The following panel proposal for the 2027 IMISCOE Annual Conference, 6–9 July 2027, in Brussels, is organised by Marta Moskaland Barış Yüksel:
The promise of universal human rights sits uneasily alongside the racialised conditions through which belonging, recognition and participation are experienced in contemporary migrant societies. Across Europe, debates on migration and integration increasingly unfold in contexts marked by the racialisation of social difference, renewed anti-immigration sentiments and changing understandings of belonging. Yet racialisation is not confined to migration policy or public discourse: it is also produced and negotiated in universities, schools, workplaces and everyday encounters. This panel brings together research on racialised adolescents and young adults, international students, and teachers with migrant backgrounds to examine how racialisation shapes experiences of belonging, participation and recognition across different institutional and national contexts.
Bringing together research from sites to be specified the panel moves beyond approaches that locate racialisation primarily within migrant populations. Instead, the contributions examine how racialised boundaries are produced through political discourse, institutional practices and everyday encounters, as well as how racialised subjects navigate and contest these boundaries.
Together, the papers demonstrate how racialisation operates across different stages and domains of migrant incorporation, while foregrounding the agency and strategies through which racialised subjects negotiate and challenge unequal recognition. The panel contributes to debates on human rights and global equity by asking under what conditions universal rights become differentiated in practice, who is recognised as belonging and how racialised inequalities can be contested.
✉️ Please submit your 250-word abstract to Marta Moskal, University of Glasgow,
🗓️ Deadline: 10 October 2026
