Aim of the Conference

This conference will focus on the most up-to-date research on migration and urban social spaces in the 21st century. By stressing the dynamic, processual and contingent character of modern migration, we will challenge the dominant discourse which sees migration as a linear,
one-dimensional and definitive act. Our aim will be to link the city - understood as a fluid social space of meaning and capital production - to the analysis of today’s age of migrations.

This conference in Krakow, which has its own complex urban and migrant history, will bring together social scientists to generate new ideas and understandings about the relationship between migration and the city.

Keynote Speakers

Prof John Eade (CRONEM, University of Surrey / Roehampton University, UK)
Prof Zdzislaw Mach (Jagiellonian University, Poland)
Prof Michael Peter-Smith (University of California, Davis, USA)
Dr Alison Stennings (University of Newcastle, UK)

Paper Proposals

We welcome papers from the range of disciplines across the social sciences.

Deadline for abstracts (200 words): July 14th 2006

Please send your abstract to Michal Garapich M.Garapich@surrey.ac.uk

Background to the conference

These are challenging times for research on migration, identity and the construction of social and cultural difference. All sections of social sciences are increasingly focusing on migration because of the widening flows of people, information and capital across national borders.

Anthropology has come relatively late to this field, despite its traditional focus on migrants, traders, nomads and travelers. Its concentration on social integration, community and bounded, ‘authentic’ cultural units has prevented it until recently, from moving far beyond the paradigmatic perception of the ‘village’ or small scale community and to follow its subjects of study along their modern, highly complex migratory trajectories.

Today, transnational, multi-sited ethnographic research has become more widespread. In today’s mobile world we have seen the emergence of global ‘super-diverse’ cities which are vital meeting points for the flows of people, capital and information. The city has become a pivotal location where social and cultural differences are constituted, negotiated, and relationally produced.

Since new patterns of migration are more fluid, contingent, individualized and marked by social indeterminancy, they challenge analyses of migration which rely on political economy or neo-classical economics. New forms of identities, new ethnicities, migration cultures, diasporas and new class perceptions are rapidly changing our social worlds and the city is the frontline of that process. While accepting the still vital role of the nation state, the conference will keep its feet on the ground by looking at how local social actors build their transnational networks and understand their urban social worlds.