IMISCOE CROSS-CLUSTER THEORY CONFERENCE Interethnic Relations: Multidisciplinary Approaches
Conference Website now live: http://imiscoecrosscluster.weebly.com/
May 13-15, 2009 Lisbon, Portugal
IMISCOE, the European Network of Excellence uniting 23 established European research institutes on International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion, is pleased to announce the three-days Cross-Cluster Theory Conference Interethnic Relations: Multidisciplinary Approaches, to be held in Lisbon, May 13-15, 2009.
AIM OF THE CONFERENCE
The conference aims to shed new conceptual and theoretical light on the perspective of interethnic relations in migration and integration research. The subject is approached in a broad way, bringing together scholars from different disciplines in the social and behavioural sciences and history, incorporating the gamut of interests pursued, and simultaneously providing focus by offering a format in which a variety of themes, perspectives and modalities of collaboration are articulated.
Theoretical and conceptual development on interethnic relations in the field of migration and integration is needed to better understand the complex interactive processes that lie at the basis of the incorporation of immigrants in societies of settlement. To be able to fully grasp the complexities of immigrant integration, we have to broaden our focus. We have to include the receiving societies and the native institutions, groups and actors that immigrants and their offspring encounter in their new societies in new ways, employing a systematic relational perspective. There is a need to develop taxonomies of the various kinds of connections. Work needs to be done on morphological analysis and generative approaches to social analysis and explanation. This conference highlights the ‘inter’ of interethnic relations as it means a step away from the dominating majority–minority approach to ‘ethnic relations’.
This conference is structured around three leading thoughts. Firstly, the study of interethnic relations needs to have an interdisciplinary orientation as it can and should be understood in a variety of domains of interaction and from a range of perspectives. The conference will encourage encounters between students of different disciplines, triggering a debate on classical disciplinary approaches between leading scholars in the social and behavioural sciences. In this way we mean to find out how these classical approaches can be extended and adapted to arrive at theoretical perspectives that better account for the complexity and fluidity of the interaction in which natives and immigrants and their institutions engage. This interaction we perceive to take place on different levels, in actual interpersonal contact but also in the sphere of the creation of collective mutual representations.
Secondly, an interdisciplinary inquiry into new theoretical directions should be accompanied by an exploration of the range of methods most appropriate to research the topic. The required change of perspective in migration and integration studies away from the categorisation of (groups of) people mostly of immigrant or minority background towards a focus on relationships between people of different background brings into view the necessity to understand the historical evolvement of patterns of behavioural and attitudinal interaction between all the groups in a society, including groups that can be called indigenous. This demands specialized methodologies, or a combination of methods, qualitative, quantitative, comparative and, first and foremost, longitudinal.
Thirdly, the progress in the methodological and theoretical domains should lead to outcomes of research opening up convincing new perspectives for European migration and integration policy. Research pertaining to the crucial policy field of combating discrimination and racism has in large part been more concerned with the consequences of discrimination and with attempts to expose discriminators rather than with the aim of analysing the societal causes of discrimination and racism. The conference wishes to facilitate and promote the delineation of a programme in which the manifestations of discrimination and racism are identified, and categorized according to the societal levels and domains in which they occur and their presupposed societal causes. In this regard, the conference will highlight the structural obstacles often faced by immigrants and the opportunities denied to them nation-states on account of economic, legal or bureaucratic requirements immigrants can rarely meet. Likewise, the treatment given by the media to immigration-related issues or the opinions expressed by political representatives should not be underestimated either.
CONFERENCE STRUCTURE
To attain this aim, the three-day conference offers different modalities of communication and collaboration. There are plenary keynote lectures, sub-plenary discussion panels, a regular workshop circuit with presentations of papers and panel sessions and three assignment-based intensive discussion workshops that will each tackle a dominant issue pertaining to one of the leading thoughts of the conference. These modalities have different aims, and imply a different 'weight' of the participating scholars. However, and most importantly, we have secured optimal communication and exchange between participants and deliverers in the different working modalities, especially between participants of the assignment-based workshops (senior scholars who lead their field) and those of the regular paper-based sessions. In this way excess value of the proposed design for all participants of the conference is guaranteed, especially for the younger generation of scholars, who will be stimulated to present their work-in-progress, often PhD research, in the sessions based on the call for papers. In these sessions, keynote speakers and other invited scholars will act as a discussant.
FINANCES
Our financial means allow for the funding of the participation of 60 IMISCOE members in the regular workshop and panel programme. If your proposal is accepted, your travel and hotel costs will be reimbursed. Lunch and dinners are included in the conference programme.
CONTACT
Conference Secretariat, Centro de Estudos Geográficos
Faculdade de Letras, Alameda da Universidade
1600-214 Lisboa
Tel: (+351) 217940218; Fax. (+351) 217938690
E-mail : marta.rosales@fcsh.unl.pt;sandra.silva@ceg.ul.pt
PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME
Wednesday, May 13 2009
9:00-9:15 |
Opening of conference (plenary) |
9:15-10:00 |
Keynote lecture 1 (plenary session) |
10:00-10:15 |
Coffee |
10.15-13:00 |
Morning parallel workshop and panel sessions 1st day sessions assigned workshops (A, B & C parallel) |
13:00-14:15 |
Lunch |
14:15-15:30 |
Afternoon parallel workshop and panel sessions (1st part) |
15:30-15:45 |
Tea |
15:45-17:00 |
Afternoon parallel workshop and panel sessions (continuation) |
19:30 |
Dinner |
Thursday, May 14 2009
9:15-10:00 |
Keynote lecture 2 (plenary session) |
10:00-10:15 |
Coffee |
10.15-13:00 |
Morning parallel workshop and panel sessions 2nd day sessions assigned workshops (A, B & C parallel) |
13:00-14:15 |
Lunch |
14:15-15:30 |
Afternoon parallel workshop and panel sessions (1st part) |
15:30-15:45 |
Tea |
15:45-17:00 |
Afternoon parallel workshop and panel sessions (continuation) |
19:30 |
Dinner |
Friday, May 15 2009
9:15-10:00 |
Keynote lecture 3 (plenary session) |
10:00-10:15 |
Coffee |
10.15-13:00 |
Long parallel workshop sessions (1st part) 3rd day sessions assigned workshops (A, B & C parallel) |
13:00-14:15 |
Lunch |
14:15-15:30 |
Long parallel workshop session(continuation) 3rd day sessions assigned workshops (A, B & C parallel) |
15:30-15:45 |
Tea |
15:45-17:45 |
Three sub-plenary parallel sessions Panel discussions on outcomes assigned workshops |
17:45-18:00 |
Closing of conference (plenary) |
On Wednesday and Thursday, assigned workshops start after keynote lecture and last until lunch. In the afternoon, invited participants for the assigned workshops will join regular workshops as discussant.
On Friday, the assigned workshops continue after lunch to prepare for the concluding sub-plenary panel discussions later in the afternoon.
On Wednesday and Thursday, separate parallel regular workshops and panels will start and conclude in the morning and in the afternoon.
On Friday, longer parallel regular workshops will start in the morning and be concluded in the first part of the afternoon.
