United for Human Rights and Global Equity
6-9 July 2027, Brussels and online
Organizers
Brussels Institute for Social and Population Studies (BRISPO) and Brussels Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Migration and Minorities (BIRMM) of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium
Human rights are grounded in the claim of universality: that all humans are inherently entitled to dignity, protection, justice and fundamental freedoms. Yet, both historically and in the present, the category of the ‘human’ has been unevenly constructed and selectively applied. While human rights frameworks have provided important legal, institutional, and political tools for advancing protection and justice, they have also emerged through historically uneven trajectories, often shaped by Eurocentric assumptions and limited engagement with colonial realities. Migrants and minorities – particularly those who are undocumented, racialised, displaced, or come from formerly colonised contexts – have frequently been excluded from full recognition within these frameworks. At the same time, contemporary attacks on rights protections in areas such as asylum, deportation, family reunification, and mobility governance raise pressing concerns about the erosion of established safeguards. Across the globe, migration is increasingly shaped by tightening border regimes, selective mobility policies, and the persistence of racialised and socio-economic hierarchies.
The 2027 IMISCOE Annual Conference, United for Human Rights and Global Equity, invites critical and interdisciplinary engagement with these tensions. The event seeks to examine how migration and racism intersect with broader structures of inequality, including colonial legacies, capitalism, and geopolitical asymmetries. Migration is not only about movement across borders; it is a key arena in which inclusion, exclusion, and belonging are negotiated and institutionalised. We encourage contributions that examine how legal, political, and social frameworks shape access to human rights for migrants and their descendants, as well as how migration and racial regimes undermine, redefine or contest these rights.