The conference was organized by Volker Heins (Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen) and Darshan Vigneswaran (Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR)).
Given the political inequality between states and increasingly diverse and heterogeneous societies, it is increasingly difficult for states to build regional or global migration regimes which enjoy the normative approval and backing of all relevant stakeholder groups: democratic majorities within the migrant-receiving state, governments of migrant-sending states, and potential migrants themselves. With no universal consensus in sight, legitimation narratives – narratives of legality, of self-protection, of human rights etc. – are essential, but also fragile and contested.
The aim of the conference was to shed light on the voices and interventions of different actors and communities who articulate competing (de-)legitimation narratives targeting existing or emerging migration regimes or control practices. The conference will contribute to new scholarly and policy understandings of the cultural and moral underpinnings of current and future migration regimes across the world.
Speakers included: Catherine L. Besteman, Behrouz Boochani, Davide Gnes, Anja K. Franck, Loren B. Landau, Alison Mountz, Ranabir Samaddar, Stephan Scheel, Ashwini Vasanthakumar, Soledad Álvarez Velasco, Natalie Welfens, and many others.
