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

[Angela Jancius]

6th MESEA Conference, June 25-28, 2008
welcome dinner on evening of June 24

Leiden University, The Netherlands

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

Call for Papers

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 extralegal
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 by November 15, 2007 to MESEA's Program Director:
Yiorgos Kalogeras, Department of English, Aristotle University, 54124
Thessaloniki, Greece. Email: 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

Notification of acceptance will be given in January 2008.

Johanna (Joke) Kardux, our conference organizer at Universiteit Leiden,
The Netherlands, has finalized an impressive interdisciplinary roster of
keynote speakers for this sixth MESEA conference:

* William Boelhower, Louisiana State U (http://english.lsu.edu/dept)
* Han Entzinger, University of Rotterdam
(http://www2.fmg.uva.nl/assr/scholars/staff/HanEntzinger.html)
* Lubaina Himid, University of Central Lancashire and visual
artist (http://www.uclan.ac.uk/facs/class/finearts/artist/lhimid.html)
* Matthew Jacobson, Yale University
(http://www.yale.edu/history/faculty/jacobson.html)
* Saskia Sassen, Columbia University and London School of Economics
(http://www.columbia.edu/cu/globalthought/people/FacultyMembers/SaskiaSas
sen/index.html)

As soon as the abstract acceptances have been sent out, we will give you
information on registering for the conference (registration form; tips
for travel and accommodations). By the way, Leiden is considered to be
one of the most attractive towns in Europe!

We hope to see many of you there-
CW, for the MESEA Executive and Advisory Boards