Narrating the Migrant Self
Mettre en récit la migration de soi et des siens
Published on Tuesday, May 05, 2026
Abstract
The workshop aims to launch a collective, multidisciplinary reflection on the status, forms, and evolutions of self-narratives of migration. The primary object will be contemporary or retrospective accounts of one’s own migration or that of one’s family, by those who themselves investigate migration. Who writes such accounts, for whom, when, under what conditions ? How do professional status, gender, class, and origin affect this reflexive discourse ? Are all migrations worth telling ?
Announcement
Presentation
Entitled “Narrating the Migrant Self”, this workshop will be held on June 1, 2026 at the Centre des colloques of the Campus Condorcet, near Paris, France. It’s an in-person only event.
The workshop aims to launch a collective, multidisciplinary reflection on the status, forms, and evolutions of self-narratives of migration. The primary object will be contemporary or retrospective accounts of one’s own migration or that of one’s family, by those who themselves investigate migration. Who writes such accounts, for whom, when, under what conditions ? How do professional status, gender, class, and origin affect this reflexive discourse (Piola, Muñoz García, 2025) ? Are all migrations worth telling ? What is the epistemological regime of these narratives, their effects on knowledge, concealment, and mystification ? How have these discourses and the conditions of their production evolved historically, and why ? The personal or family migration narratives of researchers in migration studies, once overlooked, are now often highlighted (Gemignani et al., 2024 ; Gerson, 2025), even if this paradoxical exhibition of the intimate elicits some reluctance in return (Traverso, 2020). One issue is whether these reflexive productions about migration are somehow different from other autobiographical elements disclosed by researchers (see Popkin, 2005 ; Aurell, 2016 ; Lacoue-Labarthe, 2024). In addition, these writings about the self should be compared with literary and artistic works that deal with the migrant and/or foreign roots of their authors. As they blur the fiction/non-fiction boundaries, such artistic narratives yield important clues about the moral and cultural expectations crystallized in the migrant self. To grasp their specific differences and biases, all of these migration narratives must also be compared with discourses of the self formulated by working-class migrants, who do not have access to the same means of production and dissemination. This workshop will bring together historians, sociologists, psychologists, and artists.
Here is the workshop’s program (for more info on speakers, see attached document) :
Program
Monday 1st June
9 :00-9 :20. Arrival of participants.
9 :20 Introduction : Romy Sánchez et Fabrice Langrognet.
9 :30-11 :00 Historians’ memory of migration
- Discussant : Delphine Diaz.
- Speakers : Ada Ferrer, Mike Bustamante, Stéphane Gerson.
11 :00-11 :30 Coffee break.
11 :30-13 :00 How specific are autobiographic accounts by historians ?
- Discussant : Camille Lefebvre.
- Speakers : Jaume Aurell, Isabelle Lacoue-Labarthe, Stefan Le Courant.
13 :00-14 :30 Lunch break.
14 :30-16 :00 When scholars have to contend with their own exile
- Discussant : Anna Perraudin.
- Speakers : Marie-Rose Moro, Elsie Cohen, Michela Passini.
16 :00-16 :30 Pause café. Coffee break.
16 :30-18 :00 Tell the migration of one’s own family through literature and film
- Discussants : Romy Sánchez, Fabrice Langrognet.
- Speakers : Doan Bui, Jorge Vaz Gomes.
Subjects
- History (Main category)
- Mind and language > Psyche > Psychology
- Mind and language > Language > Literature
- Mind and language > Representation > History of art
- Mind and language > Epistemology and methodology > Biographical approaches
- Periods > Modern > Twentieth century
- Mind and language > Epistemology and methodology > Historiography
- Mind and language > Epistemology and methodology > Corpus approaches, surveys, archives
Places
- Centre des colloques, salle 100 - Place du Front populaire
Aubervilliers, France (93300)
Event attendance modalities
Full on-site event
Date(s)
- Monday, June 01, 2026
Attached files
Keywords
- migration, réflexivité, récits, biographie, généalogie
Contact(s)
- Fabrice Langrognet
courriel : fabrice [dot] langrognet [at] cnrs [dot] fr
Information source
- Fabrice Langrognet
courriel : fabrice [dot] langrognet [at] cnrs [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Narrating the Migrant Self », Study days, Calenda, Published on Tuesday, May 05, 2026, https://doi.org/10.58079/166ek
