Migrinter research lab at the University of Poitiers, in cooperation with the Integrim program – Marie Curie Actions, and Mobglob, invite scholars working on international migrations and local governance in the Global North and the Global South to share their on-going research works. This call addresses scholars as well as early-stage researchers and Phd students from all fields (geography, sociology, anthropology, political sciences, demography and more).

Argument

Structural Adjustment Plans forced upon by the Word Bank and the IMF, as well as decentralisation reforms implemented as early as in the 1980s deeply impacted the role of local governments in managing populations and development. All around the world, local governments deal with increasing responsibilities without the autonomy and the financial capacity necessary to carry out local development policies (Young and Kaczmarek 2000). These changes also caused the introduction of new tools (PPP, inter-institutional partnerships and strategic planning) and new actors (development entrepreneurs, consultants) in local governments (Feser 2014).

In this context, local governments are increasingly responsible of migration management. In receiving countries, the local level becomes the level of integration policies and multiculturalism policies’ implementation (Penninx et al. 2004; Walker and Leitner 2011; Varsanyi 2008; Good 2009; Schiller and Caglar 2010). Diversity issue becomes a way of ‘positioning the city’ and creating a ‘municipal brand’ which can be a lever for economic development (Papademetriou 2014). In sending countries, towns compete for funds to sustain their local development plan. Local governments can also leverage in a more efficient way the ties between their immigrant residents and ethnic organisations, or even the ties with sending local governments, reinventing the role of decentralised cooperation (Caglar 2006).

Following those three themes, we invite scholars in the North and in the South to present their work to better understand:

1. Immigration management in a context of decentralisation
2. Immigration, diversity and multiculturalism promotion as a lever for economic development in host cities
3. And finally, the transnational logics of local government in sending countries through transnational actors in order to mobilise new resources. 

Bibliography

• Caglar, Ayse. 2006. “Hometown Associations, the Rescaling of State Spatiality and Migrant Grassroots Transnationalism.” Global Networks 6 (1): 1–22.
• Feser, Edward. 2014. “Planning Local Economic Development in the Emerging World Order.” Town Planning Review 85 (1): 19–38.
• Good, Kristin R. 2009. Municipalities and Multiculturalism: The Politics of Immigration in Toronto and Vancouver. Studies in Comparative Political Economy and Public Policy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Papademetriou, Demetrios. 2014. MIGRATION’S LOCAL DIVIDENDS How Cities and Regions Can Make the Most of Immigration. Council statement. Convener, Transatlantic Council on Migration President: Migration Policy Institute Europe. http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/migrations-local-dividends-how-cities-and-regions-can-make-most-immigration-transatlantic.
• Penninx, Rinus, Karen Kraal, Marco Martiniello, and Steven Vertovec. 2004. Citizenship in European Cities: Immigrants, Local Politics, and Integration Policies. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
• Schiller, Nina Glick, and Ayse Caglar, eds. 2010. Locating Migration: Rescaling Cities and Migrants. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Varsanyi, Monica. 2008. “Rescaling the ‘Alien,’ Rescaling Personhood: Neoliberalism, Immigration, and the State.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 98 (4): 877–96.
• Walker, Kyle E., and Helga Leitner. 2011. “The Variegated Landscape of Local Immigration Policies in the United States.” Urban Geography 32 (2): 156–78.
• Young, Craig, and Sylwia Kaczmarek. 2000. “Local Government, Local Economic Development and Quality of Life in Poland.” GeoJournal 50 (2/3): 225–34.

Confirmed speakers

Keynote speaker Prof. Izhak Schnell from Tel Aviv University will introduce the workshop. Dr. Stéphanie Lima from Jean-François Champollion University (Albi) and Dr. Hamidou Dia Paris Descartes University will also present their research.  

Publication

Coordinators are currently exploring possibilities to publish the presented articles in a journal/working paper series/book.

Submission

Please kindly submit an abstract of 250 words

at most before 10 July 2015

following this link. Contributions in English are preferred although French is also possible. We also accept abstracts sent directly by email.

Additional information

There is no registration fee.

Migrinter will sponsor transport and accommodation for speakers.

Scientific committee

• Thomas Lacroix, chercheur CNRS, laboratoire Migrinter : thomas.lacroix@univ-poitiers.fr
• Amandine Desille, doctorante, boursière Marie Curie, laboratoire Migrinter/université de Tel Aviv : amandine.desille@univ-poitiers.fr