Workshop Chair: Elspeth Guild, Radboud University, Nijmegen NL
Location: Wilder
Time: 8 AM - 5 PM, Feb. 14, 2009
Workshop Summary:
Movement of persons across borders for the purpose of working or seeking employment has become a matter which states around the world increasingly consider that they should control. The extent and purpose of state control varies from state to state and continent to continent. Against this rapidly changing background, the proposed workshop plans to launch a long-term reassessment of the interaction between states regarding labour migration and the shifting paradigms of control regarding movement of persons. Despite an impressive body of literature on the issue of labour migration, there seems to be little efforts in developing a general framework that catches the labour migration experiences of more than one geographic region. Most literature focuses on how migration is controlled on a national basis, with some exceptions for the European Union and its emerging migration policy. Therefore, one of our objectives is to open a discussion on what are the “global politics of labour migration.” The questions that the workshop will address include the type of control paradigms that can be identified as far as labour migration is concerned, what is the interaction between connected yet asymmetrical control mechanisms or regimes and what is the position of the individual migrant in the various migration-control scenarios that states develop. For the purpose of this workshop, states have been divided in three different categories based on underlying assumptions about the intensity of the control exercised. These categories are (a) states with high control claims, (b) states with ambivalent control claims and (c) regimes with weak control claims. However, this theoretical approach should not be seen as static. Another aim of this workshop is to identify the changing landscape of migration control and therefore point out emerging control patterns as well as the dynamics or correlations that could be made between current paradigms. By analyzing control patterns on five continents we want to develop a normative framework that would help us understand better the impact of state policies on migration control. The workshop builds on previous research in the field of labour migration and the securitization of migration policies thus, bringing together various approaches to migration. By using a multidisciplinary approach we hope to provide a reflexive, multifaceted and global understanding of the dynamics affecting the relationship between the individual migrant and the control of migration performed by various states across the world. The final outcome of the workshop is expected to be series of scholarly articles and a book dealing with various aspects of migration control and the impact that this phenomenon has on the actors involved. Such a volume containing contributions from legal and international relations scholars, geographers and political scientists will create new ties with transnational networks of stakeholders and propose refreshing optics on labour migration. We have been in contact with Asghate about the possibility of publishing such a book with them and their response has been positive.
Workshop Participants:
- Martin Heisler, University of Maryland
- James Hollifield, Southern Methodist University
- Midori Okabe, Sophia University Tokyo
- James Jupp Director, Australian National University
- Christina Gabriel, Carleton University
- Elspeth Guild, Radboud University
- Anna Kocharov, University Finland
- Blanca Garces Mascarenas, University of Amsterdam
- Lilia Ormonbekova, European Union
- Mederic Martin Maze, Science Po
- Monica Serrano, College of Mexico
- Kamal Sadiq, University of California Irvine
- Prem Rajaram, Central European university
- Didier Bigo, Science Po
- Sandra Mantu, Radboud University
- Anais Faure Atger, CEPS Brussels
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