This call for papers is part of the project “Living Integration Laws - Immigrant Care Workers between Social Biographies and Legal Careers”, aimed at the study of female migrations towards care work. It is an interdisciplinary project involving members of the departments of Sociology, Law, Humanities and Cognitive Sciences of the University of Trento. Working on a sample of 250 adult women of foreign nationality the project will map interviewees’ migratory paths and life stories. In addition, the project will examine the psychological and cognitive aspects of the migratory experience.
The human dimension of migrants’ stories represents, in fact, one of the main sources of inspiration for this project. Young scholars of immigration studies - PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and researchers in the fields of law, sociology and the humanities - are invited to discuss the results of their researches with experts in the field, at a workshop that will be held in Trento.
The workshop will revolve around two underlying themes: migration as "flight" and migration as "journey".
These two themes should be understood, not only in a physical sense, considering migrants’ departure from their country of origin and the legal obstacles they encounter along the way, but also in a metaphorical sense, looking at changes that occur in migrants’ life paths, in both the host country and country of origin.
The theme of "flight" includes, first of all, the cases in which migrants’ departure from their home country is forced, mainly as a consequence of war, environmental disasters, or human rights violations. In addition, the notion of flight may also be understood as “escape from illegality”, thus taking into consideration the various cases in which migrants’ seek freedom from illegal conditions taking place in the host country, for instance through regularization processes, or escaping from human trafficking or human exploitation. In a third sense, the notion of flight refers to cases of escape from the host country’s legal system, taking place when migrants perceive the State’s legal system as inadequate and seek protection for their interests through other networks that grow in the shadow of the state law. (e.g. for financial or family reasons).
The theme of "journey", instead, refers to situations in which migrants freely choose to move from one country to another. In this case, the object of the workshop’s investigation is the very nature of the journey itself. From one point of view, the journey may be considered as an “outbound journey”, analysing, not only, the migrants’ move towards the host country, but also his subsequent integration process in the institutional and cultural fabric of that country. From another point of view, the theme of journey may be considered as “return journey” , as it occurs when, according to a transnational perspective, migrants maintain on-going relationships with their countries of origin. In a third sense, then, the migrant’s journey from his home country to the host country may be considered as a mere step within much broader and complex migratory experience, in which migrants move more than once from one country to another (e.g. forced and economic migrants moving within Europe), or definitively return to their country of origin (e.g. forced return following expulsion procedures, or voluntary return after the end of a work contract).
Applicants are invited to submit their proposal (maximum 500 words, in English or Italian), specifying which of the two workshop themes they are referring to, by March 25, 2016
Proposals are expected to be sent to: davide.strazzari [at] unitn.it (subject: Flight%2C%20Journey%20and%20Territories.%20Analysing%20the%20life%20paths%20of%20migrants%20-%20Call%20for%20papers%202016)
Acceptance notification will be on May 1, 2016. Authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to submit full papers by June 30, 2016 in Italian or in English.
Full papers will be presented at a workshop September 16, 2016. Full papers will be peer-reviewed and published electronically, in open access, with ISBN.
The scientific committee will identify the three most worthy papers. The authors of these papers will be refunded the costs of travel and accommodation.
Scientific committee
Prof. Giuseppe Nesi (University of Trento, Faculty of Law)
Prof. Giuseppe Sciortino (University of Trento, Department of Sociology and Social Research)
Prof. Claudio Giunta (University of Trento, Department of Humanities)
Dr. Martina Cvajner (Univ. di Trento, D.to di Psicologia e Scienze cognitive)
Organising Committee
Dr. Davide Strazzari (davide.strazzari [at] unitn.it)
Dr. Alessandra Macillo (alessandra.macillo [at] unitn.it)
Dr. Veronica Manca (veronica.manca [at] unitn.it)
Dr. Stefania Yapo (stefania.yapo [at] unitn.it)