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Migration and Border Studies Conference: Prospects and Possibilities within and beyond Academia

When: Thursday, May 29, 2025 - Friday, May 30, 2025, 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM
Where: Room 2.26, Geography Building, Queen Mary University of London, 327 Mile End Road London E1 4NS

Queen Mary’s interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Migration and the (B)OrderS Centre for the Study of Borders, Mobility and Displacement are co-hosting a two-day conference exploring prospects and possibilities for migration and border studies.

We aim to critically examine epistemological imbalances regarding who produces knowledge and whose knowledge counts, amid rapidly evolving political dynamics, legal frameworks and changing praxis worldwide. We engage diverse perspectives, including from academics, activists, policy makers, and migrants themselves.

Programme

Thursday 29 May 2025

9AM - Registration and morning coffee.

10AM - Welcome by organisers.

10:15AM - Keynote address by Professor Audrey Macklin (University of Toronto)

  • Chair: Violeta Moreno-Lax (ICREA-Barcelona & (B)OrderS Centre, Queen Mary).

11:45AM - Panel 1: Politics of knowledge production

  • Chair: Ellen Allde ((B)OrderS Centre, Queen Mary).
  • Jonathan Slagter ((B)OrderS Centre, Queen Mary): ‘Procedures of Law and the Production of Knowledge about Human Mobility – A Rule-of-Law Critique’.
  • Janina Pescinski (Durham University): ‘Lampedusa Again: Addressing the Problem of Over-Research in Migration Studies’.
  • Yael Gordon (LSE): ‘Experiences of British Hosts: Reflections on the Hospitality Practices for Ukrainian Refugees’.
  • Gianmaria Lenti (La Trobe University) & Bernardo López Marín (Durham University): ‘Navigating the Coloniality of Transit: On Migrant (Im)mobilities across Mexico, Morocco, and Turkey’.

1PM - Lunch break.

2PM - Panel 2: Embodied knowledge(s)

  • Chair: Claire Marshall (University of East London).
  • Giorgia Donà (University of East London) & Marie Godin (University of Leicester & University of Oxford): ‘Embodied and Visual Encounters with the Border’.
  • Palwasha Amanullah (Sheffield University): ‘Between Conflicts, Undocumented Identities & Precarious Temporalities: Framing the Bordering Practices in Quetta’.
  • Nam Huh (Loughborough University): ‘Documenting the In-Between: Post-Internet Documentary and ESEA Migrant Presentation in Media Productions’.
  • Debora Minà (Queen Mary): ‘Collaborative Theatre Making as Opportunity to Explore, Name, and Redefine Narratives of Displacement – the Luna Project’.

3:15PM - Coffee break

3:45PM - Panel 3: Bridging knowledges: Transdisciplinary insights

  • Chair: Malak Benslama-Dabdoub (Royal Holloway University of London).
  • Maja Grundler (Northumbria University): ‘Bringing Legal Academic Work on Migration to Legal Practitioners: The Need for “Translational Research”’.
  • Perfect Mazani & Mulugeta Dinbabo (University of the Western Cape): ‘Cross-Border Solidarity: Migrant-Led Associations as Spaces of Epistemic Resistance and Food Security Innovation in South Africa’.
  • Patricia Gorisch (Santa Cecilia University): ‘Between Trauma and Memory: Transgenerational Epigenetics and the Co-production of Knowledge in Refugee Experiences’.
  • Merna Nasralla ((B)OrderS Centre, Queen Mary): Bridging the Gap: Co-Producing Knowledge on EU-Linked Violations Against Migrants in Libya with Activists and Those with Lived Experience of Displacement’.

5-7PM - Drinks reception.

Friday 30 May 2025

9AM - Morning coffee

9:30AM - Keynote address by Professor Jonathan Crush (Wilfrid Laurier University)

  • Topic: ‘The Mythology of Mixed Migration and the Southern Route in Africa’.
  • Chair: Rachel Humphries (Centre for the Study of Migration, Queen Mary).

10:30AM - Coffee break

11AM - Panel 4: Diverse epistemologies / knowledge from the bottom-up

  • Chair: Madeleine Berry (Queen Mary).
  • Moira Dustin (University of Sussex): ‘Feminist Theory: Tools for Knowledge Exchange and Research With and For Refugee Women’.
  • Marco Perolini (LSE): ‘Border Abolitionism and the Production of Knowledge from Below: Reflections and Way Forward’.
  • Nicolette Busuttil (SOAS) & Sophie Cartwright (Oxford University): ‘Disability and Displacement: Challenging the Hostile Environment through Transformative Solidarity’.
  • Hannah Owens (University of Hertfordshire): ‘The Unplanned, Abstract, Incomplete and Unexplained: Migrant Storytelling as Knowledge Production’.

12:15PM - Lunch break.

1:15PM - Panel 5: Disrupting and resisting received knowledges

  • Chair: Rachel Tribe (University of East London).
  • Jelena Tosic (University of St Gällen): ‘Moving, Not to Move: Anti-authoritarianism, Reclaiming Society, Disrupting the Migrant-by-default Image in Shifting Europe(s)’.
  • Priscilla Okoye (Lewisham Refugee Migrant Network): ‘The Impact of Migration as a Status Symbol on Migrants’ Mental Health: A Critical Psychological Inquiry’.
  • Elaine Chase (UCL) & Iris Lim (SOAS): CoMOOC - Co-designed Massive Open Online Collaboration

2:30PM - Coffee break

3PM - Panel 6: Imaginaries / futures / trajectories

  • Chair: Shenghao Hu chair (Queen Mary).
  • Mariana Duarte (University of Edinburgh): ‘A Camera in the Water: Reframing the Migrant Image in Documentary Film’.
  • Eunice Annan-Aggrey (Balsillie School of International Affairs, Waterloo): ‘Redefining Diaspora Transfers as Climate Change Investment’.
  • Enes Ateş & Mehmet İhsan Özdemir (Mardin Artuklu University): ‘(Rethinking) Voluntary Return beyond Safety: Aspirational Mobilities across the Syria–Türkiye Border’.
  • Lilian Bankiyan-Monfard (SOAS): ‘How can Disability as a Lens Enhance our Understanding of Borders and Forced Migration?’

4:15PM - Closing by organisers.

4:30PM - End of conference.

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