LIST OF PANELS

According to figures collected by the United Nations, globally the number of international migrants has grown over the course of the twenty-first century, standing at 244 million in 2015, an increase of 41% from 2000. Likewise, the numbers of forcibly displaced peoples and refugees has also grown over the course of the 2000s, and is higher now than at any time since the end of World War II. Because migration is such an increasingly important feature of all world regions and societies, there is a need for a global comparative perspective to assess the nature of national and regional policy responses and their consequences for migrants and refugees, for civil society organizations representing migrants’ and refugees’ interests, for sending and receiving societies, and for international norms pertaining to human rights and protection. The primary objective of the panel(s) associated with “Migration and Citizenship: Policies and Research in Global Comparative Perspective” is to challenge extant global inequalities in immigration research by enabling, showcasing and sustaining a unique dialogue involving the experiences of countries and regions of both the global North and the global South.

Since the end of the 1990s, immigration studies have developed into a considerable field of research in the social sciences. In North America, Australia and Western Europe, the result of this development has been research that often focuses “South-North” migrations and that is concerned with the impact of immigration on host societies in the Global North. Nowhere is this more the case than in political science and in the study of public policy. With notable exceptions, these disciplines rarely engage with work produced by scholars from immigrant-sending countries, or with work that explores the dynamics associated with immigration outside of the global North. Some scholars, in fact, have flagged how existing frameworks, methods, and theories do not account for the specificities of migration trends in the global South. That migration policy studies erroneously assume that most migration follows “a developing-to-developed migration path” or that the same “formalized rights regimes” that exist in the Global North are present in the global South highlights but a few examples of how ideas around migration policy studies are still based on frameworks taken in the global North (seee.g.: Nawyn 2016). As a result, important issues remain unaddressed by political science and policy studies when it comes to immigration. Far from exhaustively, these include: migration regimes of the global south, internal and regional migrations, the social impact of remittance and more, importantly, the consequences of the global North migration regimes on the political context in sending countries.  This workshop aims to challenge this silence by asking: i) What are the similar and divergent migration trends, patterns and challenges from a global cross-national perspective? ii) What are the dynamics and structural forces that support the organization and production of current immigration research in political science and policy studies? and iii) What could be the basis for a research agenda for immigration research in political science and policy studies that would consider the global South equally to the global North?

Authors are invited to submit empirical, methodological or theoretical papers on themes such as: the divergent responses to migration and refugee issues at the national, regional, and global levels; the relative impact of national, regional and international factors in shaping immigration-related policies and the politics of global migration management. Case studies and comparative analyses are equality welcome, but proposals should strive to engage with a discussion of causes and consequences of the current structuration of migration studies as a field of research or to identify novel methodologies and practices that can foster a more equal academic dialogue between the global South and the global North.

This panel is co-sponsored by RC 46 on “Migration and Citizenship” in the International Political Science Association, which seeks to better bridge experiences and insights and scholars from both the global North and South.  

In order to advance the goals of the panel and the goals of IPSA RC46, the panel organizers have secured funding to support the presentation of papers by scholars from countries of the global South.  Please therefore also indicate to the panel organizers whether you would like to be considered for this financial support at the time of submitting your abstract.

Works Cited: Nawyn, Stephanie. (2016) ‘New Directions for Research on Migration in the Global South,’ International Journal of Sociology 46 (3): 163-168.