this paper probes how voluntary sponsorship – as a kind of civil society mobilisation – has been sustained over decades. Refugee newcomers who land in Canada as permanent residents become part of the communities and society in which they stay. Many have left family members behind in refugee camps and sanctuary cities without permanent status, and so become sponsors themselves with a view to reuniting in Canada. This phenomenon of ‘family-linked’ sponsorship is a unique, defining and sustaining feature of the program by motivating family members in Canada to team up with experienced sponsors to ‘do more’. Our data show that sponsorship is a community practice that occurs across scales – linking local sites in Canada to countries where human atrocities are common and neighbouring states that host those who flee. Sponsorship connects people in various communities across the world, and these transnational links are important to understanding the sustainability of sponsorship over time in Canada. Read more
Refugee Sponsorship: Will Civil Society Keep Stepping Up? Wed, 16.12.2020 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarJennifer Hyndman Series: Seminars and Colloquia For more than 40 years, groups of Canadians have raised funds and offered their time to support over 325,000 refugee newcomers through the Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program (PSRP). In 2020, planned numbers for private refugee sponsorship (20,000) in Canada were double the number of government-assisted refugees to be resettled. Based on an original qualitative study, this paper probes how voluntary sponsorship – as a kind of civil society mobilisation – has been sustained over decades. Refugee newcomers who land in Canada as permanent residents become part of the communities and society in which they stay. Many have left family members behind in refugee camps and sanctuary cities without permanent status, and so become sponsors themselves with a view to reuniting in Canada. This phenomenon of ‘family-linked’ sponsorship is a unique, defining and sustaining feature of the program by motivating family members in Canada to team up with experienced sponsors to ‘do more’. Our data show that sponsorship is a community practice that occurs across scales – linking local sites in Canada to countries where human atrocities are common and neighbouring states that host those who flee. Sponsorship connects people in various communities across the world, and these transnational links are important to understanding the sustainability of sponsorship over time in Canada. Read more
	Migration, Borders and Technologies – An Introduction to Techno-Borderscapes	Wed, 11.11.2020	Seminars and Colloquia	Ayşe Çağlar Giorgia Donà	Migration, Borders and Technologies – An Introduction to Techno-Borderscapes Wed, 11.11.2020 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Giorgia Donà Series: Seminars and Colloquia In this presentation, Giorgia Doná discussed the relationship among migration, borders and technologies by examining the role of mobile digital devices in the everyday lives of migrants in transit and their encounters with state agents, humanitarian actors and activists at the border. The concept techno-borderscapes is introduced to rethink transit zones as sites of embodied and virtual interactions that highlight the connections among digital securitisation, humanitarianism and activism. Confronted with increased border securitisation, migrants use mobile technologies to bypass borders, create new forms of migrant-to-migrant protection and assistance, and articulate their political voice. Border spaces are not just ‘in-between’ zones along a unidirectional migratory trajectory but rather transformative and transforming techno-borderscapes. Read more
Migration, Borders and Technologies – An Introduction to Techno-Borderscapes Wed, 11.11.2020 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Giorgia Donà Series: Seminars and Colloquia In this presentation, Giorgia Doná discussed the relationship among migration, borders and technologies by examining the role of mobile digital devices in the everyday lives of migrants in transit and their encounters with state agents, humanitarian actors and activists at the border. The concept techno-borderscapes is introduced to rethink transit zones as sites of embodied and virtual interactions that highlight the connections among digital securitisation, humanitarianism and activism. Confronted with increased border securitisation, migrants use mobile technologies to bypass borders, create new forms of migrant-to-migrant protection and assistance, and articulate their political voice. Border spaces are not just ‘in-between’ zones along a unidirectional migratory trajectory but rather transformative and transforming techno-borderscapes. Read more
	Public Health & Migrant Workers	Fri, 21.08.2020	Conferences and Workshops	Ayşe Çağlar Ranabir Samaddar Shalini Randeria	Public Health & Migrant Workers Fri, 21.08.2020 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Ranabir Samaddar Shalini Randeria Series: Conferences and Workshops This symposium on migrants and public health was a platform to investigate and integrate some of the primary concerns arising from the state of public health in India, privatisation of the health care system, the skewed nature of governance in addressing public health concerns in our cities’ poor, overcrowded neighbourhoods, and the fact that workers leading the response against the pandemic are rendered disposable for fear of disease and contamination. How do these binaries coexist and become new sites of discrimination? Read more
Public Health & Migrant Workers Fri, 21.08.2020 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Ranabir Samaddar Shalini Randeria Series: Conferences and Workshops This symposium on migrants and public health was a platform to investigate and integrate some of the primary concerns arising from the state of public health in India, privatisation of the health care system, the skewed nature of governance in addressing public health concerns in our cities’ poor, overcrowded neighbourhoods, and the fact that workers leading the response against the pandemic are rendered disposable for fear of disease and contamination. How do these binaries coexist and become new sites of discrimination? Read more
