[URBANTH-L]CFP: Migration Matters: Immigration, Homelands, and Border Crossings in Europe and the Americas

[Angela Jancius]

6th MESEA Conference

June 25-28,  2008
Leiden University
The Netherlands

Call for Papers
The Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies:
Europe and the Americas

6th MESEA Conference

MIGRATION MATTERS: IMMIGRATION, HOMELANDS, AND BORDER CROSSINGS IN
EUROPE AND THE AMERICAS


Largely driven by economics,  migration today is a global and  
globalizing phenomenon that renders , national borders obsolete and  
calls into question the viability of nation states and national  
identities. Yet , precisely because it undermines national  
structures,  migration also has contributed to the reinvention of ,  
the historically highly problematic concept of "homelands" and the  
reconstruction of increasingly , impenetrable borders. It is,   
moreover,  in local situations and contexts that the impact of global  
migration is , experienced,  debated,  and contested most directly  
and urgently. This conference,  then,  aims to focus on , the ways in  
which migration matters locally as well as transnationally and  
globally,  in the realms of , politics and culture,  history and  
sociology,  economics and law,  language,  literature and the arts in  
Europe , and the Americas. The following list of topics is meant to  
be suggestive rather than restrictive:

* Migration and the reinvention of (national and transnational, real  
and imaginary) "homelands" and/or , the reconstruction of  
(external and internal, national, ethnic and racial, cultural and  
mental, political and
economic) borders
* Global migrations and fluid geographies in terms of physical  
mappings and shifting , populations
* Migration and national/ethnic/cultural/aesthetic border crossings
* Migration and , modernization
* Immigration debates in various national contexts
* Images of the host countries in , countries/continents of  
migratory origin
* Immigration restrictions and human rights; legal and extra- ,  
legal status of immigrants
* Circulation and impact of migrant peoples and cultures in specific  
rural and , urban spaces; cultural diversity in local societies
* New immigrant literatures as world and/or national , literature;  
representation in and impact on regional cultures,  literatures,   
media,  and arts
* Macrosociological analyses of migration and globalization  
processes; rethinking the sociology of literature ,
* Cultural production (literature, film, visual art, performance,  
music, blog-culture, web-art) by or about , migrants
* Migration and the reinvention of religious identities
* Emerging identities/identity , fashioning; ethnic refashioning:  
conflict and/or reconciliation
* Historical case studies of migrancy and , diaspora; evolving  
diaspora cultures
* Migration and gender
* Migration and race/racialization
* Forced migration and historical/contemporary slavery or bonded  
labor
* Migration and linguistic , diversity
* Immigration and educational reformation(s)

Please submit three hard copies of a 300-word abstract (including a  
maximum of five keywords) or full , panel proposals (including a  
description of the panel, chair, respondents, and individual  
abstracts) as well , as an electronic copy to MESEA's Program  
Director,  Yiorgos Kalogeras,  Department of English,  Aristotle ,  
University,  54124 Thessaloniki,  Greece by November 15,  2007:  
(kalogera at enl.auth.gr).

Inter/transnational and inter/transdisciplinary proposals and panels  
will be given preference.

Note that MESEA will award two Young Scholars Excellence Awards.

For more information: http://www.mesea.org ,