LIST OF PANELS

The urban scale is increasingly a focal point of policy intervention to respond to the needs of precarious migrants and refugees. In one sense, this is the case as the needs of precarious migrants (i.e., housing, food security, employment, community safety, etc.) are most directly addressed by municipal-level services (Homberger et al., 2022). In addition, cities are acting as safe havens for migrants and refugees in situations where the national context is xenophobic and restrictive towards migration (Kreichauf & Mayer, 2021). Municipal affirmations of the rights of migrants and refugees are seen in the sanctuary city policies across North America (Faret & Sanders, 2021), the urban solidarity initiatives in Europe (Özdemir, 2022), and similar programs in Africa, Asia and Latin America (Godoy & Bauder, 2021; Kassa, 2019; Missbach et al., 2018). 

Despite the proliferation of policies and practices of solidarity to support migrants and refugees at the urban scale, various scholars have identified that policy interventions on this issue are disconnected, highly context specific and would benefit from more comparative policy analysis across regional contexts (Bauder, 2022). Further, literature in migration governance and urban governance (Landau & Kihato, 2020; Triandafyllidou, 2022) has emphasized the importance of de-centring these fields through more comparative research, especially from outside of Global North. 

The goal of this panel is to bring together scholars studying municipal policy concerning precarious migrants and refugees from diverse regions in order to foster a dialogue across these contexts to address the policy challenges and potential solutions for best practices at the municipal level. The panel aims to address the following questions: What are the various municipal policies to support the precarious migrants and refugees in different local contexts? How are various actors (e.g., municipal policy actors, non-governmental organizations, migrant communities, activist and solidarity movements, and transnational advocacy networks) involved in the shaping of policies at the municipal level? How can the urban and local policies in different regions inform each other in terms of theorizing urban sanctuary and solidarity and local policy development?   

References

Bauder, H. (2022). From Sovereignty to Solidarity: Rethinking Human Migration (1st ed.). Routledge.

Faret, L., & Sanders, H. (Eds.). (2021). Migrant Protection and the City in the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan.

Godoy, M., & Bauder, H. (2021). Ciudades Santuario Y Solidarias En América Latina: Una Revisión De Literatura. Migracion y Desarrollo, 19(36), 89–113.

Homberger, A., Kirchhoff, M., Mallet, M.-L., Atac,  llker, Gunter, S., & Spencer, S. (2022). Local Responses to Migrants with Precarious Status Frames, Strategies and Evolving Practices in Europe (Working Paper no. 157). Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS). 

Kassa, D. G. (2019). Refugee Spaces and Urban Citizenship in Nairobi: Africa’s Sanctuary City (Vol. 32). Lexington Books. 

Kreichauf, R., & Mayer, M. (2021). Negotiating Urban Solidarities: Multiple Agencies and Contested Meanings in the Making of Solidarity Cities. Urban Geography, 42(7), 979–1002. 

Landau, L. B., & Kihato, C. W. (2020). The Informalisation of Migration Governance Across Africa’s Urban Archipelagos. In Routledge Handbook of Migration and Development (1st ed., pp. 157–167). Routledge. 

Missbach, A., Adiputera, Y., & Prabandari, A. (2018). Is Makassar a ‘Sanctuary City’? Migration Governance in Indonesia After the ‘Local Turn.’ Advances in Southeast Asian Studies, 11(2), Article 2. 

Özdemir, G. Ş. (2022). Urban solidarity typology: A comparison of European cities since the crisis of refuge in 2015. Cities, 103976.

Triandafyllidou, A. (2022). Decentering the Study of Migration Governance: A Radical View. Geopolitics, 27(3), 811–825.

This panel will explore themes related to the policies and practices of accommodating precarious migrants and refugees in major urban centres. Participants are invited to submit papers on topics related to: municipal immigration policy; urban policy and settlement work; refugee resettlement; local policies of integration; and the politics of local migration governance. Papers must engage with policy at the urban or municipal scale. 

The principal objective of this panel is to advance theoretical knowledge and practical policy understanding related to urban sanctuary, solidarity, and hospitality towards precarious migrants and refugees in the Global North and South. Additionally, it seeks to facilitate a scholarly dialogue across regions to promote innovative approaches to migrant and refugee settlement, integration, and participation. 

The panel therefore welcomes empirical, methodological, and theoretical submissions which address this objective and engage with this discussion through a case study or comparative policy lens. Ultimately, this panel offers a forum to critically evaluate existing municipal immigration policies and to develop novel community-based policy frameworks to facilitate innovative and evidence-based policy for accommodating precarious migrants and refugees at local and municipal levels.

The panel will allow for both in-person and online presentations to facilitate the participation of scholars from diverse regions. Panel chairs will be physically present.