CALL FOR PAPERS, 19TH IMISCOE ANNUAL CONFERENCE June 29 – July 1, 2022, Oslo, Norway (Hybrid)
Panel: Crises of migration governance at the external borders of the European Union
Conveners:
Agnieszka Radziwinowiczówna and Karolina Łukasiewicz
University of Warsaw (Poland)
Call for papers
Recent developments at Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian borders with Belarus have demonstrated that crises in the governance of forced migration are now a shared experience of most of the EU member states which share the external border. The death toll of these crises increases, often unaccounted for, as the deaths happen in the Mediterranean Sea or in the primordial Polish forest, under the state of emergency that prohibits the presence of media and activists. As necropolitics has become a well-established element of migration governance at the external EU border, it is urgent to exchange the experience of researchers and activists working on diverse parts of the Schengen border.
The aim of this panel is to analyse the symbolic and material tools used by state and non-state actors in migration governance at the external borders of the European Union (EU). The situation in the EU countries sharing the borders with Belarus has demonstrated that the challenges of governing forced migrations are intrinsic not only for the Southern EU border but rather that irregular migration may spontaneously happen from the East to the West, as well as South to the North of the EU. This panel gathers contributions from researchers and activists working on diverse parts of the Schengen border and studying the human consequences of the EU border governance. The papers in this panel analyse migration governance tools used in the response to forced migrations by the supra-national actors (EU, international organisations), state actors (governments, local administration), as well as non-governmental organisations and informal groups. These migration governance tools aim at – often violent – prevention of border crossing through migrants’ deterrence (De León 2015). The papers in this panel analyse the actions undertaken at the borders (e.g. pushbacks), legal actions (e.g. attempts to legalise pushbacks), the use of geographic conditions and climate to deter migrants (the sea, the mountain, the woods and extreme temperatures) and public discourse, often dehumanising forced migrants. The crisis of migration governance on the Schengen borders in recent years have come down to necropolitics (Mbembe, 2019), demonstrating the EU’s irreverence to the lives of non-EU citizens.
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Abstract submissions
We welcome abstracts of up to 250 words by 1st of December 2021 at the latest. Please include title, authors’ names, emails and institutional affiliations. All proposals must be sent to both Agnieszka Radziwinowiczówna (a.radziwinowicz@uw.edu.pl) and Karolina Łukasiewicz (k.lukasiewic@uw.edu.pl).