	Europe-Asia Research Platform: Forced Migration	Thu, 25.06.2020 - Fri, 26.06.2020	Conferences and Workshops	Ayşe Çağlar Ranabir Samaddar	Europe-Asia Research Platform: Forced Migration Thu, 25.06.2020 - Fri, 26.06.2020 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Ranabir Samaddar Series: Conferences and Workshops The workshop discussed the possibility of setting up a Europe-Asia research platform for the purpose of facilitating explorations, among others, of the various fault lines of race, religion, caste, sexuality, gender and class functioning in the global protection regime for refugees and migrants. Read more
Europe-Asia Research Platform: Forced Migration Thu, 25.06.2020 - Fri, 26.06.2020 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Ranabir Samaddar Series: Conferences and Workshops The workshop discussed the possibility of setting up a Europe-Asia research platform for the purpose of facilitating explorations, among others, of the various fault lines of race, religion, caste, sexuality, gender and class functioning in the global protection regime for refugees and migrants. Read more
	Covid-19 Pandemic and the Spectral Presence of Migrant Workers and Refugees	Wed, 24.06.2020	Panels and Discussions	Ayşe Çağlar Ranabir SamaddarAlex Aleinikoff, Roger Zetter	Covid-19 Pandemic and the Spectral Presence of Migrant Workers and Refugees Wed, 24.06.2020 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Ranabir SamaddarAlex Aleinikoff, Roger Zetter Series: Panels and Discussions The bordering processes unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the existing fault lines of our present-day societies and deepened the current fissures and dilemmas of global capitalist order, state sovereignty, and governance structures. On the basis of Calcutta Research Group’s book, Borders of an Epidemic: Covid-19 and Migrant Workers, edited by Prof. Ranabir Samaddar, which highlights the ethical and political implications of the pandemic, this round table addressed the changing landscape of visibility and invisibility of migrant workers, refugees as well as of national borders, which opens further questions about inequalities, public health, and politics of care. Read more
Covid-19 Pandemic and the Spectral Presence of Migrant Workers and Refugees Wed, 24.06.2020 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Ranabir SamaddarAlex Aleinikoff, Roger Zetter Series: Panels and Discussions The bordering processes unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the existing fault lines of our present-day societies and deepened the current fissures and dilemmas of global capitalist order, state sovereignty, and governance structures. On the basis of Calcutta Research Group’s book, Borders of an Epidemic: Covid-19 and Migrant Workers, edited by Prof. Ranabir Samaddar, which highlights the ethical and political implications of the pandemic, this round table addressed the changing landscape of visibility and invisibility of migrant workers, refugees as well as of national borders, which opens further questions about inequalities, public health, and politics of care. Read more
	The Architecture of Global Migration Politics	Thu, 28.03.2019	Panels and Discussions	Ayşe Çağlar Ruth Wodak	The Architecture of Global Migration Politics Thu, 28.03.2019 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Ruth Wodak Series: Panels and Discussions The new Global Compacts on Refugees and Migrants are important documents of the global politics of migration. They are also valuable documents to understand the way migration is politically and intellectually constructed as a research and policy issue. In their multi-stakeholder and market-inspired approach, these documents identify the role of migration/migrants in global economy prioritizing and according varying responsibilities on different groups of actors within the language of rights and humanitarian protection to secure sustainable “orderly and safe” migration. The concepts of responsibility and protection are central to the architecture of a global system of protection envisioned in these documents. They are giving shape to the 21st century notion of humanitarianism. The public debate aimed to put these compacts under scrutiny to explore their semantics, blind spots, as well as their political and social implications in dealing the complex reality of global migration. We ask “what are the terms, the sites, scales, and strategies of protection”; “what are the economic and political logics informing them”; and “how are the responsibilities of different groups defined and envisaged to be shared, and to what consequences”. Read more
The Architecture of Global Migration Politics Thu, 28.03.2019 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Ruth Wodak Series: Panels and Discussions The new Global Compacts on Refugees and Migrants are important documents of the global politics of migration. They are also valuable documents to understand the way migration is politically and intellectually constructed as a research and policy issue. In their multi-stakeholder and market-inspired approach, these documents identify the role of migration/migrants in global economy prioritizing and according varying responsibilities on different groups of actors within the language of rights and humanitarian protection to secure sustainable “orderly and safe” migration. The concepts of responsibility and protection are central to the architecture of a global system of protection envisioned in these documents. They are giving shape to the 21st century notion of humanitarianism. The public debate aimed to put these compacts under scrutiny to explore their semantics, blind spots, as well as their political and social implications in dealing the complex reality of global migration. We ask “what are the terms, the sites, scales, and strategies of protection”; “what are the economic and political logics informing them”; and “how are the responsibilities of different groups defined and envisaged to be shared, and to what consequences”. Read more